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Most poker SEO’s are so focused on linkbuilding that they don’t have a clue about how to write copy for search engines. And writing copy for search engines is also good for users, believe it or not. But only if you’re good at it. This post is an example of good poker SEO copywriting.

Question: What is poker SEO copywriting?

Answer: Poker SEO copywriting is the art of writing content about poker that does well in the search engines. Poker SEO copywriting isn’t much different from effective SEO copywriting for other industries, but most people who work in the poker industry aren’t very good at it. On the other hand, most people involved in the poker SEO industry ARE quite good at poker linkbuilding. Poker SEO copywriting can be the most effective weapon in a poker webmaster’s traffic building arsenal. You could also become a poker SEO copywriting consultant, since so few people are actually good at it.

Writing copy for poker SEO purposes isn’t any kind of magic trick. Effective poker SEO copy is written with 2 things in mind - repetition and emphasis. Repetition means that you repeat your keyword phrase in your copy. Emphasis means that you emphasize your keyword phrase in your copy. Doing both creatively, in a way that reads well to a reader, is the art of poker SEO copywriting.

4 ways to use repetition in poker seo copywriting

1. Use a question and answer format in order to repeat your keyword phrases.
2. Write lists where you use keyword phrase repetition as a rhetorical technique.
3. Just focus on repeating your keyword phrase more often in paragraphs.
4. Use lots of examples.

Examples of poker seo copywriting

The question and answer format I used to begin this article is an example of point #1 in this discussion of ways to use repetition in poker SEO copywriting.

You can find some decent examples of using lists for repetition in poker SEO copywriting in my previous post about how to be a poker affiliate.

If you want to use repetition by using your keyword phrases in actual paragraphs, then stop using words like “it” and “he” so often. If I want to optimize a page for the phrase “Randy Ray”, why would I refer to “Randy Ray” as “he” 9 times out of 10?

Do I really need to point out that this entire subsection of the article is an example of how to use examples to create repetition in poker SEO copywriting?

4 ways to use emphasis with poker keyword phrases in poker SEO copywriting

1. Bold your poker keyword phrases to create emphasis.
2. Use your poker keyword phrases in headings to create emphasis.
3. Put your “poker keyword phrases” in quotes to create emphasis.
4. Italicize your poker keyword phrases to create emphasis.

Most poker SEO’s don’t care about repetition and emphasis because they don’t focus on the copywriting aspect of poker SEO. Instead, they focus on links and anchor text. Those poker SEO’s who do care about repetition and emphasis worry more about emphasis than repetition. I think they’re doing it wrong. Repetition of poker keyword phrases is THE magical ingredient in the poker SEO equation. Emphasis of poker keyword phrases is fine and dandy, but repetition is your bread and butter as a poker SEO copywriter.

How to be a poker affiliate

Here are a few thoughts I have on how to be a poker affiliate, how to become a poker affiliate, and how to be a successful poker affiliate. Enjoy.

How to set up a poker site

1. Pick a niche BEFORE setting up a poker site.
2. Decide on a domain name.
3. Brainstorm content categories.
4. Decide how you want to build your poker site - Notepad, Frontpage, Dreamweaver, Blogger, Wordpress…
5. Write poker content and build your poker site.

How to pick or find a poker affiliate niche

1. The best poker affiliate niche you can pick is the one you know something about.
2. If you don’t know anything about poker at all, then pick the niche that you think will make you the most money with the least effort.
3. Pick a poker affiliate niche that’s large enough that you can write 100’s of pages of content on the subject.
4. Don’t worry about coming up with a”unique” poker niche. The market’s too competitive to find a unique poker affiliate niche.
5. Whatever niche you choose, focus on providing unique content within that niche. The market will NEVER be too competitive to write original, unique poker content.

How to get really good at poker and how to get really good at being a poker affiliate

1. Practice playing poker. Practice writing poker content. Practice SEO’ing pages.
2. Read poker strategy books. Read poker blogs. Read poker affiliate sites. Read sites about being a webmaster.
3. Discuss poker strategy on forums. Discuss poker SEO on forums. Discuss being a webmaster on webmaster forums.
4. Write about poker strategy. Write about playing poker. Write about being a poker affiliate. (Writing clarifies your thinking on a subject.)
5. Read about subjects besides poker and besides webmastering. Write about subjects besides poker and besides webmastering. Discuss subjects besides poker and besides webmastering. Being well-rounded will improve your skills in ways you can’t imagine.

How to make millions as a poker player, and how to make millions as a poker affiliate

1. Start by figuring out how to make $1 million as a poker player or how to make $1 million as a poker affiliate.
2. Break it down. If you want to make $1 million as a poker player, you need to determine your hourly expected win rate at various levels of play, how big your bankroll need to be to play at those levels, how long it will take you to accumulate a bankroll that large, and how many hours you’ll need to play before you’re a millionaire.
3. Break it down part 2. If you want to make $1 million as a poker affiliate, you need to determine how much you can make per referred player, how many visitors it takes to get a referred player, and how much content and how many links you need to get each player.
4. Once you know how many hours it takes to make $1 million as a poker player, all you need to do is put in the hours. Once you know how much content and how many links you need to make $1 million as a poker affiliate, all you need to do is put in the hours writing content and building links.
5. If you can make $1 million as a poker player or as a poker affiliate, you can make $2 million.

How to run a poker affiliate site

1. Run a poker affiliate site effectively by having a schedule for when you publish poker content.
2. Run a poker affiliate site effectively by having a plan for getting links and publicity for your poker site.
3. Run a poker affiliate site effectively by creating an email newsletter to update your readers on when you publish new content.
4. Run a poker affiliate site effectively by offering a forum where you can interact with your site’s readers.
5. Run a poker affiliate site effectively by being creative.

Being a poker affiliate means creating poker content that people want to read.

Being a poker affiliate means publicizing poker content that people want to read (usually via linkbuilding).

Most poker affiliates focus more on getting links than on building content. Most poker affiliates are doing it wrong.

Poker content can be more than just blog posts, forum posts, and articles. Different kinds of poker content can bring in different kinds of poker traffic.

With a little practice, you can create tons of compelling poker content that ranks for dozens, even hundreds, of longtail phrases that send a little bit of traffic every month. Being a poker affiliate who creates poker content that people want to read is way more effective from an ROI perspective than being a poker affiliate who buys enough links to rank substandard content in the search engines. The reasons for this seem obvious to me, but if they’re not obvious to you, I’ll explain. Creating genuine content takes little time compared to creating links. Substandard content that ranks just because you bought a bunch of links to it won’t last. You’ll make a lot more money from a page that makes $10 a month for 40 years than you will from a page that makes $100 a month for a year.

I wrote a blog post about how to come up with bingo content ideas a couple of days ago, but the post somehow disappeared. So here is “bingo content ideas 2.0″ - my second attempt to answer the burning question of how to write bingo content. (The previous blog post, and this new, improved version of that blog post, were inspired by the following discussion of bingo content on the forums.)

My approach to building a large content site is to aim for several hundred pages of content, each page of which targets at least 3 keyword phrases. I wrote a post in one of my other blogs once about how to write a 1000 page content site, and that post might be useful to review anytime you’re having trouble planning content for a site. This particular post is specific to planning and writing content for a large bingo content website.

Topics and subtopics

Whenever I’m planning content for a site, I try to narrow the site’s focus down to a single word or phrase. An example of a single word topic for a bingo site would be “bingo”. (Of course.) An example of a two word phrase singular bingo topic might be “bingo halls”. For this article, I’m going to use the approach of using a one word topic, “bingo” for my content planning.

Subtopics of bingo, or bingo topics

A lot of webmasters use some kind of keyword suggestion tool to come up with keyword phrases, but I prefer to brainstorm by topic and subtopic first. So for a site about “bingo”, the first thing I try to think of are subtopics of “bingo”. Here are some bingo topics:

1. Bingo games
2. Bingo halls
3. Online bingo
4. Bingo odds and probabilities
5. Bingo chat & bingo lingo

My hope is that you’re planning to build a bingo site larger than just six pages. But each of these six bingo topics is a springboard for dozens or hundreds of additional pages of bingo content. You just have to divide them into further bingo content subtopics.

For bingo games, subtopics would include specific types of bingo games. Some bingo games include “blackout bingo”, “four corners bingo”, and “progressive bingo”. I don’t have an estimate for how many different bingo game variations there are, but my guess is that you could come up with at least a dozen and maybe twenty or more with a little bit of research.

For bingo halls, subtopics would include specific geographic locations and which bingo halls are available there. For example, you could create 50 pages of content for a USA bingo section, one for each state. For that matter, you could create 200-210 pages of content about bingo in various countries. (There are 200 or so countries in the world now.) Individual bingo halls could have their own pages too. My suggestion is to start local, where you live, and then expand. I’m near Dallas, so I would visit actual bingo halls in Dallas and post unique reviews and photos of the bingo halls in my area on a site. My guess is that there are several thousand bingo halls in the world to write about. And somewhere, someone is searching for one in your area.

For online bingo, the obvious subtopics include the names of specific bingo sites. There are at least 200-250 online bingo sites you could write pages about. More bingo sites are probably launching all the time too.

For bingo odds and probabilities, you could probably come up with several subtopics, including information about how big a bankroll you should have to play bingo, what kind of house edge a bingo game has, and what kind of betting systems people use when playing bingo. The possibilities here are only limited by your imagination, but it helps to know a little math (or find someone who does.)

For bingo chat and bingo lingo, the obvious content to write about here are the various phrases and slang used in online bingo chat rooms. Phrases like “after games” might be well-known and well-understood by bingo veterans, but bingo neophytes might appreciate being able to catch up on their bingo vocabulary. Some phrases are interesting enough that you could create an entire page defining and explaining them, while some might be so simple as to only warrant a one sentence description and definition.

Those are my ideas for how to come up with a large content rich bingo website. While this article was bingo-specific, I think the thought process for coming up with these bingo topics and bingo content ideas can be easily applied to almost any other topic you want to launch a website about. Bingo is a great niche to get into from a competition perspective. Lots of possibilities for unique bingo content exist, and someone who’s aggressive and industrious could build the leading bingo community on the web fairly quickly.

Some poker webmasters pay attention to their referral logs. Just as many, if not more, don’t pay any attention to them at all. This post is meant to be an actual demonstration of how your referral logs can be a content generator for your site. Here are the answers to some of the questions which have brought visitors to this site,

How are poker conversions?

I’m not entirely sure what someone who is searching for the phrase “how are poker conversions” is asking, but I suspect it’s someone who wants to know whether poker conversions are up, down, or level. Maybe they’re wondering whether or not the recession is hurting the poker affiliate business. Based on what I’ve seen, the recession hasn’t driven poker conversions down too terribly much, and I think a lot of folks feel like gambling is one of those recession-proof businesses. But you can also see from the discussion in the thread I linked to, people are interested in diversifying their business just in case poker conversions do fall dramatically.

How much money do you make poker affiliate?

Whoever was searching for “how much money do you make poker affiliate” probably wasn’t asking me personally what I’m making as a poker affiliate. They’re probably more interested in what the earning potential for a poker affiliate is. I’m far from the biggest poker affiliate out there; in fact, I’m probably one of the smallest poker affiliates out there. But if you’re interested in how much money YOU can make as a poker affiliate, I can tell you that with a little bit of effort and good sense, a six figure income is realistic. And if you’re really smart and hard working, you can make six figures a month or more. To make a lot of money as a poker affiliate, you have to be smart, willing to work hard, and focused on taking it up a notch, all the time.

How to make my poker forums popular?

The easiest way to make your poker forums popular is to have compelling discussions going on there that people want to participate in. I’ve also noticed that popular poker forums tend to be more than JUST poker forums. Two Plus Two is probably the most popular poker forum on the Internet. But they’re a publisher of books, and their forum has grown from that aspect of their business.

Popular poker forums also tend to focus around specific personalities. Would people be as interested in posting at Two Plus Two if David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth weren’t participating there, and also if they weren’t successful poker writers?

Keeping those two things in mind will go a long way toward helping you make your poker forum popular. You might also find our previous blog post on the subject useful: How To Run a Popular (and Profitable) Poker Forum.

How to build a rakeback calculator?

I don’t know how to build a rakeback calculator. At one time though, someone was offering a free rakeback calculator in the forums. If you take advantage of that deal, you don’t have to know how to build a rakeback calculator either.

How to become a poker affiliate?

The quick and easy answer to “how to become a poker affiliate” is to sign up for a poker affiliate program. But if you want some more details, here’s what I would suggest, in order:

1. Figure out what poker niche you’re interested in.
2. Brainstorm potential domain names.
3. Register the one you like.
4. Build a 2 or 3 page site.
5. Sign up for some affiliate programs.
6. Build content and get links.

That’s my super short and to the point tutorial on how to become a poker affiliate.

How to make money during a depression?

If you want to know how to make money during a depression, you’ve come to the right place. See my answer to “how to become a poker affiliate” above, and also my answer to the question earlier called “how are poker conversions”. Those aren’t the only ways to make money during a depression, but those are the ways to make money during a depression that we’re mostly interested in on this site.

How to setup a poker affiliate?

This might mean you run a poker room and want to know how to setup a poker affiliate program yourself. If you’re interested in doing so, and you need some help, I’d suggest starting a discussion thread on the subject in the poker affiliate exchange. There are almost always people in our forums with extensive experience in our industry who can provide consulting and advice on how to setup a poker affiliate program.

How to sell articles forum?

I suppose that someone looking for a “how to sell articles forum” is looking for a message board aimed at writers who want to learn how to sell their articles. I’d recommend picking up a copy of Guerrilla Marketing For Writers, and I’d also recommend taking a look at what the successful article sellers on our forums do. Of course, almost all of what you’re going to learn here is going to be specific to how to sell poker articles via our forum, but you might be able to apply some of that strategy to other article markets.

How can I contact Paradise Poker myself with a problem?

I’m guessing that whoever wants to contact Paradise Poker with a problem is a player rather than a webmaster, but who knows? At any rate, the easiest way to contact Paradise yourself with a problem is by visiting their contact us page. You can call their toll free number or email them either way. Any poker site that doesn’t have easily found contact information is a poker room you should be cautious about dealing with, by the way. Being able to contact a poker room about problems should be one of the biggest selling points you look at when deciding where to play poker or when deciding which poker site to promote as an affiliate.

How do people build poker databases?

It depends on what kind of poker databases you want to create. A database is just a collection of data, so a poker database could be as simple as a file with a list of poker websites. Or a poker database could be comprised of hand histories collected while playing or watching poker games online. You can create a database manually or via some kind of automated program, but if you’re collecting hand histories, be aware of what the specific poker site’s rules are regarding automated tools. You don’t want to get banned from a poker site by using an unapproved technology while learning how people build poker databases.

How does paynorake work?

If you want to know how paynorake works, try asking in their forum on PAP. The PayNoRake site runs its affiliate program through Wager Profits, and their forum is located here: how does paynorake work . Shaun is really helpful and accessible, and I’m sure he’d love to discuss how paynorake works with you.

How hard is it to climb up Poker Stars VIP program?

Poker players are probably more interested in how hard (or how easy) it is to climb up PokerStars VIP program than affiliates, but most poker affiliates play poker too, so this is very much on-topic. The Poker Stars VIP program is something that Poker Stars takes pretty seriously though; they’re insanely committed to providing the best VIP program on the Internet. Becoming involved in the Poker Stars VIP program is as easy as playing real money raked hands; you’re automatically part of the VIP program as soon as you do that. The ladder you’re climbing up has six runs, starting with a Bronze star and moving up to Super Elite Nova. If you’re a good poker player with a big bankroll who plays a lot, climbing the ladder is easy. If you suck at poker, have a small bankroll, or don’t play much, then you’ll have a hard time trying to climb up the Poker Stars VIP program ladder. But the best thing to do is review the program details there on the Poker Stars site and give it a shot. You’ll learn how hard or how easy it is to climb the VIP ladder there pretty quickly.

How important are keywords in a URL?

I’m sure that our forum discussion of how important keyword in a URL are generated this query, but the short answer is that it’s important, but not so important that you should stress out about it. Having keywords in a URL helps, but it’s only one of 200+ ranking factors. (By the way, our forum discussion thread about how important keywords are in a URL is one of the more popular recent threads at PAP.)

How is Cuil.com doing?

I don’t know how Cuil.com is doing, but a quick look at their site shows that they’re definitely still alive. The most recent news about how Cuil.com is doing is from July 2008 on their site, so I hope they’ll update their site and let us all know how Cuil.com is doing soon.

How is Mansion rake calculated?

How IS Mansion rake calculated?

Very carefully.

A little humor there, very little.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how Mansion rake is calculated, but if someone were to post a new discussion thread titled “How is Mansion rake calculated?” in the discussion forum, I’d be really grateful. Especially if their post actually answered the question.

How long does it take to withdraw from Full Tilt out uk bank?

I’ve never dealt with Full Tilt using a UK bank, but my experience with withdrawing funds from Full Tilt has been really positive. It’s never taken me long to withdraw money from my Full Tilt account.

I might make another post answering questions that brought visitors to PAP soon, but that’s about all I’ve got in me to write today.

Someone posted in the forums that they were going to take another look at their keyword density on a page to see if they could optimize the page better. Keyword density was used by search engines in the 1990’s, but I don’t think that keyword density is a valid measurement any more at all. Keyword repetition, on the other hand, matters as much as it ever has, and might even matter more.

What’s the difference?

Keyword density measures the percentage of how often a keyword phrase is used on a page compared to all the other words on a page. If you have a page with the word “poker” on it, and no other words, the keyword density for the phrase “poker” on that page is 100%. And the keyword density for all other phrases on that page is 0%. Different SEO’s give different advice about what keyword density is ideal for a search result, but I would suggest that it doesn’t really matter, and they appropriate keyword density varies according to which query you’re looking at.

An example would be a phrase like “clonie gowen photo”. A page with a single photo of Clonie Gowen with a caption of “Clonie Gowen” would have a keyword density of 100% for “Clonie Gowen”, but it would have a keyword density of 0% for “Clonie Gowen photo”. But is the page still relevant to the phrase “clonie gowen photo”? Of course it is. Is it likely to rank? That depends on the competition and what they’ve done with their pages.

Keyword repetition, on the other hand, measures how many times a keyword phrase is repeated on a page. Keyword phrases can be repeated in multiple ways. One way a keyword phrase can be repeated is via inbound link anchor text. Every time another page links to your page with a keyword phrase, that’s one repetition. The phrases you use linking out from a page count toward repetition too. If I have a page about “poker link building”, and I link to ten different articles about “poker link building”, each time using the phrase “poker link building” in the anchor text of the link, then I’ve created ten repetitions of the phrase “poker link building” on that page.

How likely is it that a search engine will think a page that links to ten other pages about “poker link building” is relevant to that query? Especially if it uses the phrase “poker link building” each time in the anchor text? How likely is a page that links to ten other quality pages about “poker link building” to be a good resource for a searcher seeing information about “poker link building”?

(For those of you keeping score, that was 8 repetitions in 2 short paragraphs.)

But using a keyword phrase 100 times on page doesn’t have to create an unnatural keyword density (whatever that means anyway). You just need to focus on whether or not the page makes sense and reads well to a visitor. The easiest way to repeat a keyword phrase 100 times on a page instead of 50 times on a page is to write a longer piece of content for that page. Just creating a bulleted list like this:

• poker keyword density
• poker keyword density
• poker keyword density

…only makes sense in a certain context. (This context is one of them.)

Most poker SEO’s focus on keyword density and inbound link anchor text in order to get rankings. Keyword density is useless now, and inbound link anchor text works but isn’t as efficient as other methods of creating keyword repetition. Repeating keyword phrases on a page is the poker seo secret that most people miss. I’m constantly amazed at how many people will include a keyword phrase in the anchor text pointing to a page, and they’ll include it in the title tag of the page, but then they’ll forget to actually use the phrase in the text of the content on a page. Or they’ll only use the phrase once on the page.

Everything else being equal, a page that repeats a keyword phrase twice is going to be considered more relevant than a page which only uses a keyword phrase once.

And if you think about it, this makes perfect sense from the search engine’s perspective.

Sometimes you get stuck for poker content ideas. Even if you hire other people to write content for you, sometimes it’s just plain hard to come up with ideas for what your writers should write about. Here’s a look at some of the different types of poker content you can add to a website.

Pure Information - Examples of pure information might include pages that give the addresses, ownership information, licensing information, and softwares that various online poker sites use. Another type of purely informational article might be a page that describes a specific poker game in detail. Think of purely informational poker content as pages that define and further explain a particular topic.

Definition Lists - Poker glossaries abound, but some of them are better than others. Some of the most useful definition lists are the less obvious topics, like a glossary of poker chat lingo. Or a list of definitions specific to a particular poker site. (For example, you could have a PokerStars glossary which defines the PCA, the EPT, the APPT, the LAPT, and the WCOOP, among other things.)

Poker Interviews - With as many poker bloggers and poker players who are out there, finding someone to interview ought to be easy. Most poker players are D-list celebrities at best, but even in the world of poker, there are levels of notoriety. And interviews are one way poker players might hope to climb those ranks. Depending on how well-known your site is, you might have to start at the bottom of the poker celebrity ladder or at the top. Either way, poker interviews make great content.

Poker Player Profiles - This type of poker content is overused, but it’s still worth doing if you can find a unique angle. The trick to writing a unique poker profile is to have an actual opinion and perspective to share. The best poker profiles are more than just “pure informational” content.

Links - Most people use links pages to consolidate their lists of external links, but poker content featuring a list of links on a specific topic makes for great content and great relationships with other site owners. The trick with this type of content is to focus on a very specific microniche. An example might be “Five Pages About Microlimit Texas Holdem Strategy”. The other trick is to provide lots of context by having plenty of description, insights, and opinions about the content you’re linking out to.

Irony - Irony and satire are wonderful tools for poker content generation, and they’re hardly ever used. You could easily create an entire site that’s a parody of another site. I think a site called Three Plus Three that gave terrible poker advice from really good looking but dumb poker writers would be hysterical. It would draw links like crazy too.

Contests - I’m holding a poker strategy content writing contest right now. But any kind of content that you can produce which will get your readers more involved in interacting with you and your site is worth a LOT more than a piece of content that someone reads, yawns, and then hits the back button. Contests are one way to get your readers interacting with your poker content.

Predictions - A popular type of poker content seen on forums and blogs this time of year are predictions for what’s going to go on in the coming year. But you don’t have to limit prediction content to January. You can write articles predicting the winners of major poker events, then followup articles comparing your predictions to the actual tournament results.

Reviews - “Review” has a double meaning. You can write reviews of online poker rooms, but most people don’t need me to tell them about that kind of content. Another kind of “review” content is when you review some of the content from your site over the last year, like we did with our 2008 Poker Affiliate Blog Posts Review here. If you run a forum, you can review the most exciting threads for the year. If you run a blog, you can write about your best blog posts. If you run a straight content site, you can write about your most-viewed or most interesting static pages that were added in the last year. (And it doesn’t have to be an annual thing either; you can do a monthly or even a weekly review.)

These 9 types of poker content are by no means the only types of poker content you could write. But next time you’re having trouble coming up with something to write about, think about trying one of these angles.

I could write another post about Google, but every poker affiliate already knows about that search engine. My goal with this post is to write about some search resources that you might not be familiar with, and I hope to provide some means of using these search resources to improve your poker website marketing campaign. Sometimes some of the less well-known search resources on the Internet might bring a new strategy or customer acquisition methodology into place.

Alexa - Most poker webmasters already know what Alexa is, and the standard statement about Alex is how easily manipulated the site is, and how inaccurate the data is. That may be true, but that doesn’t make Alex useless as a search resource. One worthwhile use for Alexa is to compare two or more sites’ traffic rankings. Their data might be inaccurate, but you can get a rough idea of how much more popular Two Plus Two is than Poker Tomorrow is pretty easily using Alexa. But the most useful aspect of Alexa is the ability to look at the top ranked sites by category. The only thing to keep in mind when looking for traffic rankings by category is that Alexa uses DMOZ for its category tree, so if the site isn’t listed in DMOZ, it won’t appear in Alexa’s categorized rankings.

OMGILI - This acronym stands for “Oh My God I Love It!” OMGILI is a search engine focused on discussion forums and message boards. The uses for such a search engine should be obvious, but in case it’s not, here’s how I would use it. I would use OMGILI to find discussions of topics that are related to my sites’ topics, then I’d register an account at some of these forums and participate in the discussions there. Use your site name as your “handle” in these discussions, or, if the forum allows it, include your site in your signature link. But don’t be a schmuck and drop one line responses that add 0 value to the forum just so you can get your link in there. That’s indescribably lame.

Cuil - I wrote a post about poker SEO for Cuil a while back, and a couple of people pointed out that Cuil isn’t going to send them any traffic compared to Google or even MSN. They were right, but that doesn’t mean Cuil is useless for someone looking for search resources that can help poker affiliates. One use for Cuil.com is the opportunity to watch a new search engine algorithm change and develop from the very beginning of its existence. Few people are launching search engines anymore, so the chance to see a new search environment develop over time, from the beginning, might teach you something about how to optimize for search in general. (Google probably won’t be the dominant search engine of all time. And having all your eggs in the Google basket is bad strategy even if they do maintain their leadership position forever.)

YouTube - It’s more than just entertaining. It’s also a search channel you can optimize for, and for a lot of search phrases, video results are a LOT less competitive than ordinary Google results. You can also use YouTube to get a feel for what content people care about. You can get ideas for content. The first result under “Featured Videos” for me is a video about what different people plan to do differently in 2009. I could easily translate that idea into a piece of content for my poker site by writing an article about my poker goals for 2009. Or I could turn it into fodder for my poker forum by asking people to post about what their poker goals for 2009 are.

Digg - Everyone knows about Digg, but not everyone uses it appropriately. Using it just to drive traffic or to build links to your site is missing the boat. The real value of Digg is the ability to see what kind of content people like to read and link to. For example, today I see an article titled “15 Reasons Mr. Rogers Was The Best Neighbor Ever”. I see “Just An Everyday Normal Imperial Storm Trooper”. I see the “Worst Facial Hair in Pro Sports”. The ideas for poker content are coming fast now.

That’s just 5 resources. You can find plenty more search resources with just a little bit of thought, and you can probably come up with better uses for them than I have. It’s not always the most obvious resources that provide the best value for your effort though, so think outside the box a bit.