If you are new to the world of affiliate marketing then you first need to understand how it works. Basically, affiliate marketing is the process by which you (the affiliate), direct traffic to a merchant site where a product or service is being sold, and you are paid commission for any sale on that site to a person you have directed. Casino affiliation is much the same. You direct players to a casino site, and if that player signs up and spends money, you are given a commission on the amount. Most casino sites entice you to send players to them by providing incentives such as bigger commission or prizes. However, you would do well to provide a good balance across these sites as it does not pay in the long run to direct to one major site only.

As an affiliate you will normally sign up with the merchant site in advance. You will then be provided with banner or text adverts which contain your unique affiliate code, and which you then place on your site. When a user is directed to the merchant site from the banner ad or links, the embedded code will identify you as the affiliate, and the merchant site will pay you commission (usually on a monthly basis) on any sale(s) to users that you have directed from your site.

There are many different types of affiliate software available and the pros and cons of each are outside the scope of this article, but they are normally determined by the merchant site.

One of the most important factors in making your affiliate casino portal or directory a success is your own determination to out perform your competition. Now initially, that does not mean you have to out perform them in terms of the commission you receive (although that would be a definite long term goal). More importantly it means out performing them in terms of exposure of your site on the internet. You have to be determined to ensure your site is in an optimum position within the search engines, and potentially higher than the merchant site itself. It includes finding niche keywords to target, and keywords that the merchant site has not optimized for. For example, maybe a casino site is well optimized for “online casinos”, but you could target “play roulette online” and build your page around those words. You also need to promote your site in other ways, both offline as well as online.

Initially you may want to set aside a budget for placing advertisements on other complimentary sites, such as bingo or poker or other gaming sites. Sites that offer competitions and prizes are a good place to start as they have similar demographic of user.

You may also want to purchase a database to market to. Some companies offer databases that you can rent. It might also be worth doing a search to see if you can find some old casino portals or directories which are for sale. They may offer their database for a reduced fee and indeed you may even consider purchasing their domain name if you feel it is better than your own.

One of the first things to consider when designing a portal or directory is your competition. It is easy to find casino portals and directories by entering a few keywords in Google or Yahoo. Words such as “casino”, “casino directory”, “best online casinos”, return many sites. Take some time reviewing these sites, perhaps jotting down some of the more common factors that you feel are ensuring their success, and other points that you would do well to avoid. Put yourself in the place of a player, who is searching for a casino site for the first time. What would you expect from a directory or portal in order to help you make your decision on which site you should join?

This article does not provide extensive search engine optimisation techniques. Though there are some aspects that need reaffirming. You should have a good web optimisation strategy in mind, perhaps you know a bit about SEO, or perhaps you want to make a start by reading the following article at http://. There are some essential elements that you need to ensure you have in your pages to make them well optimized.

Firstly you should optimize the site on a “per page” basis. The site should contain the usual html elements such as good title tags, description tags and header tags, individual for each page. Each page should be topic specific. For example, perhaps one page can be about roulette, while another only about blackjack. Mixing the two subjects dilutes the importance of the topic on the page. The body element should contain at least 300 words of text which are both interesting to read and which contain good keywords relating to the topic. The text should be connected to the title and description tags; that is they should contain similar words.

It is a good idea to ensure that the homepage does not contain too many affiliate links. Perhaps embed these further in the site. Having them on your homepage could penalize that homepage as the search engines are becoming more aware of affiliate sites and not giving them as much importance.

Of course the single most important factor in gaining site popularity is the amount of incoming links to your casino portal. Many portals at the moment offer reciprocal links. This is a good way of building links but obtaining one-way permanent links is much better for your search engine position. Using a tool like Optilink, you can gauge your competitor’s links and perhaps contact them for a link for your own site.

Anyone can design a website with a simple list of casino sites. The key is designing a great website that improves the user experience. Consider placing your casino site reviews somewhere else other than the homepage, if people want to read reviews they will happily search for them. Instead, try making your homepage a fun user experience as opposed to simply a list of sites.

In designing the graphics and colour scheme for your site you would do well to make your site stand out from the rest. Many site designs come from purchased templates and contain similar colour schemes like browns and reds, supposedly attempting to represent the colours and ambience of a real casino environment. However, why not try something different. Try using a more modern approach. A white background will enable you to place many different graphic elements and colours without contrasting too much against a single brown or deep red background. White backgrounds also offer a more professional feel.

As internet users have become aware of new technologies, graphics and images are attracting them to more modern sites. Expectations of users have increased and so should the quality of the sites. Many new sites contain flash elements and graphics which keep the user interested. Also, a good idea would be to have an interactive element on the homepage. Perhaps include a scratch card or a flash game, which the user can interact with and keep them on the page for longer. This increases the popularity of the page and keeps the user coming back for more.

Writing articles, issuing press releases to online sites, getting listed in other directories and generally promoting your sites with other sites requires a lot of time. Whatever you do to create your casino portal or directory, you must ensure that you dedicate 100% your time each day to improving its position and beating your competition. Ensure your site is updated regularly and can provide useful information to those who are visiting. A popular casino portal or directory site is one which normally offers an opinion but also remains a fun and interesting site.