While this Poker Affiliate Program Forum thread started out innocently enough, the conversation took a turn and just spiraled out of control.

Networking with affiliates

To offer somewhat of a blow by blow of this outrageous forum thread, it started innocently enough. There had been a series of discussions covering topics from expectations of affiliate managers from poker affiliates, to how to best utilize the PAP forum. Then, AceMaster – a member of the poker community started the thread in question – calling to attention that while we are at the PAP forum to network with our fellow affiliates and affiliate managers, many of us do not really know much about one another.”  And of course, this is a valid point…

The thread started off mainly with interaction between Acemaster and Ken (a.k.a. – kingcobra) who is a forum moderator.  And then, it took a turn…

Poker Affiliate Program Cage Match

It was all clear sailing until Ken suggested a cage match between he and another forum member – Kane from Poker Affiliate World.  Over the course of a few posts, this “get to know your neighbor” theme turned into a proposal for an outright brawl.  Suddenly, virtual Bingo mogul turned PayPerView provider “SuffolkPoker” Tom managed to book this cage match exclusively on his pay-per-view network.

If that weren’t enough, many other forum members began chiming in, staking claim to miscellaneous sponsorship deals as well as jobs to work what may be known as PAP’s PokerMania I.

Poker Affiliate Program PokerMania I Tale of the Tape

King Cobra Poker

Height: 12 ft

Weight: 1 stone

Primary Fighting Style:  a form of Shaolin Snake KungFu known as SERPentine Fu

Strengths:  Quick lethal strike, fights well on the mat, especially on the belly, expert strategist, disciplined and fierce combatant

Weaknesses: Extreme heat, extreme cold

Diet: other snakes

Finishing Moves:  Cobra Clutch, “calling the all-in,” “the SERP manipulation”

Manager/Promoter: Don King

Fighter’s official homepage:  King Cobra Poker

PAW Kane

Height: 6 ft, 8in

Weight: 22.9 stones

From: Parts unknown -  suspected to hail from  Poker Affiliate World

Primary Fighting Style:  wrestler, brawler

Strengths:  high tolerance for pain, inflicts high impact blows upon his opponents

Weaknesses: Fire, probably unaware this match has been booked

Diet: snakes

Finishing Moves:  tombstone piledriver, chokeslam, “the Get Hollywood in the top 3 or else email”

Manager/Promoter: Paul Bearrer, PAW Mitchell

Fight Sponsors and Supporters

PPV Network: Suffolk Poker TV

Commentary: Jim Ross, Jerry “the king” Lawler, PAPKaren

Ring Girl: Tina From Carbon Poker

Carbon Poker Tina

Official Beverage Provider: Everest Poker

Where can bets be placed?: Click here to place bets online for this upcoming cage match.

More information:  Visit the official PAP PokerMania I fight thread here.

of note: Tanya from Everest Affiliates is rumored to be on hand passing out free Everest Poker beer holders  to the first 1000 fans.  Get to the fight early!

Taking steps to know your online poker rooms

For many of the online poker rooms I promote, I utilize an affiliate platform provided by Poker Affiliate World. Poker Affiliate World is unique in that its users are able to offer several poker rooms though one program. As a result, I’m able to offer Cake Poker, Party Poker and FullTilt to my websites visitors. At the end of the month, I am compensated all in one place.

Having payment centralized in this manner means I don’t have to worry about cashing out 50 poker accounts every month in order to combine and collect my pay. Its both easy and convenient! Additionally, I only have to deal with one affiliate manager, who takes care of the questions I put forth involving any of the many rooms I have in my offering. However, I was a bit flawed in my logic in that offering more was better. This is not necessarily the case.

Doing your “Homework” When Dealing with Strangers

I made a post in the Poker Affiliate Programs forum (PAP) yesterday, asking Poker Affiliate Programs if they could provide me feedback as to what “homework” they do in selecting the poker rooms they offer for promotion. I haven’t received a reply yet. Additionally, I am not expecting a reply until Monday, in the interest of fairness. It occurred to me though, even if they reply that they do all kinds of homework, check for this, that, ensure licensing… is that really enough for me?

I’m certain they have SOME process of screening poker rooms they promote. In the interest of fairness, I’m also sure they are compensated for accepting players into their program – rightfully so. They provide a great service to me and several other affiliates who promote poker on the web. My point is, even if they have a strenuous screening process, does that excuse me from doing my own research? I would venture an answer that it does not excuse me and I should not take a “homework pass.” If I am promoting poker online, I should know who I am promoting and be able to offer some history and insight into who it is YOU might be doing business with.

Get to Know your Online Poker Rooms

Over the next few weeks, I am going to take the time to conduct thorough research on the poker networks as well as the online poker rooms I promote via the Online Poker Circuit. I want to get to know each network provider and offer useful facts and information on each and every poker room I list. The Online Poker Circuit will provide the most thorough collection of background information regarding our online poker networks, and poker service providers we can. I am not selling myself short when I say I am going to commit time and effort into digging deep to help my visitors know who they are dealing with.

I’ve had some eye opening experiences in both the online poker world, as well as on the home front – so I’m not sure what I’ll manage to muster up. Either way, I am committing to revealing an impartial, objective overview of each poker room and poker network I promote. This doesn’t mean I will remove everyone… or shuffle things around. It simply means I am going to do a far better job of researching and informing. Additionally, I am going to implement a rating system, taking into consideration trust factor, history, customer service, as well as overall player experiences.

I’m also going to open up the door of opportunity for poker room managers to offer feedback on their products, so that they may either defend or refute my findings, which is more than fair. Additionally, I will consider other players and affiliates experiences to be relevant to my research. My goal is to do my own homework, without having anyone spoon feed me the information. Allowing someone to hand me a press pack is a cop-out, and I want to know with conviction that I can trust with a higher degree of certainty the information I put forth.

Important Facts I Seek in My Online Poker Network Homework

It stands to reason that I should focus my research so that I don’t end up bouncing all over the web, like a lost dog searching for a bone. I want important facts, as well as supporting and additional details. With that in mind, upon each poker network overview, I plan to discover at least the following:

• Detailed Poker Network History – how did the network come about, who runs it, where were they located, where are they located?
• Criteria for Poker Network Admission – Does the poker network have a criteria for admission of newer online poker rooms, or are they allowing access to just anyone paying the licensing fees?
• Who is in charge – Who is the decision maker? No really… who is the decision maker for the network?
• How has the Network evolved throughout time – Are they changing with the business based on customer needs and industry trends? Is the network of poker rooms an industry leader providing innovative ideas and services to their players?
• How does the Poker Networks Management Identify and Solve Problems – Is the poker network proactive in identifying rogue poker rooms? When a problem is identified – be it a security issue in their software, a rogue poker room, a customer related problem, or any other problem poker networks encounter are they proactive or reactive in their handling and identifying problems?

Important Facts I Seek in Reviewing Online Poker Rooms

I intend to offer a thorough overview of each online poker room I offer at the Online Poker Circuit. Upon completion of my “homework,” each individual poker room overview will contain at least the following information:

• What are the multiple ways I have to contact a poker room
• Who runs this online poker operation anyway?
• How can I contact this online poker room if I have a problem?
• How long has this poker room existed?
• Is the network they are on the first poker network they used, or have the bounced around?
• What kind of poker industry track record does this poker site have?
• How do they handle crisis or problems their poker room encounters?
• How can I deposit funds or withdrawal my winnings from the online poker room?
• What kind of bonus structure and incentive programs does this poker site offer?
• How does this poker room differ from other poker game providers on its network?
• How is this poker room different from poker sites not on its network?
• What personal experiences do I have with this poker room as a player?
• What personal experiences do I have with this online poker room as an affiliate?

It’s about history, knowledge, trust, and experience

In doing this little bit of homework, I intend to provide background information on each poker network and poker room online that I offer.  Knowing who the poker service provider is, where their brick and mortar poker office is located, how to contact the poker site management is an important step in knowing who you’re giving your online poker business to.  Background information such as their history in the online poker industry, and determining what the poker sites place is within the industry today is imperative in knowing who each coalition of poker rooms within a network are.  Uncovering reasons to trust or not trust in the integrity of poker providers is a must for poker affiliates and poker players alike.  Understanding what is in it for you – why should you frequent the discussed poker room?  With each review, I plan on detailing, critiquing and analyzing each of these aspects while adding my personal touch – and more.

My entire menu of poker offerings will not be completed in a matter of a day.  I’m certain each review will take a fair amount of time.  As I complete an overview of a poker network or poker room, I will post to my blog.  Additionally, I’ll update my poker offerings pages to reflect my reviews, and rate the poker networks and poker sites.  Over time, the Online Poker Circuit WILL have the most detailed, comprehensive poker network and poker room overviews on the entire web – guaranteed.  First up on the list of overviews and reviews will be the Merge Network and corresponding poker rooms.

Getting myself on Track

A few days ago, I was reading through the affiliate forums at Poker Affiliate Listings.  Randy Ray had put up a thread asking what other poker affiliates had set in the lines of goals for the month of May.  It occurred to me at that moment, I had several ideas as to what I wanted to accomplish, but I really did not have anything written in stone.

Additionally, I didn’t have anything listed with any urgency.  Nothing was really time sensitive.  My thoughts were unorganized.  I lacked a not only a game plan, without my goals written down, I lacked a scorecard.  The May goals thread is helping me get on track.  I can’t even say “back on track,” as I’ve been unfocused and quite honestly, I’ve been a mess since returning to the online poker world.

Even when I write, I find myself writing for the search engines.  I struggle with my wording, trying to maximize and optimize each post so that it will rank.  Realistically, I should just write.  Part of the reason for this, I think, is because my site – for lack of a better term – has been poor in content.  I’m trying to make up for it by writing a certain way to boost the search results for…  nothing.

Poker Content for other websites

The exact depth of my writing style’s problems became blatantly obvious to me when I began work on a strategy article.  One of my May goals is to provide content to other poker websites.  I know I can write, however, what I’ve been doing here has been anything but writing.  Without much effort, I hammered out the article.   When I reviewed it, the article flowed, much like my writing does when I’m not shooting for search results.  And surprisingly, I remained on topic and would surely receive better results with better content by simply writing, and not trying to over-use catch phrases.

Improving my own content

One of my goals for May, with respect to the Online Poker Circuit is to improve upon my website’s content.  I’ll very likely rewrite my strategy articles, in addition to writing some new ones – to keep it fresh.  I’ve already given the site a much needed face lift, and am continuing to refocus the purposes and focus of the poker site.

Losing the isolationist attitude

Additionally, I’ve decided that as a one-man-show, I cannot both “wear all the hats” and make this website everything I wish it to be to the extent I want it to be without some outside help.  What I mean by that is I want the Online Poker Circuit to be a source for poker tournaments.  I’d love to create my own unique script to push out every poker tournament to every room to my site’s visitors.  Additionally, I want to house a useful relevant poker tournament strategy library, for my poker website’s guests to reference when trying to learn an important tournament poker concept, to improve their poker play, and to just become better tournament poker players.

I also wish to serve as a main resource for online poker legislation, as well as provide commentary that is poker related, poker news, and everything else.  I’m only one person…  I realize now that I cannot do everything I’d love to do with the Online Poker Circuit’s website.  I can only do so much myself before everything turns to rubbish.

Unfortunately, when I first entered the business, the person who showed me the ropes was more of an isolationist affiliate than a social poker affiliate.  He was not keen on a free or somewhat free exchange of ideas.  The one thing I have to say though, for what he was doing at the time, he did it pretty well.  I bought in to his network and he showed me the ropes – doing things his way.

As with most partnerships, there was a philosophical difference in the way things were done.  He had just broke ground on a poker forum, where in theory ideas, thoughts, poker strategy, and general social chatter could be freely exchanged between members.  I’d say I made around 1000 posts, which at the time was about 20% of his forum’s posting volume.

If memory serves me correctly, In a strategy thread he was offering poker advice, to which I had questioned – more accurately, I had suggested the playing style he was endorsing was a posture and not a strategy.  That part is irrelevant to my thought at the moment though.  What is relevant is that he went nuts both in the thread and via email/messenger at my comment.  Add to the mix that any post that was not pro-him was immediately deleted, members were banned for speaking out of turn…  Which, in all fairness, it was his shop, he can do with it whatever he wants.  I was there by choice.  That being said, I chose to leave.

The philosophical gap was just too much to fill, from my standpoint.  I like hearing opposing, different views.  I encourage discussion, rebuttals; things of that sort.  I am open minded enough to share and receive ideas from other people – even from my competition.  Unfortunately, when I returned to the online poker scene, I did not return with an open mind.  No, I didn’t delete off posts like they were the plague or anything in the forum.  However, I was closed to the idea that I could help – and be helped by other people in the business.

Even when I joined PAL and PAP – I was open to helping others, I took help when I felt I needed it, but I wasn’t willing to open the doors to anyone else.  The flawed logic of it all is that without others assisting me, the vision I have for the Online Poker Circuit will never be achieved.  I finally broke down last night and today and installed a script on my home page, designed by someone else to broadcast a list of guaranteed poker tournaments from many of the online poker rooms I tout.

Getting my act together

This week, I am finally open to the idea of either having someone else write for me here at the Online Poker Circuit, or for providing writing and content services to other poker websites.  I am committing to no longer reside in isolation.  If I want to achieve my goals for this poker site of mine, it is imperative that I get on track, remain on track, and lose the isolationist attitude.  I’m a one man show, but it is going to take more than one to build my community.

Lost and Without Direction

Over the past week, I’ve done a great deal of soul searching and studying in regards to the direction and purpose of the Online Poker Circuit website.  When circumstances beyond my control drove me out of my previous “life,” I assumed the path of least resistance was to re-enter the online poker realm.

Poker Blogger

As a poker blogger I had a fair amount of success, via the “old” Poker Pub.  After the legislative changes in the US, and shortly after returning from blogging the Aussie Millions, I made a career change or perhaps more accurately, a career adjustment.  Left behind was my successful online poker blog and a somewhat successful freeroll poker portal that primarily consisted of a leaderboard style poker tour.  I knew…  or thought I knew the business pretty well when I left, and was even more certain, upon my return that I knew the business.

I was wrong.

Returning to the online poker world

I resurfaced via the Online Poker Circuit.  I somehow believed I would immediately recapture enough of my past customer base to kick things off smartly, effectively, and profitably.  I was wrong.  With respect to SEM – I also believed if I wrote it, it would rank.  I ranked top twenty for quite some time using the phrase Endgame Poker Tournament Strategy and quite honestly, when I wrote the post, I knew little about search engine marketing/ranking.  I simply wrote the series of posts to offer strategy advice to my readers and members of my poker site.

My old freeroll site itself was weak…  and I am being generous at best when I say that.  I’m not even talking from a design standpoint, I’m speaking from a content perspective.  From a content standpoint at this very moment, my site is still weak.  I’m working on that though.  One of the issues I have to address first is direction.

Finding my place

I planned to go the freeroll leaderboard poker tour route, as I mentioned when I first got things moving with the Online Poker Circuit site.  Eventually, as business picked up, my intention was to gradually adjust towards catering to the higher end poker player.  The problem there is that there’s such a leap from the free to micro end to the high stakes end, I doubt my ability to successfully transition.  Additionally, I suspect the current high stakes marketplace is such that unless I am bringing to market something totally new and innovative, which while I love to think I am – realistically I am not…  yet – I’m not going to capture their interest to the point of gaining commitment. Obviously, I have to choose a target market or audience and customize my blogging and website content to that specific audiences’ needs and interests.

I also have to do a better job of organizing my website.  Honestly, it is a mess – even to the untrained eye.  My content was so thin that I decided to implement a navigation bar so that all my poker site’s links were packed into it.  That killed my search listings.  I’ve done some experimentation and observed favorable results so far.  I need to strengthen my poker website’s content, as well as improve upon the navigation bar.  I think I’ve found a way to have my cake and eat it too with respect to my poker portal navigation, only time will tell.  There’s such a fine line between creating a user friendly website, while not scaring away the spiders.  In a perfect world, I’d like to have complete navigation without wasting link juice.  I think I’ve found a way – again – only time will tell.

In a long trip, here’s what I plan to offer via the Online Poker Circuit website (in no particular order)

Focusing my poker site’s efforts

poker news – primarily commentary on poker political in nature, as well as poker tournament happenings (both online tournaments such as the upcoming FTOPS, and live tournament news such as the World Series of Poker).   The Poker Pub Poker Blog, as well as the oft mis-utilized Online Poker Circuit News blog will be the primary outlets for such commentary, with appropriate areas of the main Online Poker Circuit website serving as support.

poker reviews – I’m going to focus more effort into featuring and reviewing online poker rooms of interest.  I’ll be utilizing the Online Poker Circuit’s Poker in America, as well as the Complete Poker Listings areas of the Online Poker Circuit to primarily house these poker room assessments and reviews.

Poker Tournament Strategy – Tournaments are my passion.  As a player, the bigger successes have come from my poker tournament play.  I seem to have a greater understanding of tournament poker play, thanks mostly to my observations while working the Aussie Millions.  I plan to utilize this higher level of understanding to my advantage and as an asset for my readers and website visitors.  I’ll be utilizing the strategy section of this poker blog, as well as the poker strategy library area of the Online Poker Circuit website to feature my poker tournament strategy discussions.

Poker Resources – I’ll be featuring various poker tools to help with areas such as bankroll tracking and poker bankroll management, poker tournament charts, poker odds calculators and equity calculators and other basic poker tools.  Of course, I will also review and feature tools more advanced in nature such as poker player trackers, and player analysis programs such as Poker Office.

The first step in all of this is to optimize the navigation of the Online Poker Circuit website, then write or rewrite the content – and then expand from there.  I’ve chosen my direction and made my plan – now its a matter of building and shaping my plan into execution.

Prioritize to optimize

Over the past month, I’ve found myself consumed in the Online Poker Circuit.  In addition to the Poker Pub, I find myself tasked with building maintaining the entire Online Poker Circuit website.  A few months earlier, I knew absolutely nothing about HTML.  Actually, that’s not accurate, I knew very little about web page design.  The Rayz site had “little brother” to assist in the design phase.  This time around, I’m a 1 man show.

I found myself scrambling around the Internet in search of HTML guides, researching the application of CSS, trying to figure out how to import my entire poker blog, while additionally still trying to figure out how I can 301 the old Poker Pub.  Did I mention marketing yet?  I didn’t think I did.  Nor did I mention keyword focus, a linking strategy, or anything of those sorts.

I guess it wouldn’t too be bad if it was just one poker project I undertook.  One could argue that the multiple projects thing is my own personal choice – to which I totally agree.  In addition to the Online Poker Circuit website, I’m currently working on two poker projects, one of which is huge that I won’t be ready to reveal for a few weeks or so.

I find myself consumed, sometimes even drowning.  My priorities are scattered at best.  I don’t like the fact that I have focus issues at the moment.  I get up in the morning, I think I know what direction I’m going for that day, and by 7am, I find myself going way off the grid.  The “off the grid” work is useful, it just was not what the plan of the day called for – and its driving me nuts.  I need to channel that focus, I need to prioritize.  I run optimally when I have focus, a set of working priorities.  I can still adjust when I have to (i.e. – going off the grid and getting sidetracked momentarily).  I truly believe, with as full as the plate is, I have to commit myself to a set list of priorities to optimize my efforts as a poker webmaster.  As of now, I have none of that.  Here’s what I need to do:

Construct a database for the big “poker project.” This is yet another “I know nothing about…”  Totally unfamilliar territory, in which I’ve been putting off.  It NEEDS done.  The “death star” cannot achieve “fully operational” status without this database in place.

Organize all poker pages to have a logical and targeted flow.  I’m on the inside, and even I can see that there’s little logic behind the organization of my websites.  Part of this is the learning curve, another is because this site is a reincarnation of sorts for the Rayz site, which was tremendously unfocused.

Optimize all poker pages to have central themes.  I find myself targeting too many things with too few pages.  I need to scale back and narrow my focus on any given page.  If I need to change the page’s focus, I would be best served making a new page, as opposed to undergoing a topic change mid page.  To assist me in this, I think I’ll be better able to focus my themes if I make a slight adjustment to the website menu.  That way I can go with a theme, sub-theme tactic that will help me both optimize and focus.

Develop and implement an effective overall marketing strategy.  This surely should have came first.  I am totally absent a marketing strategy, let alone an effective strategy.  I’m currently all over the place, and to me it shows.  I’ve done my best to ignore this fact and to compensate.  There’s no avoiding it and no compensation will help matters.  Developing and executing upon a smart marketing strategy ASAP is of paramount importance to my success. I need to work regularly on my marketing plan, though it would help if I first define said plan.  Each day, I need to have tasks, goals, and measure the results – while being brutally honest with myself in said measurements.  I need to be able to evaluate, adjust, and rework my plan on the fly.  I can’t do any of that without having a plan in place.

I haven’t even mentioned carving out time to play poker, which I’ve grossly failed to do.  I could count on one hand the number of poker sessions I’ve put in over the past month.  This coming from someone who was averaging 45+ hours a week of poker play.

I find myself getting busier and busier by the day.  In writing on this topic, I’m forcing myself to take a good hard look at my direction, in hopes that the bell will sound, and I’ll pull it together.  I need to set a priority list, and stick to it.  I need to achieve focus now…  if I don’t get my act together here, I’m dead in the water…  Comments and feedback are greatly appreciated.