Kitties in Diapers Aidan's blog

How To Become a Successful Poker Affiliate – Part 1

I always get asked from friends and family about my “job” and how they can get involved. Normally I try and avoid these questions, and answer with very lame responses to avoid more probing questions. I've decided to briefly address some of these questions. In a three part series, I will touch base on how a person can enter the poker affiliate industry and what they will need to do, to become successful.

Part 1: The Basics

A Website and a Niche – Although there are other ways to promote online poker, affiliating through a website will most likely provide the best results. I do not have any experience promoting poker offline, but from my research its not very profitable. Building a website and using it as a portal to online poker sites is the way to go.

Just because you have a website and put up some online poker site banners, does not mean you will receive RMPs (Real money players). With the poker affiliate industry becoming more saturated each day, its more important then ever to find a solid niche. There are still several niche markets that are very profitable. One of the niche markets that my business partner and I target is the Mac Computer poker software. Once you find your niche, you will want to target the keywords for that term and hopefully become an authority.

A lot of people get scared when they hear they will need to manage a website. However, there are many simple solutions today, that offer free website templates with awesome code. A great example is using a WordPress blog. With a little editing of a WordPress blog, you can create a solid design with great SEO (search engine optimization) code. Also, there is a lot of designers/programers that will customize WordPress blogs for a couple hundred dollars. This is a small investment. Even just a few years ago, having a CMS (content management system) like the free WordPress blogs today, could of cost you in the thousands of dollars.

Content – You will always here the phrase “Content is King” among successful website owners. I can't stress this enough. There is no such thing as too much content. Of course you'll want quality content that people will want to read. Search engines absolutely love websites that are enriched with quality content. The more content you site has the more keywords you'll target, even if you're not intending too.

Internet and Computer Savvy – With computer software and hardware technology advancing at such a rapid pace; one needs to stay on top and be accustomed to the changes. The internet has gone from the Web 1.0 and now we are in the process of being full transformed into the “Web 2.0”. Prime examples of web 2.0 is social bookmarking sites like Digg.com, Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon.com. Other popular examples are MySpace and Facebook. These sites are extremely powerful and rely heavily on human editing and linking. Another great example is Wikipedia, where any human can actually edit/update the content.

As of now, we are transitioning into Web 2.0. Poker affiliates need to be asking themselves, How can I take advantage of the new web 2.0? and What can I do to build my link value on these popular 2.0 websites? Being internet savvy allows affiliates to transform and participate with these new websites without much effort. Without much knowledge of the internet, popular software programs and computer skills, I would highly recommend not getting involved in the poker affiliate industry.

Patience – Websites do not make money over night. Especially, when you create a site that will rely on search engines like Google to send traffic to your website. It can take several months just to get search engines to start sending a significant amount traffic to your website. It can take even more time, before you start earning money from your new website. Its very important that you remain patient and continue to update your websites content. Content is king, remember that, it will be why you succeed as a online poker affiliate.