Online gambling (or gaming as they like to call it) is potentially one of the most lucrative ways of generating cash through affiliate programs online but beware, the guys that run gambling programs are very sharp indeed and they certainly aren’t going to make it easy for you to pocket the hard-earned cash you deserve.

Here are a few things to watch out for when promoting online gaming products and other big-commission, big-money affiliate programs.

1. Negative Carry Over

It is important to realise when promoting an online casino that your players can win as well as lose. When a player wins, your rev-share account will show a negative balance.

“Negative carry over” is the process by which the casino affiliate program will carry this negative balance into your next month’s stats thus seriously impeding your earning potential.  A good affiliate program will clear a negative balance at the end of each month. Before I promote a new casino affiliate program, I always request in writing that there is “No negative carry over from month to month”.

2. Bundled Casinos

Many online-gambling affiliate networks operate multiple casino brands under the same affiliate program. You are given one log-in for the affiliate tracking in which you can manage these multiple brands. The key here is that each casino brand should be treated as a separate entity. I.E. The brands should NOT be bundled. The primary reason for this is to avoid a negative balance on one brand affecting a positive balance in another.

E.G. Casino A might have a negative balance of -£100 and casino B might have a positive balance of £80. In a bundled arrangement, the negative balance on Casino A would wipe out your positive balance on Casino B and your commission would be zero. In a non-bundled arrangement, Casino A would not affect your balance on Casino B, so your total casino commission would be £80.

3. Unique Players

If you have been promoting online casinos for some time you will have heard the phrase “First Time Depositor (FTD)” or “Real Money Player (RMP)” but rarely do you hear the word “Unique” in front of these phrases.  99% of the time you will be only be paid on unique players so it is well worth understanding what “Unique” actually means in the world of online gambling and what exactly constitutes a unique player?

Most online casinos are run by large online gaming groups who, over time have accrued very large databases. When you consider that these casino groups often have multiple brands, which cross market to each other too, then you begin to see why the definition of “Unique Player” is so important. The problem is this:

If the casino operator only pays on players that have never appeared on any of their databases, even in a play-money capacity then the likelihood is that you will send that casino traffic, which will convert into actual depositors, but these players will never be attributed to you as they are “duplicated players“. In fact, you will probably never even know that these players have deposited as they wouldn’t count as a unique player. If your conversions are very low could this be the reason?

Many casino operators however, will pay on a player that exists on its databases, assuming that the player has never deposited before.

The key here is to ascertain exactly what the criteria is for a unique player as all casino affiliate programs are different.

4. Net versus Gross

Do you sign up to an online casino affiliate program which offers you 35% of net win or one which offers you 25% of gross win? Never simply assume that a higher net figure is best. When choosing to promote a new casino affiliate program, you need to find out exactly what constitutes “net”. I always make it a point to test every affiliate program I sign up to by depositing and wagering real cash. If your affiliate account doesn’t display the amount you expect after wagering your own cash, there is a very good chance that you are not getting the correct revenue which is owed to you.

5.Make sure you get paid

Needless to say, online casinos have the potential to earn vast amounts of cash and though most casino operators are above board, there are operators out there who will gladly take your traffic, promise the earth and then fail to pay up. The key is spotting these crooks before you inadvertently start promoting them. Here is a simple checklist to avoid getting ripped off.

• Where is the casino licensed? The general rule is if it is licensed in Europe (in a white site), you are fine. If it is licensed in Curacao or other fancy far off destinations, then beware.
• Who owns the casino? If the casino is publicly quoted, it is likely to be honest (though might still adopt some of the tricks mentioned earlier in this article). There are also plenty of good privately owned online casinos – our advice is to ensure they have been around for more than 3 years before you work with them.
• How long has the casino been around? Online Casinos are notoriously expensive to set up. It is a sad but true fact that most new casino groups are under-funded and many sink into the dust after a year or two.
• Are the casinos members of any independent auditors such as ECOGRA? If so, it is likely that the casino has been through strict vetting procedures and thus is very likely to be solvent AND fair.

6. Which casino will earn me more?

All casinos are not built equal. One online casino might have great branding but very poor casino software. Another casino might have what you consider to be poor branding, but a very strong casino product. A further online casino might have what you consider to be strong branding and a strong product but in actual fact is just one of a hundred sites on a network which all look and feel the same. Here are a few tips to choosing the right casino to promote.

• Software – The best casinos to promote are powered by multiple gaming software suppliers. In the old days the big online gambling software providers (Microgaming, Playtech etc) would only sign exclusive deals with gaming operators, but these days they are more lenient. The more casino games (slots, table games, scratch cards) that a casino offers, the better.
• Ensure that the casino you promote has a top class loyalty department, VIP programme and great customer support.
• Ensure that the casino doesn’t bonus too highly. Large deposit bonuses, though attractive to players, eat into your affiliate revenue. If you are the kind of affiliate that targets “Free players” in the hope that they turn into real money players, then you definitely need to watch out for bonuses which are too high.

Summary

Promoting casinos, bingo rooms and Forex is a competitive but potentially very lucrative business. Top affiliates can earn in excess of millions of dollars a year and even small affiliates need just one good player to start making some serious cash. If you send a Casino a few players per week, who knows…,one of them might be a whale.

Be careful though. Do you research on affiliate programs and check the casino operator’s terms and conditions thoroughly before entering into an affiliate agreement.

This article has been written by Dr Content who are experts in web content creation.

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Never before has Search Engine Optimisation been so important. The big money online industries; Gambling, Pornography and Dating have been optimising their websites for over a decade. Over the last few years however, SEO has become a necessity for any and every business who wishes to maintain an online presence and actively grow their customer-base online.

Yet for the majority of companies, SEO is still the new kid on the block. According to the latest Google figures, in 2010 an estimated $20 Billion was spent on PPC (Pay per Click) marketing worldwide and only $2 Billion on Search Engine Optimisation and yet…only 15% of all the clicks though Google came from PPC.  An overwhelming 85% of clicks came from consumers searching organically on Google and rest assured – the companies whose websites are receiving those clicks are the companies that appear towards the top of Google. Search Engine Optimisation is cheaper than PPC and yields far greater results.

Can my website benefit from SEO?

If you are nowhere near the top of the Search Engines yet, don’t despair – with well written web content as part of a good Search Engine Optimisation strategy, Dr Content can help your website climb the rankings. The process takes months (not years) but very quickly we will get your site ranking on the first few pages of the SERPs (Search Engine Result’s Pages) for your chosen Keywords. Once we have achieved this, we will concentrate on optimising your site further. Our goal is to get your website appearing in the top five results on the first page of the search engines – this is when the real traffic starts to roll in. None of this can be achieved however without clear, concise, compelling, unique web content.

If any of the following points apply to you, then you need to start optimising your site:

• Your website seems to be slipping down the Search Engine Rankings – it is likely that your competitors are optimising their sites and displacing your position. They are rising up the rankings. You are staying still.
• You are generating business but you know you could generate more if you were higher up the SERPs.
• When you type your TLD (or exact words that constitute your domain) into a search engine and you don’t appear top of the list (or at the very least in the top three).
• Your PPC (Pay per Click) costs are escalating and becoming unsustainable – PPC costs will continue to rise as websites continue to spring up, competing on YOUR keyword. The prices are driven up and invariably by the time new companies realise that they have been paying over the odds in order to beat your bid, there is a new pretender to the throne who will price you out of the market again. The current bid per click for the search term “Casino” on Google frequently rises above £45 in the UK alone.

Whether you just need web content or a full Search Engine Optimisation campaign, Dr Content will help you harness the true potential of the World Wide Web. Contact Dr Content here.

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Search Engine Optimisation versus Search Engine Optimization

Perhaps because most of the world’s spell-checkers operate in US English, it is very tempting to change words which are underlined in red to their US counterparts – Don’t.

If you are targeting the UK you should host your site on a UK server – the reason for this is that Google calculates that the majority of searches are local. If you search for “Buy Fresh Fish”, Google assumes that you are more likely to buy that fish from a few miles away, than from Ontario. Thus, a UK server is going to be closer to the geographical location of your IP address.

Of course this is just a tiny part of the many algorithms that Google uses to rank your site and UK language is another.

If you write using the most relevant form of English to your location, then you will be a step closer to ranking for searches that originate in that location.

There is another reason too though. If you use US spelling, you are likely to encounter at least a 300% increase in the amount of results which Google returns for your search term. That is 300% more competition which you need to wade through before your site ranks high enough in the SERPs for you to gain decent volumes of traffic.

It is worth mentioning that at Dr Content we write in both UK-English and US-English depending on the location of your target audience.