A couple days late here on my monthly affiliate goals post, but I was on a bit of vacation during my “spring break” week up until Tuesday, and then got sick when I got home.. probably from all of the alcohol and shitty food I ate all weekend.  I will start with a recap of my February goals and then post up my March goals below.

FEBRUARY AFFILIATE GOALS RECAP:

Publish a bunch of Super Bowl articles on The Sports Geek and work on Super Bowl site – I ended up getting like 20 articles posted on The Geek for the Super Bowl which gave my record traffic numbers (like 4x any other day).  I went over what I did with my Super Bowl site in another post here in February.  This goal was completed for sure.

3 Sites to launch (sports betting related) – The one site I had planned to launch and wanted to become a money maker hasn’t been launched yet, but I did manage to get a few sites launched (some not sports betting related).  I don’t mind delaying the launch of the other site because it isn’t really time sensitive like a lot of sports sites.

Create better bonus codes – I got this done at a couple rooms, but still should get it done for every room.  I created some nicer bonus code type images in February which may help conversions a little bit (learning new things on photoshop everyday).

Replace PokerStars with a room that will actually make me money – I got this done on my main site, and it feels good.  Slowly over time I will be taking them down from all my other sites as well.

Invest $1000 into my casino site – Done, and a little more.

Earn $10k affiliate revenue – Woooo got er done by a hair, first time ever so it felt good (was really really close a couple months ago).  I had a shit load of expenses though, but that should pay off in the future.

Other stuff I did in February – I sold a couple sites, put up a couple mini sites, spent a lot on making my sites look nicer, started a fun March Madness Predictions project which I hope can make some money, bought domains (I think I became an addict now), ordered a couple templates for new sites to be launched.

MARCH 2010 AFFILIATE GOALS:

• Focus a lot of time on my March Madness site and try to make it earn some $$$
• Get my MLB and UFC sites going
• Invest $2000 into my sites
• Work on my Poker Bonus site some more
• Earn $10k affiliate revenue

My personal goals include getting back into the gym after a week off, make sure I keep up in school except for days when the March Madness is on , figure out if I can make it down to Panama City beach Florida where my mom and her husband have a condo rented out at the end of the month

Hope everyone had a good February, and lets get er done in March!

Something I have personally came to realize is that I am missing out on a lot of money over the long run when I have a site sitting on a very ugly template or design.  A lot of visitors probably look at some of my sites out there and leave almost immediately because of the unprofessional look to the site.

Although the actual content on the site is most important, giving the visitor a good first impression can gain trust, and in the end convert more visitors for an increase in money in your pockets.

Here is a guest post from Eduardo or Eyenod from the PAL forums about how having a quality design can lead to more money in your pockets. He recently just completed another beautiful design for my March Madness Predictions site that I am blogging about over at CAL.

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Quality graphic design comes hand-in-hand with a solid backbone of intentions and perceptions designed to affect viewers psychologically.  First off we deal with an impression. Imagine that a famous celebrity arrived at a luxurious award gala wearing torn jeans, flip flops and a dirty shirt, and didn’t show any signs of combing their hair whatsoever.

Not so good right?

They may be thinking, “But I wanted to be cool” or “I thought it would be my style.” However, it is too late for that, as the audience has already formed its first impression.

The idea behind quality graphic design is to give viewers not only a fantastic first impression, but also to capture their curiosity to learn more about you and your brand.

Color selection, shapes, and styles are just some of the ingredients involved in a design. A good graphic designer will take these elements and combine them into a proven formula that is guaranteed to work. This formula can mean the difference between a profitable website and an instant disaster.

What about templates? Those are pretty right?

Yes, they are. Templates are pretty but they are limited to a target market.  Also, they weren’t designed specifically for your name and your brand. Some people with a good eye can get away with a premade template that seems to flatter their logo or image, but a well developed website will always deliver much more. Why? Very simply, the fully customized website is made to order. It fits your needs and most importantly it fits exactly what your viewers are after. Your image and your brand have left a template behind and are now connecting with potential clients.

Pre-made templates can make an impression, but the design never really sparks the visitor’s interest. Good design creates a memory. It sticks to your brain like gum to your hair. It will never leave, and each time you associate something with it, it will stick even more.

Affiliate marketing is the industry that benefits the most from high quality design. All the support from an experienced designer takes a huge load off your back. A seasoned designer will understand which layouts, table designs, promotional material, and color selection will increase your sales, your traffic, and your leads.

Of course, you can always try and save money by doing it yourself. You could consult a tutorial or instructional video to learn the basics of graphic design. When you are done, your site will look fantastic to your eyes, but remember that our famous celebrity going to the gala event also thought he was appropriately dressed.

Trust your designer. He will lead you to success. Guide your designer. Share your opinions and preferences and let him interpret them for you. Feedback is the best thing you can give your graphic artist. It not only feeds his hunger for improvement, but it also develops your project.

How do you know if the design is good?

Deciding is rather subjective, but your best guide is your own instincts. Ask yourself these key questions:

Is the concept visually appealing? Is everything clean and properly organized? Does the content flow? Is it easy to read? Do you want to stay on the site and keep reading?

At the end of the day you have choices. You can be the ratty dressed celeb, you can wear a consignment store outfit that kind of fits, or you can don a tuxedo tailored to your needs and become the sensation of the event.

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Thanks for the post Eduardo.

Thought I would give a quick update with what I am up to these days.

In my last post I talked about my Super Bowl site and wanted to give a quick update about that.  Overall I didn’t get as much traffic as I would have liked, but it was a great experiment and I got some sports betting sign ups from it.  Here is my Super Bowl Site Review recap blog post at PAL.

I also talked about how I was getting a mini site up focused on betting on the Winter Olympics.  I fixed it up similar to the Super Bowl site and have gotten only a small amount of visitors so far but have a couple sign ups.  I am actually working on the site with a friend who is trying to get into affiliating, so I had him do the content and I did the website stuff and SEO, and we’re splitting profits 50/50.  The site wasn’t as big as I had hoped when I bought the domain back a couple months ago but oh well I have a ton on my plate right now.

The last couple days I’ve been working hard on a  new site.  I actually started a blog series at CAL where I’m explaining step by step how I go abouts creating a new site.  Here is the first post on Creating a Site – Research and Planning. Since that blog post I have got my template back and have been putting some content on it.  My next post will come within the next few days.  The template I got for the site is probably my nicest template I have ever used, which has motivated me like crazy… I cranked out a bunch of work this weekend and didn’t even get into the alcohol at night so I could work the next day .  I might ask Eduardo from Eyenod to make a guest post here about the importance of a nice looking template, something that I need to focus on more because I have some ugly ass sites out there.

So next week I will basically just be working on my new site, making a couple oylmpic betting posts on my sports news blog, and possibly doing a few touch ups to other small sites that are starting to get traffic.  I have like 2 or 3 more domains that I want to get going soon too because I hate seeing good domains sitting around.  Check back soon.

This weekend is SUPERBOWL WEEKEND

Superbowl weekend should be pretty good to me this weekend for a couple reasons… firstly I love football and love watching the Superbowl, we will having a little Superbowl party at our house which equals beer and some great food, and also Superbowl is the biggest sports betting event in North America.  Since I have been building up a small base of sports bettors under me this football season I hope to see some good action on the big game!

I picked up a solid domain a couple weekends ago  which was focused on the superbowl niche – Bet on Superbowl.  I ended up getting some pages up on the default wordpress theme and getting some links to it.  I started to see some visitors trickle in the past few days and thought “shit the site will probably convert like crap since I haven’t focused on it much”.

I decided it would be cool to get some input from PAL members on the site for conversions, hoping a couple people would pitch in with a couple tips.  After making the post the amount of feedback I got back absolutely amazing.. it goes to show what a great resource PAL is for affiliates – check out the Superbowl Site Review thread.

I then went and ahead and started making some big changes.  I put the site on a new template, got a sick superbowl header made from Eduardo, fixed up the content, put up a newsletter thingy, added some pages, and even found out how to put a comment script in a static site thanks to JohnH.

The site looks 1000x and even more importantly will convert 1000x better.  I may not have done enough SEO work this year to get a huge amoutn of traffic, but I am expecting some decent traffic and conversions and then I want to hit it HARD next superbowl.

I am going to do the same thing for my Bet on Winter Olympics site (which I’m working with a friend on) and make a blog post probably at PAL with the before and after.

I will report back on how the Superbowl site does next week sometime, enjoy the game

Am I actually making a monthly goal post on the first of the month?  Seems hard to remember to do but I finally got it done (helps being a Monday).  I will start off by going over my January Goals that I posted near the start of January.

JANUARY AFFILIATE GOALS RECAP:

Get 5 pages up on my Winter Olympics Betting site – Sort of.  I put up 5 pages spread across my two domains (one I had thought was penalized or something strange, but it ended up jsut taking a really long time to get indexed for some reason).

Put up 4 new mini sites – Did this, still need to work on them some more before I drop a link to them.

Create new bonus codes – I think I got this done for only one room.  Will have to get this done this month as it might be costing me a few hundred dollars a month.

Finish up three pages on NBA site – I got two done and will probably do the third this week because I forgot about it.

Re-invest $1000 into my sites – I invested just over $1200 in ads, templates and a bit of content.

Earn $10,000 affiliate revenue – Not quite, but not too far off… maybe would have if PokerStars didn’t change their CPA requirements (complete bullshit but I may have to make a whole post about it)

Personal January Goals:

Workout 5 times a week and eat healthy – Worked out 5 times per week almost every week, overall felt pretty good in the gym.  I didn’t eat as healthy as I would have liked… seems for everyday I drink I have two bad days of eating because I like ordering pizza when hungover haha.

Wake up at 9am consistently – Did pretty good at this.  I am starting to get used to getting into bed before midnight and waking up earlier then used to.

FEBRUARY 2010 AFFILIATE GOALS:

• Publish a bunch of superbowl articles on The Sports Geek this week, plus work on my Bet on Superbowl 44 website
• 3 Sites to launch this month (sports betting related – one which I want to be a big money maker for me)
• Create those bonus codes I talked about last month
• Replace high exposure of PokerStars to another US accepting poker room (visit PAL to read about the new CPA requirements for their poor $75 CPA)
• Invest $1000 into one of my casino sites
• Earn $10,000 affiliate revenue (C’mon Son I need this!… hopefully I get some big superbowl bettors)

For personal goals I want to continue to working out 5 times per week.  I am also starting a bit of a “cleanse” from now (Monday) until superbowl Sunday where I am trying to eat extremely healthy… read something about how you’re supposed to do it once per year.  And I want to make sure I don’t donk off too much money sports betting this month.

Hope everyone had a good January, and lets work hard in February!

In my blog post at the end of December I talked about a little mini site experiment I was running.  Check out the post I linked to for the full details, but basically I tried creating a mini site for the BCS National Championship Game (college football) to attract sports bettors and get them to sign up at under me.

The terms I was targeting with the mini site were “BCS Odds” and “BCS Championship Odds”. I ended up getting ranked around 2nd-4th for “BCS Odds” in google, and just a little lower for the other term.  Initially I was thinking that I would receive well over 1000 visitors on the day of the game, and maybe like 3000+ visitors in total (just a guesstimation on my part).  I estimated that with that many visitors I could maybe expect 3-6 new sign ups that would be betting on the game.

The site didn’t do nearly what I expected, and I guess it kind of failed.  In the month surrounding the BCS game I got only 472 unique visits (mainly North American visitors).  Now the only problem with this experiment is that only 1 of the 3 sportsbooks I was promoting allows you to make individual trackers (so I couldn’t tell where sign ups are coming from on the other 2).  The one with separate tracking was the one I promoted mainly.  I had 65 banner/link clicks and 0 sign ups.  It’s possible I got a sign up at one of the other sportsbooks but it’s probably unlikely because of the differences in exposure.

So I am assuming $0 revenue from the site.  Now there is still an outside chance that one of the 65 people who clicked on my link might sign up with the sportsbook sometime soon and I would get credit.

Was this a complete fail and waste of time? Ahh no not really.. it was only one days work for me, the site has PR1 and can pass value to my other sites, and the BCS is yearly so I have the opportunity to grow the site more and try for a higher ranking to get some signups.

My next blog post will probably be a January recap + February goal post next week…

Unfortunately I head back to school on the 11th of this month, but that does give me a full week to work hard and accomplish a decent amount of work in January.  January is a pretty big month for my sports betting sites with the NFL playoffs around the corner.  I am hoping to get a couple new sites up and work on the ones I recently put up.  Here is what I hope to accomplish in January 2010:

• Get 5 new pages up on my Winter Olympics Betting site
• Put up 4 new mini sites (will release what they are once I get them up)
• Create new bonus codes for some poker rooms (I have some stupid ones that probably don’t convert well)
• Finish up the three pages on my NBA Predictions site
• Re-invest $1000 into my sites
• Earn $10,000 revenue

Other personal goals I have going on includes working out 5 times a week + eating healthy, consistently wake up at 9am or earlier to get used to my horrible school schedule of 8am classes, and put aside money for a trip on my spring break at the end of February.

Lets get off to a great start for a big year in 2010!