Haven’t posted in a while (big surprise) so I’ll give a quick update as to what has been going on. I sat out on the Vegas trip last week because of the whole under 21 thing, but it looks like that was a good time. I’m probably just gonna go to the next one regardless of age as I’ve never been there, and a few people have told me I can still do a lot without being of age.

This summer I’ve mainly been working out of my house, golfing, working out, and going out with friends. Last week I joined my Mom to Chicago as she had a little business there, and I really liked the city. Lot of friendly people - way more laid back than NYC. Since I’ve recently become obsessed with fish and sharks in particular lol, I went over to the aquarium to see what they had. Here’s a couple pics from my phone:

This was a Grand Cayman Iguana I believe - it screeched really loud haha, all the little kids were going nuts over it.

Not sure what this was, but thought it looked cool.

Couple whales waiting to get fed. They literally each ate about 100 small fish in a couple minutes.

And of course, a blurry shot of a few small sharks lol.

Besides that, I met up with a friend of mine who lives there and actually works for R Kelly, and we ate at a restaurant at the top of the John Hancock Building - I believe it was called the Signature Lounge. Got some really good crab legs there, I’d definitely go back.

I also did a little shopping there and found a few things I picked up. I’m STILL looking for a pair of sneakers I like. For the last couple years I’ve been wearing a dirty, beat up pair of G-Unit sneakers I bought online for like $30 in 10th grade haha. The search continues.

For the rest of the Summer I’m trying to put my nose down and grind, and reduce my business expenses because my recent outflow seems like the Federal Government’s. I have a tendency to really overdo things at the start of projects lol, so I’m trying to take it easy there.

Right now I’m doing a little maintenance work on Pokersite.org such as chasing payments, negotiating better deals, and shifting rooms around now that I know what converts best. I’m also adding more pages to VPB and waiting for a bunch of solid links I just got to kick in. I’m hoping to see that show up in the top 20 for “video poker” in the next couple weeks, and slowly rise from there. I have a couple of smaller sites I’m revamping too at the moment, but that’s about it for my personal stuff.

Jeremy and I are also finally getting close on our hand history replayer project that was supposed to be done about a year ago. Apparently they want to get it finished too, as they just assigned another project manager to the site that is really on top of stuff. Hopefully that will get wrapped up in a month or so and we can see how it goes.

As far as travel for the rest of the Summer, I don’t have too much on the horizon. I might be going down to Grand Cayman next week as my friend and I found an excellent deal on flight/hotel, but not sure if that is going to pan out. Also going to Puerto Rico w/ my family for a vacation in late July, I have a feeling its going to be brutally hot there.

Hmm well this has been a largely personal update, so I’m going to try to get some business posts up in the next week or two. I have a couple good ideas so stay tuned, cya.

The weather has been outstanding here lately, and I’m so pumped for school to end and Summer to start. The last few weeks for me have been pretty lazy as I’ve worked a little and hung out a lot. There’s a dam near my school that has a lake and a small beach, and the past two weekends my friends and I have made it out there to get some sun, relax, and drink some beer.

I find it really hard to work when it’s nice out, but I don’t really care at the moment. I’m having a lot of fun, and I’ve outsourced a lot of stuff recently so I still get work done. Tommy from PAL has been doing a little vBulletin work for my first real forum, and he’s done an outstanding job. And obviously Eduardo is doing excellent work on the design side of things.

Alright, now I’ll talk a little business. My focus for this summer is going to be almost exclusively on my two major sites. I read a post a while back that discussed the topic of operating many websites versus operating just one. The author of the post took the stand that having many sites is better because you are more diversified, always have projects to work on, and are protected from Google penalties wiping out your whole income.

I however believe that focusing on one or two sites at a time is much better. Personally I can get much more into a project if I know I’m trying to turn it into an industry leader, as opposed to just trying to make it a $X,XXX/month site. Also, I think if you’re trying to make 15 or 20 sites doing high three figures/low four figures a month, you’re really leaving a lot on the table. Each of those sites are about to hit their “boom”, where traffic and revenue increase rapidly, but since you have so many sites you probably don’t have enough time to take each one to that point.

My favorite part about any site I’ve ever worked on is when you get over the initial hump, see your rankings soar, and start getting serious traffic. I think if you’re working on a ton of sites at once, you really never get to that point because your focus is spread across so many projects. Unless of course you have a bunch of people working for you, and that’s a different story.

My plan is to work hard on these two sites for 6-12 months, then see where they’re at. I assume each one will be making great money by then, and I’ll have to evaluate if there’s any more potential left or if I’ve maxed the niches out. If there is more potential, I’ll continue working. If not, I’ll start new projects.

The best part about it is that once you hit the boom of the project and max out the potential, it’s most likely doing $XX,XXX/month. From there, you can easily hire people to maintain all aspects of the site (content creation, link building, community management) for a couple thousand a month, which doesn’t eat too much of your profit up, but still totally frees you from the project. Then, you can start over and try to tackle new niches while still maintaining that passive income.

This is all my opinion obviously, and isn’t necessarily right or wrong. A lot of it is personal preference. I’d much rather create industry leading, valuable, and brand-able sites, as opposed to a bunch of smaller sites that all get a little bit of traffic. However, some people surely prefer the opposite, and they’re doing just fine as well.

On another topic, I’ve been thinking about getting into real estate investing lately. Does anyone have any decent resources I could check out? I’m clueless on the topic and haven’t been able to find much valuable information online…

To make money as a poker/casino affiliate all you need to do is get quality traffic and send it to the site of your choice.

To get quality traffic you need two things: quality content and quality links. That is all it boils down to - forget about all of the gimmicks, short cuts, “secrets”, and other BS in our industry - if you can produce quality content and point links at it, you’re going to make money. If you can repeat the process over and over, you’re going to make big money, and it will be an income stream that will continue to produce even when you move on to the next project.

Ok, so if it is really that simple, then why aren’t there more super affiliates on the forums? Are people lacking information or industry secrets? I don’t think so. I’ve learned everything I know from free forums, articles, and eBooks. There are few problems that we affiliates run into that can’t be solved with a Google search or a conversation on Skype.

Is it because people are lacking resources? Again, I don’t think so. You can have a solid domain, template, and hosting for under $500. Almost every affiliate I know has $500 to spend on a site, and even if they don’t, they could easily write 20 or 30 articles for other affiliates until they had the money to start their own site.

I believe that unsuccessful affiliates have all the information and resources they need, but they do not execute properly.

A while back Jeremy wrote a great post on execution and I wanted to revisit that from my perspective.

In my opinion it’s very easy to come up with an idea that has the potential to make money. Heck, I’ll throw a simple one out right now:

1. Choose a casino game (Slots, Craps, Blackjack, Video Poker, etc)

2. Buy a domain with the keyword in it (www.slotsinvestigator.com for example)

3. Write one page of content a day about that game and add it to your website

4. Trade links with other webmasters/submit articles to other sites/suck d*ck for crack links

If you followed the above steps, and stuck with it for a year, you absolutely will make money. In fact, you’d probably make pretty good money, and might be in the low 4 figure/month range at the end of the year with a good chance of continued growth.

Ok so once again, if this is so easy, why aren’t more people making more money?

No one sticks to the plan

Everyone has plans for their business. I used to have so many plans I needed notebooks and Word documents and Excel spreadsheets to remember them all. I probably went a month straight where I wrote down more ideas than pages for my sites. However, I was quick to realize that although I had tons of awesome ideas, nothing was actually happening with any of them.

My new outlook is to create a plan, break it down into simple steps/goals, and focus 110% on following the plan.

Last week I decided to map out the rest of 2009 based on this new philosophy. I decided on one major goal for the year, and brainstormed exactly what I need to do to accomplish that goal.

I know precisely what to do on a day-to-day basis to accomplish my goal for the year, and if I stick to the day-to-day plan, I am 100% confident I’ll be making far more money then I ever have before.

So I know where I want to be, and exactly what I need to do to get there - should be no problem right? Well, it all depends if I can stay committed and execute the plan. And right now it’s late at night and I’m in the middle of executing, so I’m out. Later.

Ok like I mentioned a while back, I’m not going to be starting any new poker sites for a long time. I’m extremely excited to become a major player in the casino industry, and the last few weeks I’ve been working on my first real venture into casino affiliating.

The site is VideoPokerBaller.com, and obviously is strictly focused on the video poker niche. As of now it has the first batch of content live, and the site should be indexed soon. My plan for this site is to have high quality content and focus on getting high quality links as opposed to tons of mediocre ones.

Of course if this site works out I plan to do a Randy Ray-esque network of sites focused on the five major casino games. I also have a few general casino sites that I’m revamping and hoping to get established in the next few months or so.

The second part of this post is going to focus on my actual work habits and what works for me. Lately I’ve been working on at least 15 projects at the same time, and I’ve realized that none of these sites are really getting anywhere. I want to start dedicating days if not weeks to single sites and then rotate as I deem necessary. This should help me get sites fully established before I move on to new ones.

In fact, I’m not starting a new websites for at least a month. I’m going to focus strictly on building my video poker site, updating my poker site, and building links for everything. I have dozens of sites right now that I’ve built and haven’t properly finished, so I’m hoping to get all of those wrapped up before I even consider buying another domain.

I want to wrap this up by congratulating by buddy Chuck for getting his first real money player. Nice job “bra.”

One of my favorite tactics for finding free, in content links is to write custom articles for other affiliates. I did a ton of writing for PokerSite.org, and that seemed to really help boost it up in the SERPs.

My favorite things about writing articles for other affiliates include:

• The links are free.
• The links are permanent, as long as the other affiliate doesn’t screw you down the road.
• The links are within the content of the page.
• The links are on pages that directly relate to what your site is about.

If you want to write for other affiliates, here’s a few tips on how to get started:

Post on PAL

My favorite way to get started is to post on PAL stating that I’m writing free articles with one or two backlinks in them. If you’re a new member at PAL, I’d probably make 15-30 quality posts in other threads before you start offering services. Reputation is important here, so I like to have other members chime in and mention that I’ve written for them before, and my work is high quality/fast/professional.

One thing that always seems to help is to have some articles pre-written. There’s something about getting free content instantly that really draws other affiliates in. What I like to do is have a few articles pre-written that are available immediately, and also offer custom writing in case an affiliate needs a special format or topic.

Stick to Solid Sites

If you decide to write for other affiliates, you’ll probably get a lot of requests from affiliates with spammy sites or thin sites who wish to use your content. I recommend skipping these sites, because you’re not going to get much value out of it, and your time is better spent elsewhere. I like to stick to medium-high quality sites because I have no problem writing excellent articles for these guys, so everyone is happy.

Current Example

Right now I’m offering writing services for my PlayersOnly.com Promo Code mini site. I posted a new thread at PAL here, and as it just went up a few minutes ago, I have no replies yet. However, I anticipate that I’ll get these articles out of the door quickly, and will also get a few requests for custom formatted reviews. This should all help increase my SERPs and make me more money.

I’m back at school now, and don’t have anything school related for a while so I’m working hard for the next few weeks. However, I’ve decided I’m done with the poker market for the foreseeable future. I’ve got PokerSite.org doing okay and will continue working on that, but I’m not launching any new poker projects for a long time (minus one exact match I’ve got coming out this week). I really wanna hit casinos hard this year, and now it’s time to get started.

Basically this decision came about because I’m sick of poker player values, and basically just tired of poker in general. I’ve been doing it for like 4 years now and want to get into some other things - I can’t imagine how many poker room reviews I’ve written in the past 48 months. For the rest of this year I’m all about casino and dating. If it goes well, I probably won’t start a new poker site for a long time if ever, and if it doesn’t go well, I’ll re-evaluate at the end of the year.

I’m hoping to move into my new office at school this week if this insurance guy will ever call me back. I’ve been working at Dunkin’ Donuts for the past month or two, and it’s alright but the Internet is a little spotty and I can always focus much better when I’m alone. Hopefully it gets worked out today or tomorrow. If so, Chuck and I will be scouring CraigsList for free furniture to get it set up lol. Oh yeah, check out these real money poker sites.

Schools finally done and I’m off this week for Spring Break. I’m not heading south because I already have CAP coming up in a few weeks, so I’ll be here for most of the week. A few friends and I are possibly heading up to Niagara Falls then Toronto for the USA’s baseball game in the WBC on Saturday.

Business wise, I’m really not sure what my next move is going to be. PokerSite.org is in a pretty good place, and I’ve got a few other smaller projects I’m working on, but I’m re-evaluating my current projects and seeing what I want to put my effort into. I’ve found myself creating sites and forgetting to build enough links to rank them lately, so I need to figure something out there.

I’m still trying to acquire a big ticket casino domain/site, so if I do get that, that’ll be my next thing. We’ll see what happens.

Mini rant here…

I’m trying to acquire some domains today, and made an offer to some guy that owns a domain I was after. I was inquiring about the .com version of the exact match term. Mind you, the .org version just sold for $100 (an absolute steal actually). I was prepared to pay $1,000-$2,000 for the domain.

After asking the guy if he was interested in selling, he told me “how lucky I was because today he’s actually interested in selling and will let it go for $52,000!”

What is with these people? The domain is worth nowhere near $52,000, not even a tenth of that. After I asked him to justify the price, and made my case for why it was not worth anything near that, he replied with:

“I knew I shouldn’t have responded. These emails are all a waste of my time.”

What?! Something is seriously wrong with these people when they have good domains on hand, don’t develop them, and don’t show the slightest interest in selling them for market price either.

I’ve really been trying to improve my time management lately, and have found a few things that have helped. Basically, I’m trying to completely separate work from play. When I’m on the computer doing work, that’s all I do. Here’s what’s helped me get myself sorted out:

Clean Up Your Favorites

If you’re like me and use Firefox, you probably have a ton of favorites/bookmarks at the top of your browser. Since I use these for most of my navigation, probably 90% of my Internet time is spent at sites on my favorites list. Because of this I recently cleaned out my favorites to avoid wasting time.

I deleted Facebook, PAP, CAP, PAL, ESPN, Gmail, Analytics, and all my affiliate program links where I can check stats. Of course I still visit these sites when I’m not working or when I really need to, but when I’m working it’s too easy to get off track by clicking the Facebook bookmark or the PAL bookmark.

E-mail Management

The next thing that’s really helped me out is disregarding emails lol. Seriously, emails are usually a waste of time. Since I have the Gmail desktop tool, I see every email as it comes in at the bottom right of my screen. However, as opposed to dropping what I was doing and replying immediately, I now try to reply to the important ones once or twice a day, and just leave the other ones alone. This really helps me focus on the task at hand.

Make Yourself Unreachable

This one has helped out so much. I used to work at my apartment with my roommate there/friends over. I’d be chatting on AIM, Skype, and possibly GChat. I’d be texting people if not talking to them on my phone. This is all obviously ridiculous, and doesn’t let me get anything done.

Now I work at the Dunkin Donuts near my apartment, either alone or with Chuck, who is also working. When I start work, I log off of AIM (I usually leave Skype up because I only talk to business friends on there) and put my phone aside. I also put on my Bose headphones (wayyyy better than Dre’s headphones ) so I can’t hear the noise around me.

All of this stuff has helped me work much more efficiently and stay focused longer. I’d love to hear your opinions on how to stay focused and on track.

I’ve got a new 30 25 day goal (I leave in 25 days) lined up to get myself back to work. This one is really tough, and I’ll honestly be surprised if I finish it. Either way, I’ll get way more done than if I’d played Call of Duty all month lol. Here it is:

1. Redo 11 pages on my poker site to be more authority and informative.

2. Add 30-ish Spanish translations to my poker site that are being written right now.

3. Write 16 new pages for my poker site.

4. Write 5 new pages for my mini poker site.

5. Get a template coded for my new video poker site.

6. Write 51 pages for my new video poker site.

7. Write daily (25) news posts for my poker site.

Besides the above items, there’s also a bunch of smaller things I need to do but didn’t want to list them.

Right now I’m headed to the library, where I’ll probably lock myself in until I leave for Cancun. Later.