It’s been a long, frustrating 15 months since I last posted here. Over the past year I have:

• Put a lot of money into four major non-gaming domains/websites, none of which have yet reached page one for their targeted keywords.
• Sold my only USA-facing poker site, which had struggled in Google for over a year, then watched it skyrocket in the rankings a few months later after a Google update.
• Saw my non-USA poker affiliate income fall by 50+%, despite buying up several new revenue-producing sites throughout the year.
• Paid a premium to buy into an existing, revenue-producing silver affiliate network, only to have APMEX terminate their affiliate program shortly after. After we found an alternative way to monetize the silver sites, I decided to buy an additional percentage of the network, only to have the majority of the network get destroyed by a Panda update two days later.

A lot of the above was my fault, but to put it simply, 2011 was not my year.

However, I’m extremely optimistic for what is to come in 2012. I think a few of my non-gaming websites will “pop out” from some sort of age filter that seems to be holding them back, and I’m also a partner on a new venture that I’m pretty excited about: JMBullion.com.

JMBullion.com

This is the first retail site that I’ve been involved in, and it’s been fun to handle tasks like ad buys (for traffic), our affiliate program, increasing customer confidence, etc – basically all the things I never got to do while running affiliate websites. The site has already proven to be profitable with the small amount of traffic from our existing silver network as well as a few ad buys/affiliate deals, so it’s exciting to think what will happen when we start getting some Google traffic, add gold, recruit more affiliates, do more ad buys, etc.

I’ll probably post a little more often now with updates about JM Bullion, as it’s a little more exciting than my normal websites. Also, anyone who used to promote APMEX and is looking for an alternative way to monetize their silver/gold websites, feel free to check out our affiliate program or Skype me to talk more (michael.wittmeyer).

Thanks to Jonathan of MotocrossGear.com for this guest post.

Many of us got our start in internet marketing in the poker industry. The high commissions and seemingly endless opportunities to make money made it an easy choice for me. But after years of hard work making a ton of crappy websites, a few good ones, and a little money, there comes a time when you get sick of the poker/casino business.

The constant spamming, idiotic webmasters who take you for a fool, intense competition that is miles and miles ahead. All of these factors make other industries look like a walk in the park. Just the amount of link buying going on in poker is enough to make your head spin. Then when you factor in that 6/10 of the sites in the serps for the most competitive phrases are all owned by the same group of guys you start to wonder if it’s even worth trying.

You can see why some guys decide to bail out on poker and go for another industry.

But before you decide to embark on a new journey… consider the pro’s and con’s.

Pro’s

• Less competition. Pick a niche with less money and less competition and you’ll find it easier to make progress.
• Easier link building. No one wants to link to a poker site. Pick a niche that is mommy blogger friendly and you’ll be guest posting your face off.
• More fun. Let’s face it… poker is saturated. You aren’t doing something original; it’s all been done before.
• The government is not shutting it down.
• More creative potential. Maybe I have tunnel vision, but the gaming niche is the same old shit over and over again.
• You get paid. On time.

Con’s

• Less money. There are not very many niches as flush with cash as the poker/casino niche.
• Less exciting. There is so much more excitement when a site starts doing well in the poker biz. The amount of money it can make seems endless.
• No amazing conferences to attend. I’ve had some of the best nights hanging out with friends in crazy cities all over the world.
• You risk getting stiffed on payments
• You can get penalized by google

As you can see there are some great reasons to focus on non-gaming stuff. Some of us can focus on more than one industry at once, but in my opinion you are wasting your time if you are trying to half ass poker. The same goes for other avenues. Why spread yourself too thin?

Can anyone think of  any more pro’s and con’s  to  diversifying?

The below is a post by Nick Haslem, a longtime gambling affiliate and webmaster of AustralianGambling.com.au and IntenseGambling.com.

When thinking of something to write here for Mike’s blog I thought to myself “what are some of the things he does that make him successful” and instantly I have something to share with you.

It’s getting harder and harder to become successful in the online gambling market. The successful ones are getting bigger, getting better deals and buying out smaller affiliates at rock bottom price. Gone are the days of throwing up a bonus code site.

The US market especially has taken a major hit, and affiliates and continually looking for new ways to make money before succumbing to the calls of a job with a secure income.

Staying One Step Ahead

This brings me back to my original point about staying ahead of the curve. It’s important to choose very wisely who your friends are, where you get your information from and choosing marketing strategies for your business.

It consistently amazes me the amount of people that get their SEO advice from affiliate forums, and continually search and wait for other people to tell them new trends, and what the next big thing is.

Infographics are a prime example of this. I watched a Distilld conference from a couple of months ago in New Orleans. It was a panel of some of the smarts SEOs in the world discussing current trends. Their consensus was that unless an infographic is absolutely amazing, then it probably wouldn’t work. They have been done far too often, and were a big hit about two years ago.

Whether or not you agree with that is beside the point, I’m just using it to illustrate how behind the 8 ball some affiliates are.

Someone will tell them something like “infographics are the nuts right now dude” so they will spend some money making one with a few facts, ask for a few Diggs (which is also dead) and wonder why it doesn’t work. Then onto the next thing.

Creating Your Own Success as a Gambling Affiliate

Websites like www.springwise.com are a great example of new businesses popping up all the time.

But I want to keep this specific to the gambling affiliate market, because the majority of readers will be in this niche.

Get SEO Advice from Professionals

I’m now a member at SEObook and I know Mike is too along with a select handful of others. If you want real advice or a real website review this is the place to go.

The $300/month isn’t for everyone, and there are other solutions. My point is that these guys do real research and are serious well versed in the industry. If you ask a question, you get a real answer. In just one month you can learn an absolute ton, and spend a few months improving on your sites.
The good thing about this is that you can cancel your subscription at any time and return when you want. That way you only have to return every few months when you have the information you’re looking for.

Get Access to the Bets Business Minds and Products

Yeah I know, business products can be a big waste of time. That being said you can learn a lot from the best business minds of the world. I recommend www.thevault.bz. I gave this advice on my blog one time and I don’t think anyone listened.

I can’t stress how important this place is, and I don’t mind sharing either because I know most won’t find the effort to get past the signup difficulty.

This is a private business torrent tracker and a seriously great forum. It’s kind of like WickedFire and WarriorForum but without the dickheads and noobs respectively.

These are just two tips, but honestly they are some of my best. It’s pretty simple, start surrounding yourself with smart people. The guys that are successful are the ones you want to be around.

There’s a famous quote that says something like you are the sum of your 10 closest friends… if they are all broke what’s that telling you?

If you take nothing else away from this post, please just start getting advice from professionals and start networking with smart people.

The online gambling industry is way too tough to continue following what other people are doing.

The following is a guest post from Kevin, who runs this MLB Picks blog amongst other affiliate portals.  He blogs at DropoutGotRich.com if you’re interested in following him.

If you’re anything like me, you like to get any advantage you can when working for yourself.

I have found that setting yourself up with a solid working environment will help out your production and overall feeling when working by quite a bit.  More production, of course, leads to higher revenue when all is said and done.

Getting yourself into a good working environment is especially important for those like me, who are working out of their own home.  For those in an office, it is still important to make sure your work environment will allow you to be as productive as possible too.

Everyone is different and you will have to judge for yourself what different things will increase productivity and which will decrease productivity, but I will go over a few things that I’ve noticed have helped me over the years of working from home.

Dual Monitors

I was pretty amazed at how much my production levels went up when I purchased a dual monitor setup back 2-3 years ago.  For those that don’t know, the dual monitor setup allows you to set up two monitors side by side and drag windows or anything you want onto either monitor.

The biggest benefit for me is when I need to research something for writing.  It allows you to read something on screen A while you type on screen B.  This means you won’t have to constantly switch between an article and Word (or whatever program you use).

Clean Desk

I think studies have actually been done on this, but having a neat and clutter free desk can actually help you increase productivity.

I think when your desk is messy and all over the place your brain will be doing the same thing.  Having a tidy desk will help keep your mind clear and focused.

Good Lighting and Natural Light

Make sure you have adequate lighting in your work space.  It isn’t good for your eyes if you are looking at your computer for hours on end with poor lighting, and who knows what it will do to your vision if you are working at a computer for 20, 30 or 40 years.

Something I have just been doing lately (since moving into my apartment) is letting in the natural light.  I have a big window beside my office, which gets some nice sunlight for most of the day.  Having the natural light is far better than my two lamps in the room.  Try to have your desk set up near a window that can let in some natural light – you’ll love it.

Good Computer Chair

I hadn’t done this until just recently.  For the first 3 years of working on my computer I had been using a pretty crappy computer chair.  Within the last year it was actually pretty busted up, and the back support didn’t even support my back.  It also squeaked and the arm rests were chewed up and would irritate my forearms.

I don’t know why it took me so long, but I finally got a nice new $300 chair from Staples (mesh back chair) just over a month ago.  It was the best purchase I’ve made when it comes to office equipment.  I am way more comfortable while working, and don’t get any back pains that I was starting to get without the back support from the old chair.

If you can afford it, look at the ergonomic chairs that run around $800, but if you are a little tight for money (or just don’t want to spend that much on a chair) you can find something good enough for about $250-$400.

If you are sitting reading this in a crappy, uncomfortable chair, do yourself a HUGE favor and get yourself a new computer chair.

Distractions

I recommend keeping distractions to a minimum in your workspace.  I have a TV in my room, but this actually increases my productivity.  I’m good with keeping it off during the day with I work, and when I want to watch sports or shows at night it allows me to watch and work at the same time.  If having the TV in your office would mean you would work less, get rid of it.

I know that if I had my Xbox sitting right beside me I would find it a lot harder to sit at the computer all day, and would be inclined to play just a “few” rounds of Call of Duty.

Oh yeah, distractions include friends, family, kids, etc.  Try to work in a room where you can close the door and have no one bother you when you need to get some work done.

Summary

That is about all I could think of  for creating a good work environment.  It is important that you set yourself up for success.  Figure out what works for you, and stick to it.  Also be sure to take small breaks during your work day.  Breaks from sitting at the desk are good for both your body and your mind!

The following is an excellent guest post by “doovde” from the PAL forums, who runs a great bingo reviews website. His ideas on creating sustainable income and not worrying so much about short term profits reflect the exact moves I am making in my business at this moment.

Business isn’t just all about how much money you make right now, yes it’s awesome to be coining it in and living the high life while things are good but how sustainable is your income? It’s not a topic that’s widely discussed but it matters, in fact it matters more than the amount of money you make this month and even the amount of money you make this year.

When I first started out as an affiliate my main focus was to grow my monthly income to a point at which it could support the lifestyle I wanted to lead. There was no better feeling than achieving my monetary goals but after a few months of earning well and spending cash I began to wonder what would happen if all this was taken away. Basically my conclusion was that it would be a total disaster, one worse than not making any money in the first place! You can’t miss something you never had and the thought of having to start over from the bottom of the pile sent chills down my spine having spent so much time getting to where I am right now.

Upon the above realization my goals changed significantly. I went from the pursuit of more money to the pursuit of sustainable income. Now obviously I still want my income to grow but what I really want is the safety of a consistently good monthly income that can allow me to lead the life I want to lead. Don’t get me wrong quick income is good income but when you really think about it sustainable income is the holy grail.

How To Create A Sustainable Income

Hopefully I’ve convinced you a little or maybe even just made you consider the idea of sustainability when it comes to the growth of your business. It matters and in 20 years time if the income streams you’ve built now are still paying out for you then you’ve got something very special.

Like anything there is no one way to create a sustainable income, it’s more of a mind set than anything else and the more you start to think about it the more it creeps into every decision you make. Often it’s pretty obvious that decisions people make are not sustainable. If you’re strategy is to just spam you way to the top of the search engines then you don’t have a sustainable income stream. Even if your strategy is to buy your way to the top of the search engines you’re taking risks with the longevity of your income.

You need to strike a balance of risk that you are comfortable with when you build your online business. Don’t worry about what other people are doing, do what’s right for you and what works for you but try to put yourself in a position where you can take countless hits and still sustain income.

Think about the different affiliate programs you work with. Are these programs likely to be around in 2, 10, 15 or even 20 years time? If the honest answer to that question is no then reconsider promoting them. You might be thinking 20 years, who’s going to still be playing in 20 years time on a gambling site I’ve referred them to?

Well you’ve only got to look at some of the major online bookmakers to answer that question. The likes of Bookmaker.com, Ladbrokes, Betfair and Bet365 will have had customers for serious lengths of time. You should be trying to send players to a program where there is potential for this player to earn you cash for as long as humanly possible. Think of the difference in ROI that you’re getting here, it’s unbelievable.

If you are promoting the type of programs above and you’re taking CPA I think you might just be a little mental. I can understand why people take CPA deals, especially at questionable programs but you’ve got to take the program you’re promoting and long term ROI into consideration.

Sustainable income is the absolute nuts and if you want to work 4 hours a week and spend the rest playing golf then it’s the only way to go!

The following is a guest post from my friend Greg Walker, an experienced poker affiliate. Feel free to check out his Real Money Games site to see an example of a well-structured affiliate site.

How interesting is the content you write? Is it engaging and entertaining? Or is it reserved and constrained by imaginary Internet laws that insist that you sit on the fence and try to sound more important than you need to?

If you have a niggling feeling that you might be in that second category (don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone), here’s a tip for you: try writing whatever the f*** you like.

The Internet isn’t one big royal dinner party, nor are you constantly trying to impress your girlfriend’s father every time you sit before a keyboard. This is your website and your work. Don’t write how you think you should write, but how you want to write.

If you’re writing a poker news post, why not mention how much of a melon you think Durrrr is for making that play? If you’re writing a poker room review, don’t be afraid to spend five minutes writing about the insanely awesome chip movement audio. I’d rather read about that than the standard “this room has good player traffic and great support…” line yet again.

This is one of your greatest opportunities to voice your opinion on virtually any topic you like. You don’t need me to remind you how satisfying it is to let people know what you really think in your quest to set the whole world straight. Make the most of it.

Every article that has as much inspiration as a rainy Sunday afternoon is destined to fade in to the greyness of Internet content for eternity, failing to leave an impression on each and every person that reads it along the way. Don’t be that kind of writer.

Nobody wants to read articles that have as much enthusiasm as their most recent gas bill.

You know that feeling you get in that 30 seconds prior to forcing yourself to write a review? Yeah, you don’t get that if you’ve decided to write how you want to write. If you’re writing as if you’re talking to a friend it becomes far more enjoyable and less of a chore. Forcing yourself to be uncreative when you write is such an unnecessary punishment that affiliates seem to subject themselves to.

If your everyday talking range is more colourful than a toddler’s drawing of what they think a rainbow should look like, then maybe you should tone it down. But in general, just write as if you were talking to a good friend. In theory that should make your content interesting, as you wouldn’t have many friends if you were constant semi-formal bore.

Bonus tip: have an opinion.

I spent 2 hours watching clips of Bill O’Reilly on Youtube the other day because he’s such a total d*ck. Now, the important thing here isn’t that he’s a d*ck, it’s that I spent 2 hours watching him.

He is so unapologetically opinionated that I wanted to hear more of what he had to say. In fact, if Youtube had asked me if I wanted to pay $5 to watch the most annoying clip of Bill O-Reilly ever right then, I wouldn’t have been able to fire up my Paypal account quickly enough.

Note: If you’re from the UK (like me), Bill O’Reilly is like Kilroy but louder. Not necessarily more annoying though.

Here are a list of words (mostly adverbs) that you should avoid using when you’re writing your next article:

• Maybe
• A little
• Fairly
• Probably
• Quite
• Somewhat
• Might
• Possibly

There are a lot more, but this is a good foundation to work from.

There’s a huge difference between saying “PokerStars is quite possibly the most popular online poker room” and “PokerStars is the most popular online poker room”; one sentence is wishy-washy and drab, whereas the other is gripping. Guess which one is which.

Being opinionated may well mean that you’re not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s better than sitting on the fence and definitely appealing to nobody.

This article was provided by Kevin of DownloadablePoker.org.

Are you capturing your visitor’s e-mails?  E-mail capture and newsletters may be one of the most overlooked marketing methods in the gambling affiliate industry.  Although I have seen lots of gaming affiliates begin capturing e-mails, the majority still don’t.  With the search engines acting strange lately you almost never know when one of your main sites might drop (or even disappear) in the SERPS, and having a list to market to is important.

I will admit that it is some added work, but I am very happy I have started using this marketing method and I will no doubt be continuing e-mail marketing.  Below I will go over some tips and information on e-mail marketing that I have picked up in my short time (about a year) implementing it.

The first thing to look at is how will you capture the visitor’s e-mails.  Personally I use Aweber (affiliate link) and, like most people, am extremely happy with them.  After signing up for an account you will be taken through the steps to get your campaign set up for your site, and they even have pre-made templates for their “web forms” where the visitors will enter their e-mail and whatever else you want to collect (I usually just do first name and e-mail).

There are many different routes you can take for capturing e-mails.  The two I am most familiar with are “inline” forms found built into your content or template, and “pop-up” style captures.  I know a lot of webmasters won’t put a pop-up form on their site, as many see it as spammy, but I have a lot of success with conversions rates on my pop-ups.  With any site that I am capturing e-mails I almost always have a pop-up plus a form within the content or template somewhere.  If the user doesn’t sign up right away via the pop-up there is a still a chance that after reading your content (even more so if it is quality and interesting content) they will submit their e-mail through your inline form.

Tips: Although the standard templates are fine at Aweber, I usually put a custom header image in and sometimes even a custom submit button, which have both increased conversion rates.

There are a couple landing pages that you will want to work on after you have your campaign set up – confirmation page, success or thank you page, and already subscribed page.  When I first started e-mail marketing I was just using the generic Aweber pages and realized in order to build trust with your members it will be better to send them pages on your site.

I suggest creating a custom confirmation page telling visitors to check their e-mails and click on the activation link to confirm their e-mail.  I also suggest that after they have clicked that link you have a custom “thank you” landing page that lets them know they have successfully signed up (Tip: I usually include links to some of my websites pages.  For example – “Thank you for signing up for XXXX.  If you are interested in sharpening up your poker skills I recommend you read our articles listed in our Poker Strategy section, or if you are looking for an online poker room to play at check out our Poker Review section.”).  If you are giving away a free eBook or something similar to sign ups you will want to make sure you have an “already subscribed page” with a link to that eBook (or whatever) because some people who have already signed up will want to get a hold of that item again.  If you want a live example of these techniques I don’t mind if you sign up to my Sports Betting Tips newsletter list and go through the steps so you can see how I have done it.

Ok now you have a list starting to build up, so what’s next?  You want to start to build trust with your list or members.  Right away most affiliates will probably start sending dozens of poker bonus offers, clickbank eBooks, etc, but that’s not the best way to do things.  You want to gain a bit of trust from your members, and you want them to start to like you.  A good idea may be to set up an auto responder where every couple of days after they sign up you send them some really good content, maybe a few great poker strategy articles for example – the important part is not to include any affiliate links.  Just give them great and interesting content and they will start to like you.

After you have gained a bit of trust you can then hit them with an offer, and you will get a way better conversion rate then you would have if you just hit them with that offer in your first e-mail.  I have heard as a rule of thumb that you should be sending out about 4-5 value newsletters in between every offer related e-mail – this builds a relationship and more trust, etc.

Tip: Be personal.  I always use my first name in my e-mails and talk like I was sending it to a friend.  I close with things like “good luck this weekend” to my football bettors, and I try to connect with them a little bit.  I was surprised I started getting e-mails from people back where they say things like “Hey Kevin great job on your picks this weekend”, etc, etc.  Relationships + Trust = Money.

So what are you waiting for… get your ass in gear and start building a list!  I hope this article helped you and I hope to see a couple more affiliates use this technique for increasing their income!

The article below is a guest post from a well-known affiliate manager who chose to remain anonymous…

Domains… so much you can do with domains, and which you can learn so much of by just being and affiliate or talking with others.

I would believe you have learned some recommendations on domains depending on your business and industry, but I’ll cover mine just in case… never hurts, and if you think it does, then by all means, stop reading me

Make sure you have a clear idea of your business and industry – the traffic for that industry, your budget, resources, and your skills. For instance, here’s a quick example – sex (dot) com is or was for sale recently – and even though its bidding will probably be huge, it might not be too profitable depending on the business. Let’s say an adult membership company… now, considering the traffic – they want people who want to see adult content videos, so think about it…. Who searches for sex anymore? If anything, they’ll search for porn and not sex – sex is more for sex education, sex toys, etc… not their real target market, and obviously conversions will be sort of crappy.

Now that I have your attention, let’s move over to gambling.

Same rules apply here. Unless you are skilled at SEO and/or at least have enough budget to pay for your resources (outsourcing SEO, content writers, back-links, etc…), then buying any domain regardless of the name might not be best purchase for newbies. Your best move here is to go for a type-in domain, either type-in at the browser search box or at Google (search engines).

Onlineblackjack.com is a great type-in domain for both the browser box and search engines. Players looking to play some online blackjack will definitely be typing it. Clearly, most of these high-value domains have been purchased already, or are just too expensive to buy from others.

So now what? Well, look for alternatives, such as play online blackjack, play blackjack online, play blackjack on the net, etc… Even though you might not be getting as much traffic as the shorter domains, you’ll be able to still target type-in traffic (those searched on Google, etc…), and since they are long-tail keywords, you’ll be targeting a niche market, meaning: less competition, and most likely, better conversion rates too (depending on your keywords).

This is definitely the best move for start-ups, and you’ll still make quite a bit of commission too, not to mention, you’ll be able to flip the domain later down the road, making enough to buy more similarities you can dominate.

Last point – don’t give up if .com is gone, try .net, .org, .co.uk, etc… go for different markets. These will still rank well for those keywords, not as high usually, but still quite strong. Plus, like mentioned, you can go over to a specific market, such as UK/EU with .co.uk – dominating that country in your specific niche. Think about it… there’s not a lot of people targeting certain countries out there, and a lot of potential numbers still waiting (some countries).

Summer is always a tough time to get work done, and this Summer was the worst one ever in that regard. I pretty much got nothing done for a few months… bought a little advertising and ordered a few pieces of content, but other than that I didn’t do much. I realized how bad it was getting when I opened up Dreamweaver in August and literally drew a blank while trying to add a link to a page lol. Perks of the job.

Anyways, when I wasn’t laying around my house I was on the golf course, playing at least 18 holes every single day. I posted a while back about how terrible I was at golf, but this year I got things straightened out a little bit by taking a few lessons and playing/practicing a ton. My best rounds of the year were shooting even par at our easy 9-hole course and shooting 74 in a practice round for a tournament at a tougher 18-hole local course. Right now I’m hovering in the low-mid 80s for an average round at a decent course, and golf is finally fun again. Next year I wanna get down around par consistently, but we’ll see.

Right now I’m back in my office in State College, and I honestly got more done this week then I did for the past four months. It feels good to be productive again. Anyways, I’d rather work on my sites than post on this blog, so it’ll probably be a while ’til I post again. Later.

Been a while since I posted (I feel like all my posts start with that, haha) so I decided to get on here for an update.

“Premium” Domains

First… what is going on in the PAL marketplace? Has anyone else noticed the enormous number of domain sales, all of which are listed as “premiums” but are (for the most part) total garbage? I think all of the talk about exact match domains in the past few months has driven people to snatch up as many domains as they can with the intention to flip, but it’s getting a little late for that game. Nothing is left for reg. fees, and even finding a good domain for a fair price is getting pretty tricky too. If you’re in the market for a domain, be wary and skeptical because a lot of people are trying to move mediocre domains for premium prices. There are a few good sales going at PAL, but for the most part the domains being sold are all but worthless.

Change of Pace

I sold my gambling network. That’s about all I can say about that

I’m already working on new projects (like Best Poker Sites and non-gaming stuff), but it’s certainly different to wake up with nothing to do, as opposed to having a blown up inbox, Skype, and huge to-do list. I like it though.

Tampa

Hollowtips and I are going down to a search/social conference down in Tampa next week, so if anyone is down there and wants to golf or just get dinner, hit me up.