This is a guest post from Adam Grunwerg. Several months ago we were in contact and Adam has decided to share with readers of Successful Affiliate his story of being a relatively new online affiliate. Adam runs MosesBet.com, and I’d like to thank him for taking the time to share his story.

My name is Adam, and I’m currently in my last month of university at Manchester UK studying Economics and Politics.

Just a newbie, I’ve been in the online poker affiliate business for about 7-8 months. My story is outlined below.

How I First Got into Poker Affiliating While at University

During summer 2009 after finishing my 2nd year I started applying for internships in investment banking, asset management, finance – the typical “I’m an economics student and need an internship” type of thing. It’s what everyone did, does, and will probably continue to do until bank bonuses are legally unsubscribed by the government, or new laws or raise income tax in the industry to bedlamite proportions (hmm 80%?).

In either case, I failed to get an internship because I was too late in the game. I had an interview in London with RBS but failed – not the interview (I aced that). I failed the maths component.

Thinking what the hell I was going to do with myself that summer, I was speaking to my friend sam who told me he was getting paid to write poker news for a small website (one of these was in fact aintluck.com – now a popular member of PAL’s website). Now, I did enjoy playing poker and was quite experienced at the time, so I too went looking for writing work and earning a little money on the side from being at home.

However after weeks of looking for work, emailing every website I could find in google for “poker news”, I could’t get a response. I was even looking for football writing work, tennis reporting on Wimbledon; I couldn’t find anything.

Finally, in what was probably the 100th email I sent out, I got a reply from someone saying that I could probably get some business at a forum called PAL if I was offering my rate of $10 per 500 words.

I signed up to PAL, got a writing job making about $500/month from one guy – and that was how I ended up in the poker affiliate industry. After a week or so I received more writing work from members of PAL – writing reviews, strategy articles, I even worked for Greg helping him with his Bingo content (though at the time I had literally no idea who he was).

The pinnacle of my success in poker writing was probably represented by the few articles I wrote for uk.pokernews about student poker. The editor was considering marketing more to students, and from my cold-call email for work he got back to me. I wrote a couple articles on student poker which were published on the website.

In total made around $2.5k from writing in the space of just 2 months (only working around 2 hours per day – the best of which was when I made $140 from just 7 hours work in a single day). All this was from the comfort of my own home, whilst playing tennis, golf, and going out with my friends. I was happy, my parents didn’t understand how I was making the money, but nonetheless the coinage was nice, and I had some interesting things on my CV.

Starting My Own Website – MosesBet.com

Towards the end of the holidays (by about September) one of my employers asked why I didn’t start my own poker affiliate site. I literally had no clue where to start, had no knowledge of html, domain purchasing, choosing a server, using CMS or wordpress etc. However, I was encourage to do so by my employer (who consequently I signed up as a sub-affiliate for); and before you know it MosesBet student poker and forum was built!

What was my niche? Student Poker.

Unfortunately this didn’t really work out. I had no knowledge of being an affiliate, didn’t have much guidance, so I just thought student poker would be a good niche to target. I am a student, and I play poker, and so do others. I thought it would be good. I managed to get onto the top spots for “student poker” in google, however I was never making money (Even with traffic of around ~70 users per day).

After reading the lexicon of knowledge form the amazing resource that is PAL, I soon realised I needed to regroup myself, get real, and target a new niche. I looked around and decided to target poker tournament strategy. The birth of MosesBet: MTT Strategy and Tournament Tips was born.

After a few months (by the beginning of January 2010) I had a reasonable collection of MTT articles, with about 25 strategy articles and 10 other pages for finding different online tournaments. At this moment I was still not making any money, however I became educated and soon realised this was because I had no CTAs. Again, my rookie self was still wildly evident, and I was basically sticking up content onto a site that had no direction, meaning or monetizing potential. I knew about poker, but knew nothing about affiliating.

Making Money – Getting Players and Starting to See Figures in my Affiliate Accounts

Traffic ~ 100 Per Day

I had signed up one or two players a month before this, but by March 2010 I had started to really learn how to monetise my site effectively, putting in relevant CTAs here and there, and trying to convert users by directing traffic to my best converting pages. I started learning more about my market, listening to PAL radio shows, reading existing threads in PAL about signups, about how to market online effective. DealerDan’s website and many others were incredible help. I eventually started asking myself how I should be monetising my site better. What were poker tournament players were really looking for?

I started producing pages on the best overlay tournaments, best beginner poker tournaments, the best original games. I began writing reviews of the best tournaments at poker sites, reasons to play there. I was actively targeting each one of the visitors on my site. A new wordpress theme, courtesy of Tom at Flytonic, went a long way to helping me achieve this, and making my amateur newbie website begin to look more professional and attractive to viewers. I prominently displayed recommended tournament poker sites on my site-wide sidebars which inevitably helped pick up players.

So, by this time in March my site, approximately 5-6 months old was starting to get at least 1 sign up per week – they usually deposited. Across Carbon, Full Tilt Poker and Titan I was beginning to pick up players for myself, and as I increased and reproved the content on my site, my conversions increased to perhaps 2-3 signups per week. I wasn’t making a lot (possibly $20/week), but at least my site was converting players, and I was never too stupid to underestimate the value of incremental income i.e. converting players every week will eventually lead to something in the big picture.

Future of MosesBet – Adding a New Section for the Latest Tournament Promotions

Traffic ~ 150 – 200 Per Day

My latest website updates which I just implemented today, involve adding a new tournament promotions/news section for players to find the latest online MTT promotions and events. This will hopefully be a massive converting section for me. I have a big enough tournament strategy section (over 65 MTT strategy articles), and I have enough traffic, but I feel I needed something fresh and more dynamic to add to my site and give players searching specific tournament strategy terms something to stick around for (add-value).

Now, I have MosesBet: The best tournament poker strategy, promotions and reviews.

I want to turn this site into something useful, unique, and value-adding to everyone one of my visitors – not just the beginners. Indeed, this was a mistake I think I made up until this point. I was just a one-way tournament poker strategy site trying to recommend users to poker sites and convert them. However for the 90% of traffic I was getting that already had accounts they were happy with at Full Tilt and Stars, they were clearly a lost opportunity to me.

However, now the visitors on my site can learn strategy, read reviews of the best tournaments, and sign up and view the latest MTT promotions in online poker. Hopefully this new promotions section will even be converting alot of the more experienced players that end up on my site through the serps (90% of traffic).

My goal at the moment is to get 10 signups in a single week. It’s quite a big challenge at the moment for me, but in my opinion, the bigger the dream and the higher your expectations, the more likely you are to really succeed.

Incidentally I should add I have 3 other website generating income since 2010. I am not a full-time affiliate, and I am looking for graduate jobs at the moment, however perhaps one day I will be successful enough in the industry to make a modest income from this work.

This is a guest post by David who has just launched F1 Betting, a new website targeted at the sports betting market.

It’s far to easy to get attached to one idea, way of thinking or website, build it, fall in love with it and then go around thinking it’s perfect. The truth of the matter is though that in reality your site or idea is probably riddled with flaws that you’re unable to recognize. I know my sites aren’t perfect, I’d like to think they look good and navigate well but I sure as hell know there’s always room for improvement.

There’s a process you follow when you build a new site. You plan, you keyword research, you design, you write your content or get someone else to, you add the content and then you start link building. I’d be interested to know how many people actually have multiple site reviews in their process. I don’t mean posting on a forum asking for one just so you can get a link either. I’m talking about asking different people with different backgrounds what they think of the site, how they think it navigates, what they think of your design and how interesting they find the content. I bet everyone reading this article has a pretty diverse list of MSN or Skype contacts they could seek feedback from.

Only today I was talking to one of my affiliate mentors on Skype and I showed him a couple of sites I’ve been working on this year. In the space of about 15 minutes he’d made two outstanding suggestions which I’m certain will improve my bounce rate and conversions. He spotted these things straight away and I’ve been looking at them for months. It proved to me that the importance of multiple opinions was paramount. I had been blinded by these two sites, looking at them everyday I’m not surprised it happened but I’m sure it must happen to everyone.

It really doesn’t matter who you get to review your site, in fact the more wider a range of people you can get opinions from the better. Having the opinions of other affiliates is important but having the opinion of real web users who aren’t thinking like affiliates is just, if not more, useful. These are the people who can recognize the flaws in your work instantly.

Everyone in this industry has their own way of doing things, their own opinions on web design, how to link build and where to send their players and you don’t have to get to know many affiliates to realize that their strategies can be worlds apart but still very successful. Something I’ve realized recently is that neither are correct or incorrect and that if I can take the things I feel are best about certain methods and combine them then I’ll have created a successful affiliate business. I would encourage any new affiliates reading this to seek multiple opinions from people they respect and try to use the feedback they get to create something which combines the strength of all of them.

This is a guest post by Simon from Play Poker Online. Simon has been a great friend to me over the past couple of years and has helped me out immensely. Thanks Simon for contributing and continuing to help fellow affiliates out.

PKR was the first room I signed up to as an affiliate and Whenever I log in to my account there, my profile shows me that I’ve officially been a poker affiliate for around two years now. To be honest, I disregard it as I feel that the first 12 months can be written off due to the fact that they were spent learning a whole load of new stuff, un-learning things which I thought I knew and generally making a shit load of mistakes.

It took me almost a year to swallow my pride, admit that I’d messed up and decide to start from scratch again with a new website and a better understanding of the industry.

When Nick asked me to write this post, I initially thought that I’d write a guide around the top 5 mistakes I made as a new affiliate in the hope that it might be useful to the new guys on the forum.

As I started writing though, I got rather carried away with point number one. To such an extent that I decided to make this an article based on the main mistake I made when starting out. If Nick has me back, maybe we’ll come to the other points at a later date.

Anyway, the moral of this post is “Don’t try to do too much.”

Having seen several review requests on PAL recently I know I’m not the first person to come along with a vision of building a website that would be a poker fan’s one stop shop.

A site that would have it all: reviews and bonus information obviously, but on top of that I’d have poker news both from the online world and the real world. There would be a strategy section that people would visit religiously and maybe I’d sign up to the Amazon affiliate program and set up my own book shop on the site too. Hell, if I was going to do all that, why not open a forum too so the world could discuss poker in the finest detail?

People would come from everywhere – with the site doing all that, why would they need to go anywhere else??

Well it was a lovely idea and Who knows, it may have worked … if I had all the time in the world to get people to the site in the first place.

You see, promoting your site properly is a lot of hard work. And when you’ve got so many different areas of the site to push, how can you possibly promote them all effectively?

You can’t.

I’m going to guess that if you’re new to affiliating, then you’re not doing it full time. You’ve probably got a day job and you’re spending a few hours each evening updating your site to earn a bit of extra cash at the end of the month.

If that’s the case, then it’s even more important that you don’t overstretch yourself. Do you know how much work/cash it’s going to take to rank well for keywords such as “poker books”, “poker news”, “poker strategy” and every other section you plan on having on your website? Trust me, if the likes of PokerListings, CardPlayer and PokerNews find it difficult to rank for these terms simultaneously with their marketing budgets, then you have no chance.

Instead, use those precious few hours you get every evening to focus on just one of these areas (and preferably one that’s slightly less competitive if you’re a new affiliate!).

Running a small site effectively is a lot of work and something that I didn’t appreciate when I first started. It’s not just a case of publishing a load of content and waiting for the world to stop by. In fact, that’s only where the work starts. There’s your on site SEO, linkbuilding that needs to be done on a regular basis, analysing of keywords and conversion rates … the list goes on.

Imagine having to do that for four or five of the most competitive niches on the internet. It’s just not going to happen in a couple of hours every evening after work. It is a sure fire way of draining all your motivation and ensuring that you end up packing it all in after six months when you haven’t made any money.

Start small and be patient. We all want to be making money as soon as possible, but you’ll get there a lot quicker if you get the foundations right and build from there. Learn something new each day and ensure that your site is a truly valuable addition to the niche that you’re aiming to promote.

Only then, will it be profitable for you to look at expanding into other niches.

Remember that the poker affiliate industry is not a place where you want to be jack of all trades and master of none. You need to make sure that your websites reflect this.

This is a guest post by Mike Wittmeyer. He is the webmaster of Online Poker Sites and has a wealth of experience in working as an affiliate. Thanks Mike for your contribution.

One of my favorite parts about being an affiliate is that I am truly my own boss. No one tells me when to wake up, when to come to work, or when I can leave work. If I want to take a day, a week, or even a month off, I don’t have to ask for vacation time or file any paper work – I just don’t show up.

Although this sounds amazing (and it definitely is fun), the total lack of structure can make it harder to actually get things done. If I wake up and it looks cold outside, I would much rather sleep for another hour or two than get dressed and trudge through the snow to my office. Of if I’m about to start a big project and a friend calls to go golfing, it is much more fun to go shoot a round (even if I do shoot 100+).

Although I’m certainly not the most productive affiliate out there, I like to think that I’ve sort of figured out how to work for myself and still work. This article will explain a few ideas for doing just that:

Tip #1 – Have Some Sort of Schedule

I know some affiliates are on a strict 9-5-ish schedule, but I don’t think you have to be that rigid to be productive. However, you should have some sort of schedule in place so you at least feel accountable to do a little work every day.

If you always work sporadically and scattered hours, it is too easy to say “eh I’m tired right now, I’ll get to this later tonight” which quickly becomes “eh I’m still tired, it can wait until tomorrow”.

I don’t follow a rigid “schedule” per say, but I try to get in two work sessions per day. Usually one in the morning right when I wake up for three to four hours, then another one after lunch for another three to four hours. I really like getting one session in immediately when I wake up, because if something comes up later I still got some work done instead of laying around all morning.

Now I might wake up at 10 A.M. or 3 P.M., but either way I try to get my two sessions in with a lunch break in the middle.

No matter what time of day you prefer to work, I’d recommend instituting some continuity so you feel obligated to get things done every single day. BTW if you take weekends off that’s your choice – I work pretty much every day unless I’m hungover or out of town.

Tip #2 – Endless AND Daily To-Do Lists

I just posted about this on my blog, but I’ll go into a little more depth now. Everyone and their Mother use to-do lists, but I feel like a lot of people aren’t doing it right. If you have a Word document with 20+ tasks on it, and come in to work and try to knock off a couple of those tasks, I think you can improve your method.

I prefer having two To-Do lists: one Word document that is an “endless” list which I continually add to as things pop up in my head, and one that is a “daily” list which is usually written on a piece of paper.

The endless list is pages long and has dozens if not hundreds of tasks. There is certainly a lot of work to be done on that list, but I know that if I sat down at my computer and read over that to-do list I would feel overwhelmed and probably do nothing.

Instead, the first thing I do in the morning is to open up the endless list and choose five or so tasks that I think I can get done TODAY. I write those tasks on a piece of paper, and decide that those five items are what I’m going to knock off today.

By doing this, I make myself accountable to finish everything on that smaller list. If I just had the big list, I might do two or three things and think I had a good day. However, by writing on the smaller list exactly what I think I can accomplish in one day, I force myself to finish it all or feel guilty.

Tip #3 – Start with the Easy Stuff

This isn’t really about being your own boss, per say, but it is a good tip for general productivity. Once you have your daily to-do list ready to go, I recommend starting with the easiest task. Although some people might think you should do the hardest stuff first, so your day gets easier as it goes on, I don’t think that’s right.

It’s hard to go from sitting in a chair to working at 100% output, so I like to “warm up” with the easiest stuff. For example, if one of the items on your list were to make a call or send an email to someone important, I’d get started with that. After you finish that, you can cross it off and move onto writing a page of content or swapping a link. And from there, you can ramp up to coding or design or whatever the hardest part of your day is going to be.

Hopefully you guys got something out of this article – if not, hit me up and tell me to stop doing guest posts

This is a guest post by David Lenton from PlayLowballPoker.com. Thanks David for sharing your insights with us.

I have two quite definable mindsets as an affiliate. Both share common factors but one has a positive expectation and one a negative expectation. I’m not just talking about expectation in terms of money here either. Let me explain.

Mindset A is a complete slowing down of the body and mind, a lull and kind of numbness. My brain is still actively thinking but there is some kind of mental block in place which prevents me from being productive. I’ll browse forums, read affiliate blogs and generally feel frustrated by the fact I’m not achieving anything and as a result I’m not as happy as I could be. Mindset A is most definitely negative expectation both in terms of potential earnings and potential happiness.

The most natural thing to do now might well be to describe mindset B, but I’m not going to. Instead I’ll focus on what it is you and I both need to do to avoid mindset A.

Mindset A is both a mental and physical lull and as a result of this physical activity is quite often essential when you’re trying to break out. On the days I get out of bed early and am in the gym by 9.30am I’m never ever in mindset A. Coincidence … I don’t think so, going to the gym or taking exercise in the morning forces your body out of a slow paced existence. A cup of coffee, two slices of toast and a cigarette followed by an hour in front of the tele is admittedly a much more appealing option but it has long term negative expectation on both me and my business.

People who say ‘Take breaks while you’re working, all that time you spend looking at a screen can’t be good for you…’ really get on my nerves but sadly they are usually right. Taking breaks during the day, stepping outside and even stopping for lunch all contribute to the development of mindset B. Fatigue is a classic cause of mindset A. Taking a break is like hitting the F5 key on your body and mind especially if you’ve been at your desk for like 3 hours in a row.

Achievable goals are critical for the long term prevention of mindset A. It’s all well and good, I’m guilty of this too, to sit there and say I’m going to write 10 pages of content everyday until I have a 1,000 page website. Lets face it this is a pretty unachievable goal and one that won’t breed positive expectation. You’ll start to get frustrated, it might be one day in it might be 10 days in but you will and you’ll start slow down. Being behind schedule will start to frustrate you and you’ll become less and less productive everyday. It’s pretty easy to avoid this all you need to do is set an achievable goal.

My personal daily content goal is 4 pages, I often do more and occasionally do less but I achieve my goal most days and it makes me feel good. Good about the fact I’m getting done what needs to be done and good about the fact that at the end of the week my website is 20 pages bigger. Some days I’ll finish the fourth article and be like awesome time to watch TV, play poker, slob around or whatever the hell I want to do and the best part is I don’t feel bad about doing it. I’ve achieved my goal for the day this makes me happy now I can go continue being happy for the rest of the day. I’ll wake up happy tomorrow, as a result I’ll get my work done and it’s all aboard the happiness train!

Achievable goals = positive mindset = Positive expectation.

Being happy allows me to avoid mindset A, in fact I don’t think someone can be happy and be in mindset A.

From reading the above, if you could be bothered to read it all, you should pretty much know what mindset B is by now. It’s active, it’s happy and it’s productive. Mindset B is the exact opposite in terms of production to mindset A, if you can avoid mindset A then you’re well on your way to becoming a successful affiliate.