:: Your *TOP* Tip ::

[Jordan]

So many of you guys are making $$$$'s a month and that would be a dream come true for me right now!

So i was just hoping that some of you guys could give some of the smaller fish in the game (like myself) your TOP tip for when it comes down to marketing and monetizing your site.

This could be anything from the way you drive traffic to your site to the way you place banners on your site.

So basically if you were going to start a brand new poker affiliate site, what would be the MUST DO checklist?!

I understand some of you wont want to tell us your deepest darkest successful secrets but if you could help in anyway id be grateful!!

Thanks
Jord

[Randy]

Focus on providing your website visitors with a reason to come to your website. (Hint - lots of ads and a pretty logo don't count.)

[corpfan1]

"Focussed" content.

[Jeremy]

Welcome to the community Kristal. This is actually a great thread, Maybe we'll sticky it.

The number one tips I would give are as follows:

1. Don't be afraid to fail......you will fail several times, learn from it, and do something different the next time.

2. Think outside the box. If you are building the same type of boring poker portal that everyone else has, you will probably not have tons of success unless you can master SEO.

3. Master SEO

4. Pick a niche and become an authority on it

5. Write your goals down and post them somewhere that forces you to see them every day while you are working.

[Jordan]

Thanks for the quick replies, ive been taking a look around the site and have stumbled across the Brad Callen SEO tips, ive been getting emails from him for quite some time, i guess i must of signed up to one of his newsletters at one point but never really given it the time of day.

His articles are great!! i havent finished reading it yet, im putting all his steps into practice as i go! its such a good article! im one step closer to becoming the SEO master haha

Jord

[Jeremy]

Yes the free seo book by Brad Callen is a good guide to get you started with SEO.

The rest can be learned by reading and watching what the SEO gurus here and in other webmaster communities are doing or speaking about.

By becoming even a somewhat decent SEO, you will find that it will help your business to grow leaps and bounds in a much shorter amount of time. Plus you can always use your SEO skills in several other industries or niches.

[Zilla]

These are the tips I would emphasise to a new affiliate who hasn't yet started their project...

A. The Idea

1. Like Jeremy always emphasises - you need to decide on your niche and what the focus of your website will be about
2. Most importantly you have to be clear in your mind how you will actually convert players - you can have the best design, best content etc etc but unless you have a reason for visitors to click on your links / banners and sign up to poker rooms then your website will earn minimal revenue. Decide on how you will encourage players to sign up via your affiliate links and then focus your site around this selling point. This is your number one Goal and you should be thinking about it every time you add content to your site.

B. Designing your site

1. Research SEO basics first BEFORE you start to design and build your site (this will save many redesigns and problems later down the line)
2. Design your site with SEO in mind - make the design simple, clean, not too congested, professional and SEO friendly.
3. If you are not good at design or web building skills then pay a few hundred $$$ to get number 2 achieved by a professional.
4. I would highly reccomend basing your design around a good CMS (Content Management System) such as wordpress with a good or custom designed template - this will make your life soooooo much easier going forward
5. Don't waste too much time designing and building your site - just get the basics outlined above achieved and get the site live

C. Getting your site live

1. Get your site indexed by getting a link from a high PR site either get someone you know to link to your new site for a week or so while google finds your site or purchase a high PR link from a relevant topic site for a month.
2. Pay for a submission service to directories - you can normally pay for someone to do this to a few hundred directories for $50-$100 and this will give your site an inital incoming links boost

D. Growing your site

1. Add one article / piece of content every single day - at the end of a year you will have 300+ pages of content on your site and you will be ranking for all sorts of weird keywords which google is sending you lots of traffic for.
2. For each peice of content focus on one keyword phrase
3. Obtain incoming links to your site, there are various methods to do this and you read up on this around all the SEO sites, but set yourself a target of getting a few new incoming links each week.

Remember, it will take time for your site to take off, and you'll probably have a few months of hard work before you start to see any sort of traffic / results for your efforts, but if you stick to the basics above then it will come.

Good Luck

[pokerforfree]

Simple as it is, sometimes the hard work seems to be for nothing, but just be patient and don't give up. If you're serious about your project, make sure you do the previous listed advices, then you will be successful!

Good luck,

Giorgio

[diverf1]

dont think only about money you want to receive but also about what you can give to your visitors and whole the World

[Justin]

Everything is trial and error in this game. There are so many ways to go about making good money, it's ridiculous. You're gonna feel like you aren't getting anywhere, but one day everything will just click....

If you don't have a good grasp on marketing yet, I would suggest reading some books by Seth Godin to get a good idea of what you should be shooting for.

If you dont have a grasp on SEO, buy Aaron Wall's SEO book ($79 I think). It's gold.

Look at all of the successful sites in Google in the poker niche and write down everything they are doing, and model your site after theirs.