GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 9 - June 2009

FROM THE GPWA FORUMS Someof themost informativediscussions in theGPWA forums includepostsbybothaffiliates andaffiliatemanagers. In fact, this interaction is a critical part of the community. Andagreat exampleof it canbe found in theseexcerpts fromadiscussion about tips fornewaffiliates. 54 wagerprofits Tips for new affiliates 20th-March-2009, 10:44 AM #1 ( permalink ) Hi Guys Imade a comment a few days ago about a lot of new people coming into the affiliate business but not really having a clue about the industry, so I wanted to start a thread as somany of you have some great tips to offer. 1 WagerX 20th-March-2009, 11:36 AM #3 ( permalink ) I would add to stick to one niche.When i first started Imade a site reviewing casinos, bingo sites, sportsbooks and poker rooms. I got nowherewith that, and I wastedmonths. Also, focus on content.Write, write, andwrite somemore. In the beginning I thoughtmy 20 pageswas enough, and how in theworld could I writemore. As it turns out, there is tons towrite about. Be patient, do not be discouraged after 6months, and you feel you are not getting anywhere. 2 greek39 20th-March-2009, 12:03 PM #5 ( permalink ) Trust is everything and this should reflect in your content. Therefore IMOwrite the content first don’t even think about keywords. After writing you content ask yourself, What is the content about from here you should be able to pinpoint a good description and the keywords that describe your content. 3 ntaus 20th-March-2009, 12:15 PM #6 ( permalink ) I have a few suggestions, thinking back over the years: 1. Colors have a lot to dowith theway traffic responds to your site. Cindy posted an articleway back that basically boiled down to - pastels are restful and don’t incite action - vibrant colors create energy (enthusiasm for gambling). Green is the color for gambling tables. 2. Lots of white space - it’s restful to the eyes. 3. Don’t use your full screen towrite - people have different sizedmonitors so itmakes sense to center your stuff on the screen then no-one has to scroll. 4. Test, test. Sites look different in various browsers. Casinos use the latest technologywhichmeans that playersmust have certainmodels of browsers in order to play. I read yesterday that only 14% of theweb is still using IE6 - so test in IE7 - do IE6 if you have access to a computer which has IE6 since you can’t carry both on the same PC. Firefox is gettingmore andmore users - you can carry Firefox on the same PCwith IE7. Pull your pages up in both to see the difference and dowhat you can tomake your page lookwell in both. MAC users can only play Flash atmost casinos - so they are a lesser percentage of players. Sometimes you have to compromise in your targeting. I can’t speak for Netscape - haven’t used it for years - I’m sure it’s still viable. 5. Take the time to research your keywords andmake sure you use them a number of times in the relevant pages. Put your keyword for each page inmeta tags. 6. If you’re playing to the US, don’t bother trying to buy pay- per-click advertising. 7. Lots of reciprocal links - try to avoid 3-ways. Check to make sure they are linking back. If you exchange linkswith well-built popular sites in our field, Googlewill give youmore importance.Webmasters inGPWAwill usually exchange links with beginners - they remember how it was. 8. Look at lots of other gambling portals. If they’ve been around for awhile, they knowwhat they’re doing. NEVER COPY - but you can learn some tricks from theway they do things. Most webmasters use Copyscapewhich shows them any duplicated pages or text and youwill get caught. 4 JaqiC 22nd-March-2009, 12:08 AM #14 ( permalink ) I have discovered in the last fewmonths just how important it is to have amentor, or someonewho you can talkwith when you start to get discouraged or when your google analytics graph looks like theU.S. stockmarket of late. That iswhen your affiliate “buddy” can help to put things back into perspective for you. It also helps to remember that thework that I do todaywill probably not start to payoff formonths down the line. 5