Am I Mad? Entering the affiliate industry in 2021

[nwalker]

Sounds like how I started.

I got made redundant, had 12 months of money in the bank and someone said I ought to give this Affiliate thing a go.

That was 7 years ago, and I have been full time since then.

I did partner with an existing affiliate and did a JV where I was able to learn the ropes. We sold that site after two years.

I had started my own alongside the JV, so when we sold I dedicated myself to that.

I've done the English speaking thing, on a .com site and do get traffic/players from English speaking countries (and non, which I'm now thinking about translating content for).

I chose a niche and went deep, so I'd don't get a massive amount of traffic, but what I do get is targetted and converts well.

I outperform the big sites for most niche related terms because they can't get the depth I go into, and Google likes the authority I have built up.

I definitely wouldn't do a general site - there are thousands of them and they can't all possibly rank. A casino review site has been done to death. Bonus Sites likewise. If I was doing casino I'd probably concentrate on just one slot provider or just one slot game or one slot type or one slot bonus round type, and produce content that is better than anyone else.

Make sure the site you build flies on Mobile and Desktop - lots of sites don't and that is a ranking factor.

Understand and learn about what impacts speed and make sure you produce content that is optimised. Loads of sites are full of big fat images, css etc that just slow things down - mine included. It's this type of technical debt that is hard and expensive to fix. You have the advantage of not having that - so use it. Make sure you test the themes before you buy.

Stick with it, it will take months. Don't wait to get your site up. Create a home page, publish it and then add content regularly - don't wait for the site to be complete. Just get on and do it. Then you'll start to create content that starts to rank, you'll get bits of traffic and the rest is a snowball effect. As for aff progs, don't worry about them to begin with. Content and traffic is your first goal.

 

[AffTea]

I think the important is to determine how you're going to attract your visitors and in what geo's. And also, to understand very well who you are competing against.

Good luck!

+1

Find a niche in specific language and vertical. Create truly valuable content for that user. Study something about SEO and content every day.

Put together a basic plan for your web site before you start building it and before you try to find a domain name. You need to do research
on what players are interested in, decide exactly what you will be focusing on, figure out the keywords that you'll be focusing on, and
then organize the layout of the web site, what the pages will be about, what the URLs for those pages will be, how you will structure
all of this on to your web site to make it easy for players to navigate, and how you will advertise the casinos on those webpages.

There is a lot that goes into a successful web site. If you have a passion for this industry, you are willing to embrace the learning curve,
and you will keep pushing forward for months even if you don't see any revenue or traffic.. then their is a good chance of success.

Thank you all, invaluable contributions.

You’re all giving me a lot to think about, thanks a mill

 

[AffTea]

Sounds like how I started.

I got made redundant, had 12 months of money in the bank and someone said I ought to give this Affiliate thing a go.

That was 7 years ago, and I have been full time since then.

I did partner with an existing affiliate and did a JV where I was able to learn the ropes. We sold that site after two years.

I had started my own alongside the JV, so when we sold I dedicated myself to that.

I've done the English speaking thing, on a .com site and do get traffic/players from English speaking countries (and non, which I'm now thinking about translating content for).

I chose a niche and went deep, so I'd don't get a massive amount of traffic, but what I do get is targetted and converts well.

I outperform the big sites for most niche related terms because they can't get the depth I go into, and Google likes the authority I have built up.

I definitely wouldn't do a general site - there are thousands of them and they can't all possibly rank. A casino review site has been done to death. Bonus Sites likewise. If I was doing casino I'd probably concentrate on just one slot provider or just one slot game or one slot type or one slot bonus round type, and produce content that is better than anyone else.

Make sure the site you build flies on Mobile and Desktop - lots of sites don't and that is a ranking factor.

Understand and learn about what impacts speed and make sure you produce content that is optimised. Loads of sites are full of big fat images, css etc that just slow things down - mine included. It's this type of technical debt that is hard and expensive to fix. You have the advantage of not having that - so use it. Make sure you test the themes before you buy.

Stick with it, it will take months. Don't wait to get your site up. Create a home page, publish it and then add content regularly - don't wait for the site to be complete. Just get on and do it. Then you'll start to create content that starts to rank, you'll get bits of traffic and the rest is a snowball effect. As for aff progs, don't worry about them to begin with. Content and traffic is your first goal.

I’m just seeing this tonight so my apologies for not getting back sooner.

First off, congrats to you mate it sounds like you’ve had a lot of hard earned & well deserved success in this business. Thank you so much for the in-depth insight, so many of these posts have given me a real boost and I’m pretty excited to get going now.

I really am looking forward to introducing myself properly and hopefully have a few beers at LAC next year with whoever is attending.

I owe all you guys big time, and appreciate the feedback more than you know. High chance of failure for sure, but I’ll give it a good shot.

Thanks again,
AffTea

 

[Eddie G]

This thread makes me happy. Tons of good advice from some successful affs.

TBH, just based on what you have written in your post I'm already keen on backing you Hunger and hustle is the most important aspect of succeeding.

Your English is more than good enough to write content. You can try to use a tool like Grammarly for the obvious error fixes. You'll need a good SEO tool for keyword research and I would focus on long form content targeting some long tail keywords initially. Trying to SILO up the site for some specific niche. Honestly, the average level of content in iGaming is really bad. Content writers working for corporations have very little motivation to go in-depth and create content from a player POV, so most of the content is scratching the surface/rewrites of other websites.

As you won't have a giant link buying budget initially, you'll need to be creative. You can of course get some testimonial links from aff programs, but also possible to do some trades with other affs. If you're very good at some particular thing you can trade links for X number of work on what they need. You can participate in expiring domain auctions and buy domains that you can then trade against links with other people and there's a million other ways to get moving.

Starting on a brand new domain will be a bit harder, but still not impossible. The good expired domains in iGaming go for a lot of money and are rare, so maybe just starting from scratch is fine too.

Sites seem to reach their "printing" stage around 18-24 months with the most common link building techniques used, so be prepared to not give up after the initial 12 months. However, I'm sure at the very worst you can just ask an investor to buy into what you've built after those 12 months if things aren't looking amazing.

Hope some of this was helpful, happy to help with anything u might need.

 

[AffTea]

This thread makes me happy. Tons of good advice from some successful affs.

TBH, just based on what you have written in your post I'm already keen on backing you Hunger and hustle is the most important aspect of succeeding.

Your English is more than good enough to write content. You can try to use a tool like Grammarly for the obvious error fixes. You'll need a good SEO tool for keyword research and I would focus on long form content targeting some long tail keywords initially. Trying to SILO up the site for some specific niche. Honestly, the average level of content in iGaming is really bad. Content writers working for corporations have very little motivation to go in-depth and create content from a player POV, so most of the content is scratching the surface/rewrites of other websites.

As you won't have a giant link buying budget initially, you'll need to be creative. You can of course get some testimonial links from aff programs, but also possible to do some trades with other affs. If you're very good at some particular thing you can trade links for X number of work on what they need. You can participate in expiring domain auctions and buy domains that you can then trade against links with other people and there's a million other ways to get moving.

Starting on a brand new domain will be a bit harder, but still not impossible. The good expired domains in iGaming go for a lot of money and are rare, so maybe just starting from scratch is fine too.

Sites seem to reach their "printing" stage around 18-24 months with the most common link building techniques used, so be prepared to not give up after the initial 12 months. However, I'm sure at the very worst you can just ask an investor to buy into what you've built after those 12 months if things aren't looking amazing.

Hope some of this was helpful, happy to help with anything u might need.

You took the words right out of my mouth Eddie! I honestly never expected responses as detailed & helpful as these.

I really hope that if I can make a go of it, even if it doesn’t work out, I can pay it forward to a future newbie & share with them the valuable stuff you guys have said here.

I’ve already made changes to the business plan based on the feedback here, and I’m pretty sure I’ve already saved myself a few months of moving in the wrong direction. Invaluable stuff.

Managing expectations has been a huge takeaway in particular. I’ll bear your advice in mind if I make it to 12 months & find myself at a crossroads, an investor at that point might be an option.

Also Eddie, thanks for the offer of help/advice if needed. It’s much appreciated.

AffTea.

 

[JoeyC]

"the only investment I can give the project is my time"

if you have passion and hustle and will not take failure for an answer, you *can* succeed, but you need to be VERY smart about it with only yourself as a resource.

edit: I would actually suggest that your quickest way to glory is to JV with someone who already has a foothold in the niche, but really needs the help of a hustler grinding it out all day to GROW BIG.

^ those are the dream partners i look for every day.

I wouldn’t normally chime in on this but - this is the absolute best advice I have seen... quite literally follow the mantra “If I persist, I WILL succeed..” if you believe it and you can see it, you will achieve it. You WILL win.