My background in Internet marketing looking for assistance

[onlinemediadirect]

Hi there my name is Garry I have been running my own internet marketing company for 7 years now. We tend to work on campaigns for small to medium sized companies in the UK looking for assistance.

I am really keen to get involved in the Gambling industry and affiliated and have a few domains where I can quickly setup wordpress and start building up backlinks.

We are moving away from generic keywords and just focusing on long tail phrases for seo these days. I wanted to get advice on making affiliate campaigns work.

Banners in my experience generate low CTR and I am really calling out for someone with more experience in the gambling sector to guide me ? Perhaps someone who works for an affiliate company can help guide me in the right direction on targeting big players.

In for the long haul as I know this will probably take a few years before I start seeing decent returns.

Years of experience , hungry and looking to work hard.

 

[Guard Dog]

Working hard is definitely the key. I am fairly confident nobody is going to give you the key to targeting big players, however, there should be some folks here who can let you know whether or not to use banners.

I find banners work well if placed properly. Those sites with 50 banners on them do not work well and drive away customers, but the ones with a review and a banner that corresponds to the review seem to do ok. I tend to use both 'play here' type links as well as banners.

 

[Online18Casino]

As GD said 'banners work well if placed properly'. I use very few banners on my sites, I mostly use the logo for the casino I'm promoting and links such as 'play here / visit site'. I think logos look less spamy in general.

To me, banners say 'I'm selling something' where links say 'I'm helping you find what your looking for'.

No one wants a small no name website to market to them.. But if you make the experience more like, hey buddy, this is my hobby also, here is where I play. You will get a better CTR.

And for most successful sites I think its just that, a hobby that turned into a business.

 

[roey]

And for most successful sites I think its just that, a hobby that turned into a business.

Hope so.

(ignore whats in these brackets i need more words to post)

 

[Morganzolar]

I ended up taking almost all banners off my site, I know loads of people who say the header banner is a massive converter (and affiliate sites will barter / pay for the privilege of being there) but I just wasn't getting clickthroughs.

I started getting clickthroughs and conversions when I wrote articles with compelling links (I don't get much traffic through my homepage, it's almost all through news articles / blog posts). I've heard nothing but good things about Social Media, which I really suck at - I've tried automating post/page publishing with my twitter / facebook feed (because I can't get access to Social Networking sites from my work) but I'm not seeing any benefit!

After trying several SEO packages and ranking techniques (which I’m sure with your experience you know more about than me) which didn’t make any noticeable difference I just banned myself from browsing forums, marketing websites and affiliate stats for a couple of hours each day, and just focused on creating more and more content – and it’s paid off!

I’m sure you’re after a more experienced AGD members advice – but here’s what I’ve found to have the biggest effect on my affiliate income:

• Seeing what 'brands' established sites are promoting in their header banner / #1 ranking spot, if they’re sending the majority of their traffic to a casino you can be pretty confident they’re converting.
• Make the content funny/easy to read – I know this is back to basics but I used to write ‘robotic and mathematic’ poker articles which sent me to sleep as a proof read them! By writing in a ‘story-like’ fashion clickthrough rates skyrocketed, therefore profits increased \o/
• Simple, modern designs seem to work best – this is next on my ‘to do list’ as my site looks awful! Speaking to other guys who made the investment of a designer shows that it increases profits substantially.
• Lastly - get personal with your readers! I didn't do this until I went to Affiliate Bible, where you get instant replies to E-mails, comment conversations and an interactive Twitter chat!

Give me a shout if you’ve got any questions, with 7 years of internet experience you’ll probably be getting a message of me shortly! <3

MZ

 

[Guard Dog]

That was an extremely informative answer Some very good nuggets of information. The most interesting is... 'Make the content funny/easy to read'.

 

[roey]

I know loads of people who say the header banner is a massive converter (and affiliate sites will barter / pay for the privilege of being there) but I just wasn't getting clickthroughs.

Im a newbie and the header banners work well for me, just make it a GOOD one.