My First Year as a Poker Affiliate
By Brandon Berndt - Poker Online
February 18th, 2006

 

This week marked the one year anniversary of a life changing experience. It has been a year since I began living the life of a poker affiliate. A life full of ups, but full of many downs as well. I have learned many things, meet some great people, and have had the opportunity to share what I have learned with other young affiliates. I have been very privileged to be able to work with and learn from some of the most brilliant minds in the business. I felt I needed to do something to give back to the poker affiliate world for all the help I received. So this is my story, my path, and my advice.

 

The Beginning

I started out like many others have, from the poker table. While playing at PokerChamps I made a lot of friends and knew a lot of people there. One of them told me about all the money he was making from getting people to sign up at poker rooms. I was intrigued and wanted to learn more. I spoke with him again the next day and from then on I was addicted. I wanted to learn everything I could about being an affiliate.

 

I bought frontpage and begin creating AcesoverQueens.com. I had no previous experience with web design but I figured it couldn’t be that hard, look how many websites are out there. Well as we all know this couldn’t be further from the truth. Web design is an art that is almost impossible to perfect. Even the top web designers are constantly learning everything they can. I started scouring the web and read I think every beginners html guide out there. I created a very basic website to say the least, and thought it was time to start raking in the dough. Again, I was mistaken.

 

Then something happened that changed everything. While trolling the Ebaumsworld’s forum, I came across another poker affiliate who was trying to set up a poker tournament for the forum. I started chatting with him and learned he had quite the background. He once played in the World Series of Poker in a pink bunny suit! We exchanged links and then he told me about this new site he had. It was called Party Riches and it had a forum…for affiliates! I couldn’t believe it, I found a place to talk to and learn from veterans in the field. I began to read every post there, I read and read and read and learned everything I could. I asked question after question and tried to soak up everything they told me. I learned about something called SEO and how it’s pretty important to get visitors. I realized my skills as a web designer were never going to cut it and I decided to outsource my web designing to someone more qualified.
 
The Middle

I continued to learn everything I could from the people at Party Riches (now www.PokerAffiliateWorld.com) and came into contact with a member named Drawdead. He was a veteran member at the time that had just finished the beginning learning process and was now running some very successful sites. He was extremely kind and took me under his wing. He taught me so much and helped me grow as an affiliate. He educated me on SEO, link exchange practices, and answered every question I had. Without him I would be 4-5 months behind where I am now.

 

9 months into my poker affiliating career, I began to fully understand what it means to promote poker. I was no Jeremy Enke, but I had established myself in the community and began helping others learn the affiliating ways. This is when I was approached by a poker company that was preparing to release their product into the market and wanted me to help them get off their feet. After speaking with them a couple of times, I realized how much potential they had. I also realized the opportunity I had to start promoting them before everyone else, and using what I have learned from P.A.W, I created my second website. This site was way different than my first, instead of starting off doing all the wrong things; I started off doing all the right things. I choose my linking strategy, I choose my SEO strategy, and got my site up and running before anyone else knew about the poker room I was promoting. There were two things that I learned while in business school and in my poker affiliate days that helped me make a successful site; how important it is to attack a niche, and how beneficial it is to bring the consumer something new. I knew that if I could bring a poker player something new and exciting, that I would have a lot better chance getting them to sign up then if I pushed the same poker rooms everyone else does. During the process of building my site I stayed in constant contact with the poker room and helped them get off the ground with their affiliate program. Everyday that went by, I worked harder and harder to make a successful site.

 

Now

 
It has been a full year now and I am still trying to learn new things everyday. I have been very lucky to work with some incredible people, and learn from the best. Now that I have been doing this for a year, I have realized that the poker industry and I are a perfect fit. Getting this internship with P.A.W is going to be a huge stepping stone for me. Being able to work with Jeremy, Randy, and Adam is going to help me learn even more.

 

My Advice

 
Although I still have a lot to learn, I feel that it is only fair that I share what I have learned with others coming into the business. So they are my tips to success.
• Be prepared to work hard. Don’t expect results over night, but understand they are guaranteed if you put in the hours doing the right things.
• Find a mentor: there are so many smart people at P.A.W that are willing to help you out, don’t take this for granted. Learn what you can from them, and appreciate everything they do for you.
• Read every post in the SEO forum and go to other forums and read their SEO forums. Search Engine Optimization is so important in a site, understand this, and work hard to learn all about it.
• Ask questions in the forum. It is very rare that a question falls through the cracks without someone giving an educated answer.
• Be creative, don’t go to other sites and do what they do. Go to other sites and get ideas on what you can do that’s out of the box.
• The most important thing I can tell you is learn. Learn everything you can from anyone one who will share information with you.