If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Alright, I am pretty sure this goes without saying but a lot of people have IM’d me and asked me if where the hidden code deal went and if it works. I can tell you from experience that this is a great method to boost conversions if done appropriately. Dont have your site shoot to Idiotpokerportal.com and be displayed PokerNews.com - Google does not like this.

Example.

As some of you know I am friends with Jeremy that runs the site Shoemoney.com; I refer to his blog often since it’s such a killer resource for online marketers. Without thinking one day over a CAP I decided to post a little hidden text code for people to use and had it Displayed as Shoemoney.com and direct to this blog. That was a bad idea. Within the next two days I lost the #1 ranking for ‘Poker Affiliate Blog’ and I can only attribute it too this. I’d go for in most cases, but like I said DO NOT get carried away with linking to your site with some ‘hot’ anchor text.

Here is the code- Go start cloaking!

<a href=”http://www.yoursite.com/targeturl” target=”_top” onmouseover=”window.status=’http://www.displaythisname.com’;return true;” onmouseout=”window.status=’ ‘;return true;”>Your Site</a>
<img src=”http://www.yoursite.com/1.gif” width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″/>

For more help with marketing Subscribe Here

Popularity: 14% [?]

This was pretty weird too me. I was looking at PartyGaming today and I saw that they were accepting ukash.com now. Since I had never heard of this system before I decided to check out their site and see how it worked. Needless to say, since I am blogging about it, I was shocked to see they had casino programs listed there as well as other places that accept ukash.

This is one of two things. Obviously ukash.com works like other payment processors and takes a percentage of the amount of money that are the middleman for. However, having the sites listed right there on the homepage makes me wonder if they are an affiliate as well? Is it paid advertising, is it an incentive for people to spend their uKash more and more at these places, is it purely an upsell to the programs that are using them? All these questions have me wondering what is going on since I have never seen this ‘on site’ advertising model before with processors.

Another weird observation I has was that 55% of the people using uKash (according to their poll) are students. This is weird in comparison to the smaller 29% that were employed.

I am going to guess these dudes are an affiliates to some of the programs listed on the site. Time will tell but from I can see this is a great business model.

For more help with marketing Subscribe Here

Popularity: 13% [?]

This one is going to be short, sweet and to the point. Building your own brand image, whether it be yourself, your company or your website is important. Customers need to feel like you or your site is trustworthy if they are going to make a decision that has a financial implication. Niche speaking – your portal has to be professional and recognizable if you want to convert more visitors to depositing players. One way of accomplishing this is by choosing one Avatar that you use consistently on each site that are involved in.

If your website has a logo then I would suggest using that. If you are a marketing blogger then I would your face as an image. The most important thing is being consistent. Now go out there and change them all!

Mine is the 8 of Spades because I won a tournament back in the day at Full Tilt with a high card (8Spades).

For more help with marketing Subscribe Here

Popularity: 13% [?]

Do you accept players from just the United Kingdom? How about just players from Sweden who use Neteller and make deposits on Thursdays? Most likely you don’t. If you are doing this and you are successful I would start your own blog and become the next John Chow. However I think John is safe here as this is a really bad idea and serves this post as an example only.

A lot of time on this site I preach a few things over and over. One is you need a good design template and a CMS (content management system) to organize your copy. Another is that you need to focus on a niche and attack those keywords and phrases like a Spartan soldier. Lastly you need to make sure your site has a call-to-action and not just a bunch of banners here and there that never get navigated correctly. Ever wonder what people are clicking on? Check out my buddy Neil Patel’s web app at Crazy Egg, well worth the time and money!

Getting more traffic to your site is great, getting targeted traffic is better. If you’re into collecting Google Adsense money than spam away and grab as many hits as possible. If you’re looking to acquire depositing poker players then I would suggest a different strategy. However, the point of this post is too encourage you to think outside the Google box and explore different methods of traffic. (Not Adbrights)

Social bookmark sites are awesome, and if you can get into Digg.com for a while you’ll see a nice spike in traffic. However, be a real person and add a Facebook (Greg Powell) or MySpace link to your page and encourage your members to come and talk to you.

How to talk with people without meeting:

Facebook 2007 -> vBulletin Forums 2005 -> Telegraph 1846

Some of the standards also remain both true and overlooked. One simple thing you can do is write an article and share it with other sites as unique content in exchange for a backlink. This won’t give you a massive amount of visitors but it will bring more than ranking for “my favorite poker cards” or the like. Press releases are also great and allow you to place highly distributed anchor text links on multiple sites. Blogging is of course great for return traffic and non-spam like sales text. If you don’t have a blog directly attached to your site then I would suggest doing it now. Stop reading this post and go start one.

Now for some killer stuff… Google has an awesome personalized search engine that you can add to your site that displayed results from within your own websites! This is so under-used it’s not even funny. Check it out now! Google Custom Search tool.

For more help with marketing Subscribe Here

Popularity: 18% [?]

I have been to a few conferences this year and looking back I am seriously surprised how many of these events I have been too over the past 4 years cumulatively. For my there are two distinct groups of people that fill these shows that I am familiar with. One is of course the online gaming world. Secondly is the retail side (as I call it) that features an ever changing crew of publishers, ad networks and people looking to make a quick buck selling eBooks, mailing lists and other outdated crap. I have learned that unless Yahoo! Is sponsoring the parties at these events they are not worth going to whereas at gaming shows usually all the parties are good. (FYI)

Back in the day I wrote an article on what to expect and how to prepare for an online gaming show when headed to CAP Spring Break 2007. In that article I encouraged affiliates to pre-schedule meetings with their Affiliate Managers. Also I stated the benefits of having requests ready to present when speaking with the programs you are currently working with regarding commission, CPA raises, etc. These are still good rules of thumb to remember. I wanted to list a few more practical ones for those of you looking to head out to either Macau or London (CAP Euro) soon.

Stay at the Conference Hotel if affordable.

I have learned this one the hard way too many times not to share it. Recently this October I went to Barcelona, Spain for our show and booked too late. How this happens is still beyond me but none the less it did. Staying where the show is will help you in more ways than one. Cabs are expensive and an often a pain to get when you really need them. I am notorious for running late to meetings and being able to run downstairs is a major benefit for those who drink too much the night before. Also, most people attending the show will be staying there as well so meetings and meals together are much easier to coordinate into your schedule.

Be realistic on how many people you can meet with.

This is more for affiliate managers and programs looking to make sure their ROI is in check. Honestly, if your main metric is jamming as many people into you Outlook before leaving then you need to re-evaluate the system. Meeting with the ‘right people’ is important and cutting yourself short is never good. I have left a good meeting before to end up looking off into space wondering why I left to meet with a worthless lead. Allow an hour, at least for you meetings and use the free time to socialize in the lobby.

Don’t try and carry a ton of things around the show.

Seriously, are you going to bring your laptop to the show with you? I can’t tell you how many times people have broke out a PC on me over drinks and showed me their great new websites. Do yourself and your party a favor and just make a nice, paper based layout of the site with screenshots and the benefits. I don’t want you to get upset at the show so I’ll tell you now; “no one cares what your new site design looks like and they certainly don’t want to see it on your laptop in the hotel lobby.”

Stick with the same drink each day – but change it up.

Most important one here – don’t mix drinks when you are lacking sleep and water. I can’t back this one medically but I feel a lot better when I switch what I am drinking from night to night but never during the same night. I always go with a rum and coke on night one because I know my limits and how quick I can exceed them. Don’t go out there and kill it the first night of the show. I know that free drinks is a novelty but there will be more the next night.

Shoemoney Tip: Basically what I do in the morning, this is my little recipe ritual. I’ll take two Aleve, two Tylenol and a Gatorade if I have it. Dillsmack recommends Pedialite.

Make the most of your face-time: CAPEuro 2008

Popularity: 11% [?]

Ah yea, the much needed re-fresh of the site is up now and as you can see there is a lot more going on there now. The new PAP features some pretty good marketing articles and also a Poker University section for new affiliates to read. Even if you are an experienced affiliate I would take a second and read through the Advanced articles and see what you can find.

On the Resources Page there are 3 new tools for you to use. When adding new content I would encourage you to bookmark that page and use them for future reference to make sure you’re getting the max SEO benefits.

Look at the new programs directory for our All-In Partners that are laying out their best deals for affiliates. As you know we don’t usually over sell the promotions that are on the site, but there are about to be some great new promotions for PAP Affiliates only so we’ll drop the word. More marketing tomorrow, so tonight start surfing! There’s a load of good stuff on the new PAP.

Ideas? Email me or comment below.

Popularity: 12% [?]

The topic above should tell you two things. One is that I am going to try and spice up a much repeated and boring topic. Another is that the reason I keep rehashing this same objective is that is it really is vitally important. Not developing a site around a specific niche (keyword) goal and writing content is a big waste of time and will ultimately lose you money that you can be earning now!

Your (domain) name says it All

I have heard this debated before but I really insist on the importance of choosing a domain name that goes with your sites niche. Unless you have Bodog Money and don’t care then I would pick something the search engines know has to do with online poker. Also, hyphens are out so don’t use something lame like: poker-affiliate-bonus-codes-full-tilt-poker.com

Design and Layout of your site

Make sure your design is clean. I can’t tell you how important it is for users to come to your site and think ‘trust.’ Make sure the site is easy to navigate and the content is presented to inform the reader, not take them away from what you are trying to accomplish – getting new real money depositing players.

Chose the right categories

This may be even more important if you are a blogger. However, sites need to be constructed in a manner that makes sense to the visitor AND to the search engines. By allowing people to quickly navigate between news and bonuses and reviews you will see a nice upward trend of click troughs to your affiliate links.

Say the right thing

Choosing the right content is really important for ranking where you need to. Also make sure that you don’t go overboard on the generic news site and useless text that takes your users away from the call to action.

For more help with marketing Subscribe Here

Popularity: 13% [?]