When I first started out in poker affiliating, I was just like every other beginner – I had no idea how to make a website, I had no idea how to interpret html, and I had no idea how to SEO my site. Most importantly, I had no idea what to even make my site about. After mulling over some potential topics like poker for college players and a regional poker website, my partner (JeremyM) and I finally settled on creating a site all about poker sit and go’s.

Sit and go’s seemed like the perfect niche – there wasn’t much competition, there was decent search traffic, and we actually knew a little bit about sit and go’s since we both played them often.

After building our site out and starting to see some traffic, we were disappointed to note that not many players were following our affiliate links and depositing. We chalked it up to needing more traffic, and continued acquiring links and adding content. After ten months or so, we were number #1 in Google for “sit and go strategy”, and the site was actually getting quite a few unique visitors every day.

However, there still weren’t many players depositing, or even signing up for that matter. The problem (as we later realized) was that players weren’t coming to our site looking to sign up at a poker room – they were coming to improve their sit and go game. Most of these players probably already had accounts, and weren’t interested in joining a new poker site as they were comfortable with their current room. Although our traffic was pretty good for a fairly new website, the site was drastically under performing revenue wise.

Once my partner and I realized this, we tried out some new methods for converting the traffic:

• We added a newsletter opt in form to the site, and offered players a free “sit and go report” in exchange for their name and email. In actuality, the report was just a compilation of the sit and go articles on the site, but I’m sure many players preferred it all in one document instead of scattered on a website.

• We then sent out emails promoting Clickbank informational poker products, including sit and go guides as well as multi table tournament guides. Eventually, we even created our own sit and go eBook that we sold on a separate domain.

• We added promotions throughout the site promoting Full Tilt Poker as the “#1 sit and go poker site”, and explained why Full Tilt had the best sit and go’s on the Internet. We really stressed why players should switch to Full Tilt Poker for their sit and go’s. We used reasoning like Full Tilt had a better sit and go structure, their tournament fees were less than Party Poker’s, and the competition was softer.

The three changes we made allowed us to build up a sizeable mailing list of poker players, and we actually made quite a bit more money by promoting the Clickbank products and pushing the “best sit and go sites”. The website still wasn’t a huge earner, but the income was much better than before.

Where Am I Going With This?

This post may seem like a random story from my early affiliate days, but there is an important lesson here: you should always put yourself in your visitors’ shoes, and imagine what they want to see. Instead of building your website with only your own thoughts in mind, you should think about what type of visitors will be showing up at your website, and what the best method is for making money off of them.

If visitors are showing up looking for poker strategy, get their email in exchange for a free report, and send out a mailing later promoting a private tournament at a new poker site. This will convert better than trying to shove a generic “Top Poker Sites” list down their throat.
If you have a page ranking well for “Roulette Odds”, don’t just give them the odds – explain why players should be playing European roulette (less house edge), and tell them where they can play European Roulette online (Bodog Casino).

If you have a site about “Poker Rules”, teach the visitor how to play poker, and then encourage them to practice on their own at an online poker site. Stress that online poker rooms are 100% free, and the easiest way to learn poker is to play poker.

A lot of this seems like common sense, but often times I will find myself creating content and adding in promotions blindly, without considering what the visitor really wants. By putting yourself in your audience’s shoes, you can increase your conversion rates as well as helping your visitors get the info they want.