Poker sites - what converts?

Hey,
Do you have much experience in any of the things you mentioned?
I just ask because poker is ridiculously competitive, with very big players who drop big money to stay on top. I had a rake back site and got nowhere fast a few years ago.
You mentioned membership sites- I used to be a member of a few back when I played for reasonable money and the only reason I was a member was because of the famous and successful players who ran them.

I'm not trying to piss on you're bonfire dude - you may be a IM, poker playing God for all I know

I'm not sure this is the best answer or not, but.....

I play poker somewhat professionally (more live poker than online, however), but I would guess that promoting any sites other than FTP and PokerStars would not be very proitable.

As far as the products on CB, I bet they're all garbage and wastes of money. Maybe Hellmuth's WSOP training guide would be a decent one. But really, there's no point in buying poker training eBooks/software. There's too many free resources online and most people know that. Either that or you can just go to the library and check out some of the great poker strategy books. I suppose I'm not an expert with affiliate marketing, but I do know that I never paid a PENNY to learn how to play poker (unless you count the thousands of dollars I lost my first year of playing cards!).

You can't learn advanced poker strategy from a book. You can only learn the basics. And the basics can be taught online for free. There's thousands of sites teaching you everything from understanding pot odds to hand selection, etc...

You can create a poker strategy site (kinda like I'm trying to do once I get more time to spend on it) and then promote PStars and FTP, but the competition is pretty brutal. There's some keywords you can target, but there's probably 5,000 similar types of sites. For me, I'm not really trying to make much money off of mine. I just love poker and love to teach people how to play, so it's more for fun and to learn affiliate marketing at the same time. If I never make a penny off the site, I won't care.

I got to thinking.....

Why not promote things like Sharkscope.com and other player tracking software sites? I'm sure they have affiliate programs. I would think those would be more beneficial. I use Sharkscope to look players up all the time. I also use PokerTracker software to analyze my own play and see where I've made mistakes.

Instead of promoting only the sites, focusing more on valuable online tools for players would probably be less competitive. Could be wrong, however.

I haven't been able to make anything off of my poker sites and I am probably just going to sell the domain names pretty soon. I was able to get a couple of really good keyword domain names a couple of years ago. The WSOP is coming up in a couple of months which seems like a great time to sell them.

Dennis

I tried a poker site last year and the only time it started making money was when I promoted pokerstars. If you're going to do it, be ready for some hard months.

when you sign up as an affiliate for a poker site you generally get special bonuses to offer your players, these are what you really need to concentrate on. If you want people to sign up through your link you need to make them believe that your link is special, you need them to think that by signing up through you they get a specail reward that most players don't.

I know there is a lot of competition in poker as it's worth so much, billions in fact, However it doesn't matter how much money these people throw at their sites, if you offer something unique you will recieve the rewards you are looking for.

Just so you know, you can't have Adsense on sites that promote playing poker online.

Google sent me emails to remove the Adsense from my poker sites.

I have 2 poker websites ( one caters ot online play the other is for live play) and 1 blackjack website. These sites sell ebooks on how to improve your game.

I'll talk about one of the sites that deals with the online poker ebook.

The online poker ebook site sells a $9.95 ebook and it makes about $200 a month on autopilot as I do nothing in support of it. What it has going for it is the fact that it ranks on the first page of Google for several poker terms which is where the traffic originates from.

I could do much better with this site but I don't have an opt-in/squeeze page page built for it, the web copy is pretty poor, I don't offer anything else for sale on the download/thank you page and I don't have affiliate links to FPT or Pokrstars within the content of the ebook------> Pathetic I know!!

I have this site earmarked to sell which is why I haven't worked on it and the fact that I'm trying to get the blackjack site up and running on autopilot.

I believe that you can do better with products that enhance a player's ability to remain focused at the table or online.

There are hundreds of strategy books but I see very few sites that offer something similar to programming the player's mind to get into the zone and then stay in the zone. I know of one product like that and last time I checked it did have an affiliate program.

That's the path I would take because very little competition and let's be honest who doesn't want to improve their ability to win at poker.

Respectfully,
Tim

When I see an overweight person at the poker table, I will automatically assume they are lousy at poker. It may be a stereotype, but I'm right 99% of the time. That's because being in good physical condition translates into being mentally tough - which is required for poker.

@KEN --- i think the advice that the warriors have given you is helpful but you might get better help asking the same question in a forum that is specifically catering to the Poker niche.

Not mentioning names as I am not sure if it would get me in trouble or not but I currently supply Poker and Bingo Content to clients on this forum and am certain you will get a bigger push in the direction you wish to travel.

Again I just wanted to be clear that you will get more help there simply because there are a lot more people who play and run poker websites out there than there are here...dont mean to offend anyone..hope it helps...

I've had a poker site for about three years. It started as nothing more than a labor of love but I've made some good contacts and a couple of friends through doing it.

What everyone says about the competition is pretty much spot on in my experience. If I had put as much effort into an IM site as I did my poker site I would probably be a bit annoyed by the returns, but for me I enjoy writing about it so I wasn't really focused on a profit.

Having said all that, it still makes me some decent money and I've barely touched it for months (going to Vegas soon, so that will probably change).

For me, the following have not converted well:

- Rakeback. Used to be good, seems a bit like trying to draw blood from a stone now.

- Clickbank products. Most of them suck and are overpriced and poker players generally seem better at spotting bs.

What has converted:

- Advertising. I have a sitewide index of my favourite sites with logo's and short descriptions. When I started getting some decent traffic I did affiliate links for the top two deliberately left the rest unlinked. Kid you not, the sites with the exception of those first two have contacted me and now pay advertising for the site wide text links.

- Poker sites. Put a FTP commercial or Pokerstars banner above the fold, you'll get conversions.

- Coaching programs. These don't convert as well, but money can still be made. I find doing detailed reviews is the best way. Doing a video review seems to convert well, but if you're doing it to make the point that you really do have a membership to the site, just be sure to respect the sites copyright and not reproduce any of their content through your vid.

- Poker tools. This is something players seem most happy to spend money on. The problem I found is a lot of them have quirky affiliate programs, but you can work around it. Seems like every man and his dog uses pokertracker or some sort of HUD software these days.

Good luck with it all, it's a fun niche.

I'm a poker affiliate now for over a year and have to say it's pretty though to make money. I get loads of traffic (+5K uv's a day on average) but conversion is pretty low. Also be careful with what affiliate program to use, a lot are unreliable..

Oh and I forgot.. I mostly promote online poker sites. Advertising tools, e-books or coaching sites have not worked for me at all.

I would go with Poker Affiliate World, if I were you. I use them and make a very good amount of money. Clickbank products also work well. With clickbank poker guides you just have to pre-sell them and target keywords like "how to play online poker" and then write an article on how to play poker. If you look hard enough you can practically find everything for free online, people still pay regardless.

The poker niche is very profitable and yeah it has competition but so what. Every major niche has competition.

And yeah I really don't know how it works for other niches, since I make 100% of my income from the online gambling niche but if you're expecting to update your site once a month and throw up some poker banner on your site, your conversions will suck. You'll need to provide daily valuable content to your readers or at least 5x a week. And add an opt-in form to build a list. Another thing is you must make your blog or website standout from the other millions of other poker sites. I would think these steps apply to any niche but like I said I only have experience in the gambling niche. Hope this helps, somewhat...

For those who are having difficulty converting good traffic into conversions then please pm me with an email I have a business proposition for you. it involves staking players.

Cheers