What it takes to be a True Affiliate – The Three P’s to Affiliating

It is hard work to become a successful affiliate; it takes dedication, hard work, and a lot of creativity. With that in mind I wanted to write an article from two perspectives; from an Affiliate and from an Affiliate Manager. In my four plus years in the poker industry, I have been lucky enough to see the things from multiple angles. I started as a new affiliate with a one page geocities site thinking the world would be mine, then worked my way up the ranks and recently took a position as the Affiliate Program Director for a start up poker network. During these times I have constantly sponged every item of advice and information I could from all of the brilliant members at PokerAffiliateWorld.  I would like to share my thoughts on what it takes to be a True Affiliate. I hope you enjoy my 3 P’s to becoming a true affiliate.

Persistence – Professionalism - Partnership

Persistence       

To succeed as an affiliate you have to be able to put in the long hours and devote yourself to whatever project(s) you may have in development. The work is never going to do itself, and if you are to succeed there are many hours that must be put in to do so. I think too many affiliates are focusing on one project at a time and not looking to build a portfolio. That site takes a long time to show results and the affiliate gets complacent and discouraged. One of the things I always wish someone would have told me when I entered this amazing industry is to never put your eggs in one basket. Never create one site and hope it’s the next PokerNews.  If you are going to succeed as an affiliate in today’s turbulent industry, I suggest you try and build your portfolio at a very rapid rate. Below I have listed some advice, ideas, and some of the benefits in having a large portfolio; some are very obvious yet not explored enough.

• Use your portfolio to elevate pagerank among your sites. This will give you a lot more weight in google.

• Instead of creating one large poker site that mimics a PokerNews or PokerListings, create ten sub sites that all feed into each other in some way to focus on specific keywords.

• Having a diverse yet pinpointed portfolio allows you the opportunity to rank well for certain keywords that would never find their way up the ranks if you had only one “large” site.

• Diversify your portfolio, don’t stay specifically in poker, try a couple casino sites, backgammon, slots, etc.

• Don’t be afraid to leave the gaming industry, try creating a site about one of your hobbies.  If you’re a golfer, create a site about it. If you have traveled frequently, create a site about your travels and join one of the travel sites affiliate program.

• If you have 50 sites making you only $100 a month, that’s still $60k a year which is not a bad start. Not imagine having 50 sites that average $1000 a month…see my point.

I will leave with one of my favorite quotes about persistence.

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

 

Calvin Coolidge
30th president of US (1872 - 1933)

Professionalism

Too often I click on a thread to read about another affiliate stealing content, or spamming emails/forums. If you really want to succeed always stay ethical. Part of growing in this industry is EARNING higher payouts. Notice I cap locked earning; higher payouts are earned not given away.  If you produce, there is no way an affiliate program is not going to take care of you to keep you happy. Part of earning higher payouts is creating relationships with whomever you are pushing on your sites. If you are sending traffic through in unethical and prohibited ways, it will get caught, and it will be punished. Affiliates take it upon themselves to police their competitors to make sure they are not ruining our industries reputation by acting dishonorably. Believe me, if you would have spent all that time you did stealing content, spamming forums, etc, on building a solid portfolio of creative content driven sites, you will make a hell of a lot more doing that in the long run.

Partnership

Another key reason to stay professional is creating partners. Every top affiliate sometime in their career has partnered with another affiliate in some way. It could be a site, an idea, a promotion, or as simple as a link exchange. Drag your name through the mud by doing something unprofessional and see how many people want to work with you. Do not also forget that Affiliate Managers are just like partners. The best affiliate managers aid you in your growth and help you maximize your potential. How many Affiliate Managers would go out of their way to help someone scrap content, I don’t know any.  Partnerships = growth…don’t cut yourself short by ruining your chance at success.

I hope you have the benefited in some way from this article; I am always available for questions and can be reached via email at Brandon at PokerAffiliateWorld.com. You can also find my Skype, AIM, or MSN here

Brandon Berndt

Affiliate Manager and Consultant