Well it’s a new year and a new decade and so far 2010 has started off awesome! This might be the best time to become a serious poker affiliate because online poker continues to get bigger and bigger! As most of you know, I am a frequent poster and mod over at Poker Affiliate Listings and if it wasn’t for the “PAL” forums, I know I would not be where I am today. Having a resource like this to read through and posts questions is wonderful for new webmasters.

Today I wanted to write my thoughts on a question I see asked over and over again on the PAL Forums, and while reading a recent thread asking “How much Can I make as an Affiliate and the inevitable follow up question of “How long will it take for me to make money? Now for a new Poker Affiliate or even just a regular affiliate these are hard questions to answer. I think a couple years ago I would have said: “You can make what you put into it” and “It will take 6-12 months to make money”. However I asked my self this question today, and after some soul searching and giving this some serious thought, I think those answers are misleading. Let’s take these questions one at a time and chat about them.

How much money can I make being a poker affiliate?

On the surface these question seems simple and members usually give a canned response of “work hard and you will make as much as you want” or some silliness like that. Is that really the truth though? Let’s dissect this question for a minute. I do agree that if an affiliate works hard on their website, they have the potential to make an unlimited amount of money. But will simply working hard and adding content, a pretty design, getting some links make you the money? Of course these are all things we hear preached endlessly.

• Content is king
• Get Quality Linkbacks
• Know your niche
• Learn the basics of SEO

These are the 4 most common things I hear as advice for webmasters. Again this is good advice IF it is applied properly. The big problem is most webmasters can try and follow that path and still end up with a nice website, with lots of quality content, with some very nice linkbacks, and STILL not make enough money to pay for hosting. Now let’s go over some reasons why most poker affiliates and webmasters in general fail to make money even though they do what appears to be all the right things.

Content is King

Alright we have all heard this a billions times and we know what it means. Websites need to be more than banners and links to poker rooms. This is not the 1990′s and having a banner farm doesn’t work anymore (if it ever did) As webmasters we must provide visitors with quality content on a variety of subjects related to our niche. Affiliate site sin general need to become a resource to stand the test of time because the internet is littered with half finished or half assed websites that are of little to no value to 99% of the visitors.

Why you fail: So instead of randomly throwing up content you have seen on other poker sites, do some research or hopefully if you know your niche you will have a good idea of what visitors want to see. Try and do something better than other websites are doing. If they are doing articles explaining the GAP concept, then you do a article with a video. Take it up a notch and be something better.

Get Backlinks

This is probably the most mis-understood concept in the industry IMO. Ww rank well in the major search engines for competitive terms, you do need some links pointing towards your website. What you do not need to 1000 shitty links form porn sites, irrelevant websites, or banners farms pointing to you. I will take 1 quality link over 100 mediocre link any day and twice on Sunday. .

Why you fail: Lean in here and listen to me now, ’cause I’m only sayin’ his once: You do not have to have a ton of links to be competitive. Believe it or not, good content will get you some natural links eventually, and there is a million other poker webmasters out there that will do a LE with you. Just be logical when deciding what links you want coming to your website

Know your niche

This one should be simple, if you know about poker then you have some experience in that aspect. I see too many people try and do things they fail to understand. So don’t be that guy! Be responsible and know what you are getting into. Pretty simple eh?

Why You Fail: Once again, you either know what you are doing or you don’t. If your building a website about African Birds, then man you better know about Africa and what birds they have their. Know what I mean?

Basic SEO/SEM

This is a big one, not because you have to be some nerdy super genius to understand SEO or SEM, but because most people refuse, flat out refuse to get their butts in gear and actually try and learn SEO basic and Marketing basics. If you are going to do a job, then you should learn ever aspect of that job and not just the “fun stuff”. SEO is not Rocket science, there is some extra advantages that comes with experience and testing, but there is no super secret methods to get you to #1 in google in 3 days. It just doesn’t work that way.

Why you fail: I see this all the time and it reminds me of my first year of trying to be an affiliate. Webmasters try and be like the commercials they see and not an actual website. The content tends to be all the same; room reviews, strategy articles, a list of bonus codes, player profiles, and maybe some poker news thrown in. Now how is that any better than a million other websites? Websites with the same type content, same title tags, same approach. I know you are thinking; We that’s how these big websites are doing it, so it can’t be wrong. While it may not be wrong, what is special about YOUR website? What do you do better than Poker Listings? What sets you apart? 99% of the time the answer is a simple, nothing!

So instead of doing what everyone else is doing, you must try and fine something to add to the mix. Maybe you can offers your players some videos on strategy, maybe you tackle some event focused content or maybe you just try out some new things and see if it works. The point is that you must set your website apart from the million other poker affiliate websites to have any chance of making serious money. Remember we are in the marketing business, not the affiliate business

How long does it take to make money being a poker affiliate?

This is a common question and I think a couple of years ago I would agree with everyone else and say “6-12 months is how long”, but really I think that time can be much shorter than that. I agree if you are a new webmaster that it may take 6-12 months to learn how to get traffic, and convert that traffic into real money players. But as you grow as an affiliate and a marketer, you learn what works and what does not. I recently started a new project with a decent domain, nothing super special and within the first month I was getting traffic and conversions from this website.

That is the most recent example, and I could name plenty more. The point is that there is no set time it takes to make a website profitable. We also must consider the implications of google’s new “Personalized search” which really needs a post all its own. Also I should point out that once you get more experience as a webmaster and an affiliate marketer, you avoid hundreds of the little mistakes new affiliates make so that does play a role on ROI timeline.