Long Versus Short Term Focus
Affiliates are often scolded about using this or that practice due to its focusing too much on the short term and not enough on the long term. For instance, in my last article, I spoke about the warnings that are out there for us to look to stay away from anything that might end up being considered black hat down the road, due to the risks that what we may have gained may be later taken away.
Although I did come out against this sort of thinking in general, it is true that this sort of conservatism does have its place with some sites. Sites that create a great deal of revenue without having to resort to more risky tactics, where the risk involved may end up costing the site not only the extra revenue gained but a significant chunk of its base revenue, meaning what it was making prior to these more risky strategies being implemented, may be wise to proceed with more caution here.
So It Really Comes Down To What You Are Risking
What bothers me the most about these Chicken Little prognostications is that they never qualify their views. If more aggressive strategies are to be risky, there must be something that is being risked.
Joe Blow, for instance, with his startup site, isn’t going to be risking anything since he doesn’t have anything right now to lose. It’s a lot like accepting a free bet on a sports betting site. If you win the bet, you win, and if you lose it, well you don’t really lose anything.
So affiliate sites that are making little or nothing are really only risking the time that they are spending on this. They are looking to take a shot at it, and if they are successful, they may perhaps get in the game and make some real money. If they only make it for a while, well so be it.
We Need To Consider The Effects Of Both Action And Inaction
Gaming affiliate sites are extremely competitive, and one thing is for sure, sitting on our hands isn’t going to get us anything but wasting our time. If there are tricks out there and other people are using it and you aren’t, you’re going to get left in the dust.
Perhaps you do have a site which has so much authority built up that you can just laugh at the people who are using the kind of tactics that we are talking about here, the stuff that people are worried might end up being treated by the search engines as too black hat.
However, that really isn’t many of us, and considering that even the most successful affiliates often build new sites, pretty much all of us are faced with these risk reward decisions quite often.
The problem with any start up site or any site which hasn’t hit the big time yet is that we are way behind from the get go with these sites. In order to succeed, we’re going to have to throw everything at it including the kitchen sink.
We Can’t Wait And Hope That Our Competition Will Fall Down To Where We Are
So assuming the tactics that we are contemplating do work, and it’s fair to say that they do or else why are we even thinking about using them, if they convey a present advantage to our competitors, we’re going to be limiting our profitability by foregoing them.
However, a big question here is whether we are set up for success at all by continuing to lay low? The answer is, we’re most likely dooming ourselves to permanent obscurity by looking to avoid the tricks de jour. Even if some of our competitors get punished a little for using these down the road, all this will do is shift the balance to those sites who have long term authority that these risk takers were looking to unseat.
Meanwhile, we’re still sitting on the sidelines, far, far away from where we need to be to get at least a decent slice of the pie. Those sites who had more guts than we had may have been slapped, but at the same time they probably have the resolve to lick their wounds and adapt, and continue moving forward, while we continue to sit on the side of the road on our lawn chairs watching the traffic pass.
It Still Pays To Be Prudent, But At The Same Time Wise
Some of the things I’ve read as far as what people consider to be too risky are just plain laughable. For instance, not using hyphens in your domain name because the search engines may one day punish that as being too spammy. Some people actually believe this and will go to any length it seems to avoid even ridiculous and contrived risks like this one.
It’s always a matter of assessing both the risk and the reward when we contemplate doing something, or assess something that we are already doing. I’ve used some of the darkest stuff ever at one time, and don’t really regret it even though the site I used them with got punished long term for it.
The way I look at it, this made me some money that I probably wouldn’t have made at the time, actually I’m certain that I wouldn’t have made it. So things like hidden text and such may not have been the best idea, but it at least was an idea, at a time when I knew far less about what I was doing.
Other sites were using things like this as well, and after we got slammed for it, there was a lot of finger wagging that went on, mostly from those who failed to succeed, while we carried off our money to the bank. So I definitely don’t recommend blatant tactics like this, we’re talking years ago before this become punished, but I’m bringing this up to show that even the most hideous tricks can have their place and time.
So what we always want to do here is to consider exactly what we are risking here, which may be little or even nothing, and then decide whether it makes sense to take on a little risk. Often times it definitely does.
