For many people – be they laymen, established offline marketers and webmasters- marketing on the internet is becoming more and more complex- as new methods, technologies and trends appear every day. What may have been considered as effective last year would likely be thought of as a waste of money and resources in 2006. As the internet continues its evolution, so do the methods that are used to effectively market websites. The science of online marketing means that one has to consider not only the traffic numbers to a website today, but also how well the search engines are reacting to it, for tomorrow. This is especially true for poker websites- as on the one hand, the search engines, such as Google, have a quite moralistic slant and won’t allow pay per click ads on sites actively promoting online gaming and on the other, some of the very biggest and most important websites ranked at search engines like Google, are poker-related. So the six million dollar question is- how do you market your poker website?
The following three “get..” marketing steps are amongst the best proven techniques in the current online environment for poker websites:
Get submitting to niche poker directories!
Employing website directories for your marketing efforts is a good idea. By registering your website and its anchor text to niche directories, you basically bring your website to the attention of people who have a specific interest in your website’s subject and content. Also, by submitting your website to directories, you are basically bringing your website to its target audience and not employing “hit and miss” SEO techniques- where you hope your traffic is interested in your website’s subject, but can’t be sure, as the source is so generic in nature.
Get your website reviewed!
Another popular and highly effective marketing method is achieved by submitting your website for review at various review websites. There are many review websites that are available on the internet. There are general interest review sites that will review websites in all types of subjects. There are also review websites that only cater to a particular subject, such as poker-related websites. Getting your website reviewed is a great way of determining how good you have made it. If it receives a great review, then you’re on the right track and you also gain confidence that people will flock to your website. If it did not get a favorable review then you can use the comments to improve your website. The good thing though is that, whether you get a good or bad review, you still get the benefits of reciprocal linking with the reviewing website and carry the page rank from that link, which search engines will favor- it being “relevant”.
Get mentioned in blogs!
Getting your poker website mentioned in blogs has similar benefits to the above two techniques- but is arguably an even more effective way in to creating links and driving traffic. But with blogs, you need to be a little more subtle and long-term than you would with just submitting your site for a review or into a directory. If you just post a random comment, with your website’s url embedded, your comment is more likely than not going to be deleted in the moderation process by the blog’s owner. So you need to connect with other bloggers on a more genuine level by joining their blog community and becoming a trusted and active member. You can be clever and pretend that you are trying to sell your site as a new member and thus protect your link under false pretences- but long-term, if you want to build up goodwill and an active, loyal community for your poker website- you just need to spend time yourself (or find somebody else who is willing) to post on blogs in an engaging and interesting way. This is especially true with a topic like poker, where so many people are so-called “experts” and it incites passion so commonly. If this technique seems the most laborious of the three, it is also the most rewarding in every respect.
By using these three simple and straightforward techniques, you will have gone some way to getting your poker website “out there”. There is always more to do and the goalposts tend to move a great deal- but the benefits that you reap are more than likely to reflect the effort that you put in…
