Promoting Poker Affiliate Programs and Closing The Deal

 

I have spoken about this in the forums before, but I wanted to expand on the subject a little more.  Many new poker affiliates think that they can simply put up a website, get indexed in Google, and then watch the sign-ups roll in.  When I first started promoting online poker, this along with some pay per click campaigns actually worked. Unfortunately now days there are ten times more poker sites and a hundred times more poker affiliates.

 

When I say close the deal or give your players a reason to sign-up, I mean exactly that.  The easiest way to do this is to think about what made you sign up at a specific poker site before you became an affiliate (if you can remember that far back).  The odds are you’re not going to say it was because you randomly stumbled across a website and saw a fancy banner.  Sad but true, you’re also not going to say it was because you found a review of a poker site and decided to sign up and deposit because the review was just that damn good.

 

If you did sign up through an affiliate unknowingly, it was probably because you either made a specific search and found exactly what you were looking for, or you were sold on a reason to sign up at a particular site.  Here’s an example of how a poker affiliate with minimal traffic can close the deal and extrapolate maximum conversions. 

 

Choose a keyword or phrase that is not heavily optimized.  For example, optimize your page for a starting hand chart for one of the more obscure poker games; Razz, HiLo, Pineapple, ect.  Then when your visitor arrives, have precisely what they are looking for with a nice chart and a great page all about your topic.  After you have provided all this information in a concise manner, close the deal by “selling” the best site to play this particular game at.  Obviously if someone is looking for information on Razz and makes it to the last paragraph of your page, they are probably a solid visitor and genuinely interested in playing Razz.  Wouldn’t you agree?  Why would they not follow your link to the “Best Razz action on the internet”?  You gave the visitor what they were looking for, and now you’re giving them a reason or even better, selling the idea of signing up at a site because the Razz games there are the best on the net.

 

Allow me to go off on a tangent for a moment.  One thing I hate when I am searching for a specific topic is when the top SERP’s have nothing to do with that topic.  Look at sites like PlayWinningPoker.com, PokerNews.com, & PokerPages.com, 9 times out of 10 when you arrive at their pages from a search engine, you get exactly what you searched for.  This is why they are the industry leaders and make hundreds of thousands each month.  You can rank #1 in google for tons of “search terms”, but if your page has little to do with these search terms, you’re more than likely getting page views of 2 seconds followed up by the X in the upper right corner.

If you want to convert visitors to real money players, you have to start thinking like a sales person.  Of course you want to provide great poker information on your website, but you also need to close every page with a reason for the visitor to follow your link to the poker site.  If your page is about the WSOP, close out the page with how great the WSOP satellites are at a specific room.  If your page is about multi-table tournament strategy, close out the page with how great the Sunday night MTT is at a specific room.

 

Of course you cannot do this on every page of your website, especially if you have a bigger site.  But for now, take your top 5 pages that get found in the SE’s and give it a try.  More than likely you will be pleasantly surprised with the results.

Bottom line is that this is a cut throat industry, and like any competitive market, the closers always win.  Remember telling is not selling, and don’t forget your ABC’s (Always Be Closing).

 

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