My First Year As An Affiliate (Long)

[ThePokerBank]

Well I've just got back from a few hours of squash and I've managed to do my back in a little, so I'm not Mr. Motile at the moment. So its a good opportunity to write one of these posts, as I always find them really interesting to read and so hopefully others will too. Its going to be quite long probably so heres your chance to bail out now.

So here we go...


Around about this time last year exactly I was in the middle of the school Christmas holidays without much to do. My brother had highlighted to me a few days before about how he made a random blog and managed to make a few dollars from it using adsense, but nothing significant whatsoever and so just left it. This seemed pretty interesting to me so I thought about making a poker website, throwing some adsense onto it and making a little extra few dollars here and there to help supplement my main income, which was online poker.

I had some knowledge about how to make websites and get them on the internet, as I had dabbled in making a few God-awful sites when I was younger. So I went to town with Front Page and made a funky looking (or so I thought) template that I was going to build my site from. It was going to be a standard poker strategy site with room reviews, and whatever other interesting information I could find. So I worked hard on writing a few articles to fill up my site to give my potential visitors something to read.

Around this time I also started signing up for as many affiliate programs as possible and promoting them on my little site. Because after all, the more choice I give my visitors, the more likely it is I'm going to get an RMP right?

A few weeks went by and I still wasn't ranked in Google. I thought that this was a little disappointing because thats where most people are going to get their traffic, so why doesn't Google recognize my site? I was getting the majority of my traffic from the cardplayer forums through the link in my signature, but this didn't prove to be very fruitful. But then after a while Google thankfully indexed some of my site, but I wasn't ranking at all well for anything, not even for the most accurately related searches to my pages, which made me feel all warm inside. But I was told about the sandbox so it gave me some hope, and I decided to plow on and hope for the best.

When I had a nice amount of information on my site, I decided to throw it up onto the PAW forums for a review to see where I could improve. The kind people on the forum told me that my design was pretty awful, and the worst thing I could do would be to stick with it. This was pretty disappointing but looking back it was solid advice, and you really have to be cruel to be kind. I remember Graham saying that I should look into getting a template from Alance as it will prove to be really helpful, and if worst comes to worst I can sell the site and get my money back. This sounded pretty good because I didn't have much money at the time, so I went with that. Cheers Graham.

After getting my template, it wasn't too long before things started to take off. My site looked great and I had a decent amount of content. I started to learn more about SEO and how content is king, so I worked on writing solid strategy articles, and I narrowed myself into a niche to help with rankings. I think it was around August that I got out of the sandbox and started to rank better for terms and I got more traffic. It was also around this time that I started to see more action in my affiliate accounts, which was really great to see. It wasn't much, but it was really awesome to see that the poker affiliating system works.

I decided to make another site (not telling just yet), which I am still working on at the moment. I decided to make another site after hearing the advice that "Its easier to make $1000 per month from 10 sites than it is from 1" or something along those lines. I've got a few plans for it before I really push it, but its in a nice niche that I hope to build a strong community on. So fingers crossed for that one.

Since then it has been pretty much more of the same. Content, SEO, links, repeat. Traffic has been slowly improving along with the action in my affiliate accounts for thepokerbank and I have been slowly developing the other one. I am at a stage where I'm making a healthy amount of money but not quite enough to live on at the moment. But this isn't much of a big deal as I am still a student and the extra money is just handy rather than a necessity.

I am really happy with the progress I have made this year, and I am confident that I wouldn't be in this position if it wasn't for PAW (and now PAP). So a big thanks to everyone that has helped me along the way, for all the tips and stuff to point me in the right direction where I wouldn't have had a clue otherwise. Thanks also for the forums Jeremy, I don't really have much contact with you but I'd like to say the forums have been awesome for me and surely for many other affiliates.

So heres to 2008 and hopefully things will carry on improving. I've got a lot of work to do but I'm looking forward to it. I find affiliating is more of a hobby than a job, and its great to see how your efforts can transpire over time. So thanks again, and good effort if you managed to make it this far. I'm going to get some more deep heat for my spine and watch Eastenders (<< Don't know if you Americans know about that one, but its a quality soap opera).

Greg.

[stiankr]

Was a great read Greg. Allways nice to get other affiliates story. I wish you all the best for 2008

[mypokercorner]

excellent post! I'm you 6 months ago. lol!

[offyourface]

Thanks for sharing Greg. This business really becomes a lot of fun when all your hard work starts paying you dividends. It's really a dream where the sky is the limit, and the only difference between the people killing it and new players in the game is just knowledge. With this business, if you want a raise you just commit to taking your game to the next level and make it happen. How many times a day in the corporate world do you think someone down in the mail room says to themselves, man I want to be making what the executives make, and I want to do it in 3 years. Well you can do just that in this business with the right dedication and it blows my mind everytime I think about it.

We all share your excitement and gratitude towards this solid community, and wish you the best of luck this year.

[1pokerbonus.com]

Great post

[Graham]

Nice read Greg... glad to hear that something I said actually helped someone... that must have been a good day Good luck in '08, its only uphill from here

[pokerforfree]

Nice read Greg!

Originally Posted by Graham

Nice read Greg... glad to hear that something I said actually helped someone... that must have been a good day Good luck in '08, its only uphill from here

Where would we all be without Graham

[The Pokerkeep]

Good read !!

I started my site a year ago as well. It sounds like you're doing fine. I just began seeing the affiliate income start to build. A little here and a little there.... thanks for sharing!!

[Zilla]

Congrats Greg,

You've done a great job on thepokerbank and it's a site that I've noticed climbing in the serps over the last year.

I'm sure your second site will be just as good and most probably better now you have learnt so much from your first site.