As a new affiliate it seems you can get bombarded with two pieces of advice when you’re starting out. 1. Generate lots of keyword rich content. 2. Get lots of quality back links to your new poker site.
Well, number one is easy enough. You can sit down for eight hours each day and pump out quality poker content left and right. The second part of the equation, getting quality back links can be a little more difficult. I don’t want to go into a huge post here about link building in general, as that could go on forever. Instead I want to discuss the proper etiquette. I made a post in the poker affiliate forums today about how NOT to ask for a link exchange.
For starters, don’t spam a bunch of webmasters. You’ll be wasting your time, and anyone that responds to you probably is not representing a quality site or good link anyways. Here is a great article on doing link exchanges. Thanks Kaus for pointing that out today.
More specific to being a poker affiliate, I will tell you what has worked for me in the past. I spend a lot of time in the forums and have made many friends there. Instead of spamming 100 random poker webmasters, I will PM 20 of my friends and ask for an exchange where we can both benefit each other. And I know upfront that these webmasters will be able to exchange QUALITY links with me. Using this method I think my failure rate for link exchanges is less than 10%.
I realize there may be pages you want links on where these webmasters are not members at PAP. For these webmasters, even though you may not know them, MAKE THE EMAIL PERSONAL. If it even looks like a form email, it will go straight to the deleted items folder. You will be amazed though if you develop friendships in the forums how truly easy it is to do link exchanges.
You may be right but it’s a said truth.
Lot;s of webmasters should know they are involved into business and not ‘friendships’, you dont build friendships in forums , you dont build friends in forum. you dont know any of these people, and sending out a formal email should be what it takes. I guess thats not always the truth but it should become the truth. Why the hell would i trade links with someone who comes with a personal approach rather than just ask what they want.
come on people grow up and lets all just exchange links because of the exchanging, rather than making friends..
Hmmm…We might have to agree to disagree here. Personally I have been able to form many friendships while doing business. Next week when I am in London having a private dinner with 10+ other PAP members, whom many I have exchanged links with; I will consider this a night out with friends, not business associates.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with forming friendships in affiliate forums. We all sit behind computer screens all day and chat on messenger, via email, or in the forums themselves. I have met some of my best friends in the industry through the forums.
Personally I think it would be pretty miserable to say I have worked as an online gaming affiliate for 5 years and not met any real friends along the way.
JE