Holidays and January Trips

Hope everyone had a good holiday.

I want to thank Bodog for sending me 3 bottles of wine & CasinoCoins for sending me a Bose portable iPod speaker. 2009 was the first year that I received holiday presents from programs and they will likely get increased exposure because of it. Though in 2008, Aced.com paid for a Las Vegas trip…which was a sick trip and is by far the best thing I have received from an affiliate company.

January Trips

January is a busy month, it started with celebrating New Years in Tahoe. Then January 15-18th I will be in Las Vegas at an annual MLK trip with friends.  On January 25th I will be leaving for Europe and attending the London Affiliate Conference as well as doing some traveling in Europe after the conference. On the flight back from Europe I will be stopping at Washington DC and will spend 3 days there and will be back in Santa Cruz (my home town) on the 7th of Feb.

How DropBox Solves Webmaster Issues

If you aren’t using dropbox or a similar “cloud” type service then you are missing out. I started using dropbox yesterday and have quickly found the usefulness of the product. It will help me stay organized by automatically syncing all my important website files with my computer, laptop and even iphone and will also be a back-up for files I can’t lose.

One of the things I struggle with as an affiliate is staying organized because I don’t just have a work computer in an office. I have a desktop computer, laptop and iphone that at times become my work computer depending on where I am. This means that I have website files spread across my computers and makes being organized almost impossible along with not having files when I need them constantly being an issue.

This is where Dropbox makes life easier, it is a “cloud” hosting service that allows you to store all of your files in a directory that all your computers have access too. Each computer will store a local copy of your  files and if you change or add a file on one of them each of the computers you have using the service will be automatically updated. So if I take my laptop on a trip and work on a website and end up changing some files as well as adding others when I get back my desktop will have all the changes automatically.

Dropbox also allows you to have access to your files when you aren’t on your computer with access on your iPhone. The App was released yesterday and is one of the better apps I have and is free! You can also access your files on a computer that doesn’t have dropbox installed by logging onto the website where your files will also be stored.

Dropbox is also great for backing up important files. I am always paranoid about a hard drive failing so I currently use raid (two hard drives linked that are exact copies of each other) along with an external hard drive that I back up to every now and then (not enough…usually every couple of month). I have been looking for a better solution that is off-site and something I don’t have to think about, with dropbox being automatic and off-site it solves the issues.

Dropbox works with box Mac’s and PC’s which is nice since I use both. So do you need more convincing? Well, dropbox is free for your first 2gb’s. After that they have really reasonable pricing starting at $6.99 for 20gb, $9.99 for 50gb and $19.99 for 100gb.

Dropbox also has other features including being able to share files but I haven’t used it yet but the option is there and no doubt will end up being useful.

I wish this was my product because I can see myself not being able to function properly without it and I have told a couple other people about the service and it basically sells itself once people realize what it does.

Oh also if that’s not enough, they have a viral referral program that allows people to give out their referral link: Dropbox Sign-up and every person you refer gets an extra 250mb of storage along with the person that sent them.

Free SEO Gambling Traffic

There will always be a lot of discussion by affiliates about the percentage of traffic that they convert. I have found real money player conversions (from your site to real money players) has a lot to do with keywords. There are definitely other site factors including calls to action, programs you are promoting, banners used…etc. But in the end, I think if you have the best keywords (online poker, online casino) you will convert more traffic than the most optimized free casino/poker site.

I think most people realize that “free” is a really low converting keyword but there is a lot of traffic for it. So how bad can it really be?

I created a site to target a “free” (casino/poker) site and here are the stats so far:

Clicks: 719

Unique Downloads: 35

Sign-ups: 30

New Depositors: 0

Yep, no conversions…This doesn’t mean that later down the road there won’t be any real money conversions as this is a small sample size of time and players. Though, I can definitely say that “free” keywords aren’t a get rich quick type of keyword. Also, the program that I was sending the traffic through has done really well in the past with converting players so I don’t think it’s the program…Although, I may try sending the traffic to another program to see if I will get better results.

Converting Gambling Traffic – Banners

Many affiliates spend all of their time trying to drive traffic to their site and tend to disregard converting their players. It is one thing to get them to your site but if you can’t convert them the traffic is worthless.

I have a hard time with this and have been working on ways to improve conversions and increase my earnings. I am going to write a series of posts about the changes I have done and the reasons behind them.

Disclaimer: The conclusions I have come up with are due to a small sample size of traffic and may not work for you. The best thing to do is constantly try new techniques to convert your traffic.

250×250 Banner on Poker Splendor

When I designed Poker Splendor I thought a 250×250 banner in a premium spot would drive a fair amount of my homepage traffic.  So, I put a rotating banner script which displayed a 250×250 banner of one of the three best poker rooms from a list I had to the right of the banner. I figured people would likely click it after seeing that it was one of the top poker rooms.

This ended up not being the case and when I added tracking to the area I was surprised to find out people rarely clicked the ad and it was basically a waste of premium space.

Banners	Impressions	Clicks	CTR
	914	12	1.37%
	877	12	1.37%
	799	3	.38%

The click through ratio was barely over 1% when I combined all of the banners stats. In total out of 2,590 I had 27 clicks which meant my CTR was 1.04%.

Why The Banner didn’t work

Banners can be great in the right places but I think at times people disregard them because they have been conditioned to ignore them (even if it is what they are looking for).

A banner on a homepage with lots of information is going to perform badly as people will look for additional information that isn’t a flashing box claiming a huge bonus to a site they have may never heard of.

New Poker Splendor Homepage

I found through looking at my stats that most of my traffic was clicking on the best US poker sites list. So, in my mind, it was a no brainier to expand the best us poker site list and eliminate the banner.

This has definitely helped me drive traffic directly to the poker rooms without having them go to other non-converting parts of my site. Looking at my stats (non-scientifically) I would have to estimate that about 10-15% more of my traffic now goes to the best 3 US poker rooms then before with the banner. My earnings for the rooms also increased after the change.

2009 WSOP Satellites Graphs and Banners

Update (8/5/09): Since the poker sites have stopped running tournaments for the 2009 WSOP the widgets are now blank. I will do this again for the 2010 WSOP Main Event satellite seats.

The biggest promotion that all poker affiliates are pushing (or should be) is the 2009 WSOP Satellites. It is a great way to attract new or even established poker players as many know the stories of Moneymaker and all the past Main Event winners who became millionaires over night.

I have created a couple widgets and banners for seats given away for the 2009 WSOP Satellite Main Event at both Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker.

I am allowing affiliates to use them for a link back on that page or another high quality page on the site (excluding link pages or pages with minimal content).

They are updated every 15 minutes and can easily be inserted into any website since they are iframes.

If you would like to use them send me an email: kdollar (at) gmail.com. I will then email you a text file with all the iframe codes for the graphs and the banners as well as linking options.

All the possible WSOP Main Event graphs:

http://www.pokersatellitestrategy.com/widgets/

All the possible WSOP Main Event banners:

http://www.pokersatellitestrategy.com/widgets/banners/

Giants Opening Night

I went to the San Francisco Giants Opening Night and haven’t gotten around to posting pictures from the game. There was a ceremony before the game for Tim Lincecum who was given his 2008  CY Young Award.

I was able to get tickets in the Lexus Dugout which are seats behind homeplate. It was awesome sitting so close and being able to see the curve and breaking ball in action. Randy Johnson pitched well in the game but ended up losing giving up a homerun to the opposing pitcher.

In front of the Lexus Dugout Sign

Took a picture before the start of the game with my girlfriend Tess.

This is after the game and the stadium was clearing out and we had a chance to take a picture. There were fireworks after which we stayed around to see.

Stock Market Gambling with MGM

I have decided to start looking to invest some of the money that I have made as an affiliate marketer in the stock market. I have always been cautious to do so because I don’t know much about the stock market and I have always felt that if you don’t know why something will go up or down then you have no business investing in it.

I still can’t say I know enough to put all of my money in the market but since the stock market as a whole is down, I figure it can’t hurt to put some money in and see where it takes me. I have been trying to pick companies that historically trade at a much higher price but are down because of the fear of the US economy crumbling and generally are still a sound business.

It is still a gamble since the market can go down further but a quote that I like is “scared money never made money” so that is where I stand and here have been my investments so far.

I decided to buy MGM knowing that casinos make money and historically they trade at around $20 dollars. In 2007 they were up to about $100 dollars per share but that is when Vegas was booming and I wouldn’t expect that to happen anytime soon. Their stock has recently dropped like a rock because of the City Center their 76 acre property on the strip with a price tag of $11 billion dollars, the largest privately financed development in US history. They haven’t finished it and their are concerns that they may  go bankrupt (they still can).

This is the last 5 years for MGM Mirage <- Link to MGM Stock Ticker on Google Finance.

I bought MGM grand on 2/5/2009 for $6.50…This is about the time when all the financial analysts were saying do not buy them and were changing their rating to F. I figured if everyone was selling it was a good time to buy as they are eventually going to bottom out….well that didn’t happen. The graph below shows the stock on the day that I bought it up to today. As you can see the stock kept dropping right after I bought it and at one point was as low as $1.89….I decided to hold on to these shares and just hope that the stock would bounce back (I still have them).

Not to be discouraged, I still felt like MGM had a lot of upside and was going to go up. So like a smart investor gambler I bought a lot more shares at $3.20 and $3.25 on 4/02/09. This time it actually worked out and went up for the next couple days and I decided to sell mid-day on 4/06/09 at $6.15. It worked out and I was able to clear $2.95-$2.90 on each share. The stock ended up closing at $5.50 on 4/06/09, so selling at that time was a good decision.

MGM’s stock kept dropping after 4/6/09 so I felt like I would buy back in. I ended up buying back in at $5.19 on 4/9/09 and still have the stock and will see where it takes me. Currently it is looking pretty good but who knows where this roller coaster they call MGM  stock will go from here.

Free Poker Hand History Replayer/Analyzer

I saw that Bluffware recently went into beta and figured I would give it a try. Bluffware is a free hand history analyzer created by Beanie.  The basic idea behind the site is once you create an account you will be able to post your online poker hand histories. For each hand history posted it creates a youtube type page where you can replay the hand, leave comments as well as rate the hand.

I created an account and got the username Poker.  I am not much of a poker player and didn’t have any saved hand histories to post so I figured I would play at Full Tilt Poker and accumulate a a few. I multi-tabled at the nosebleed blinds of  .25/.50 playing No Limit Hold-em and pretty soon had some hands to post.

It was a little confusing posting the hand history because the Post A Hand button looks more like a header rather then a button. Though, once I got over that hurdle I was able to post hands and it was a smooth process.  When you are uploading a hand history you have the option to make it public or keep it private which is nice feature for people that want to analyze the hand without sharing it with the world.

Overall I thought Bluffware was a good hand history replayer and I think poker players will find it useful. I really like the youtube type page but was confused on how to use the Session Notes that are on each hand history page. I edited it on one hand thinking it was a place for the poster to put commentary on the hand but it then showed up on all of my hands…so I dunno. It was really nice visualizing the hand and having a way to keep my hand histories. When I play poker it’s not to make money so it’s nice having something to brag or in most cases tilt about after a poker session.

Bluffware.com also allows you to embed the hands anywhere including your blog…And with that…lets watch some hand replays. Also, notice how you can expand the table to full screen, it’s a nice touch.

Free WIFI at Las Vegas Strip Hotels

I recently went on a trip to Las Vegas and brought my laptop forgetting that hotels don’t offer free wifi. It is actually pretty ridiculous that you can stay at  most 2-3 stars hotels and get free wireless but you step on the Las Vegas strip and all of the 3-5 star hotels charge $15+.

It is not like I can’t pay the $15 dollars and often times I have but I would expect classy joints like Bellagio and the Wynn to offer complementary wifi. I would even be fine if they charged me a couple dollars more in the room reservation fee. That way they would end up making more in the long run and could hide the fee and claim that its “free” wifi and everyone is happy.

This time I was able to get my email and do a little surfing with my iPhone so I saved my $15 bucks for the next time I need to actually edit some sites or get work done.

I would have to say I hope MGM reads this…just bought some stock (I am a sucker for high risk stock) at $3.20 and $3.25 so hopefully they can finish the city center and start giving “free” wifi without going bankrupt….It’s just that easy.

What Domain Would You Choose for SEO purposes?

Recently, I found a keyword that I wanted to target and decided I would check to see if the domain was available. Of course, the .com was taken but the .net and .org were available.  I don’t mind developing domain names with either of these extensions but since it was a two word keyword, I also searched to see if putting a dash between the keywords was available. The dash .com was also  available. The last domain name option would be to add another keyword to the domain to get the .com.

The basic problem with .net, .org and dash is you you may lose traffic to the .com.

Using a domain with an added  keyword  makes the domain harder to remember and you may not get as much search engine benefit of having the exact keyword match.

I have used all of the above domain buying options except using a dash. So I bought a dash domain name and will report on how it goes.  I may buy a couple more to get a general idea on whether the search engine benefit is as much as you would get as if you used .net/.org counterparts.

I run into this question quite often and haven’t decided which type of domain name I prefer. I usually end up picking one and then the next time I have the problem go with a different option…I figure it can’t hurt changing it up because long term no one knows how google will rank extensions and dash domains but if anyone has any evidence or thoughts on which is best currently…let me know.