If you are inexperienced in regards to the affiliate industry, especially the gambling affiliate industry, a good option is perhaps to purchase a couple of decent sites to get your network up and running. Before even thinking about getting your cheque book out, take the time to educate yourself.
Over the years, time and time again, I have witnessed many times, inexperienced investors paying way over the odds for so called established affiliate websites. A good analogy would be someone swimming out into shark infested waters, and then emptying buckets full of blood and guts around them. This scenario I would compare to an inexperience investor posting on an affiliate site that he had a big budget for quality sites. Sorry, but the honest truth is that if you don’t have the experience and knowledge then you simply are going to be ripped apart!
I will be honest and say that in general you will pay more for sites, links and even content if you buy from established affiliate forums and sites. There are many quality webmasters who make a good living from flipping affiliate websites. I’m not saying you can’t buy great sites from affiliate’s forum and sites at the right price but I’m saying if you don’t have the required knowledge, you are odds on to over pay. Sorry but that is a fact!
Your best approach would be to do a little research and look for sites with potential, then simply contact the sites owners. Remember most affiliates fail as they simply don’t acquire the skills to convert traffic to real money players. Many new affiliates will spend a good few months building up a half decent site only to lose interest when the money does not come rolling in after a few months. Also many affiliates simply do not optimise their sites for conversions. An unoptimised site earning let’s say £500 per month can easily be optimised with just a few hours work to double monthly income. Also there are many neglected affiliates sites ranking perhaps on page two or three for their main key phrases which could easily be pushed to a much higher ranking with a little work.
Affiliate Account Scams
A site may appear to generate a decent number of new accounts each month and generate healthy monthly revenue, remember though most webmasters have a network of sites. It is very difficult to tell where the sign ups are actually coming from. I have lost count of the number of times I have been offered a site for sale with an affiliate account that obviously was being fed by multiple sites.
An honest seller will give you decent access to the sites affiliate accounts although there are still many ways in which a scammer can hide the fact that the account is being fed form other sites. I for one would not have a problem putting a potential buyer in contact with my operator account manager. If you are paying good money for an affiliate site then get proof of where the sign ups are coming from.
Also remember all affiliate accounts are not equal! There is a big difference between affiliate accounts at Ladbrokes and Party Partners compared to affiliates at smaller networks that accept players from the US. The online gambling world is going through major changes with perhaps the biggest possible change being the return of Americans to the online gambling world within perhaps the next year. Many of the sites that have been accepting US players could be facing dark times ahead and so in my opinion are not a long term safe bet.
An affiliate account that is not being fed with new sign ups each month will of course “drain” to some extent during a twelve month period. The amount of “drain” depends on many factors such as the type of gambling account, such as casino, bingo, poker etc, plus the quality of the customer retention promotions offered by the operator, which I can tell you vary a great deal. Even some of the major UK operators do a poor job in customer retention whilst others are some of the best in the world. From experience I can tell you that I have had purchased affiliate accounts drain to less than 20% over a year.
Backlinks
A site may be ranking highly for multiple key phrases from either the website owners own network or even from paid links. I have seen buyers scammed as the seller simply removed the links as soon as he has sold the site. Before buying any sites you need to ask the seller about back links. In most cases he will have links on other sites in his network so you need a clause in the purchase contract that the links will stay for a predetermined time. I would suggest at least a year if you are paying a decent amount for the site as this will give you time to replace the existing backlinks.
Some gambling webmasters spend thousands of dollars a month on purchasing back links on quality sites. You need to understand how to check backlinks plus of course find out how long the existing backlinks will remain.
Another scam is that the seller will 301 (redirect) a site with good backlinks to the site he is selling to make the site to appear to have a great backlink profile. Of course as soon as he has sold the site the seller removes the 301 redirect so the backlinks disappear and rankings drop.
The online gambling niche is one of the most competitive and profitable niches. Some back links on sites sell for thousands of dollars. Simply removing 3 or 4 high quality backlinks from a site can in effect drop the key phrases several places in the search engine rankings.
Traffic
There are different types of traffic that convert at different rates. If you are just looking at a sites traffic stats then this is a big mistake as you MUST determine what sort of traffic the site is actually generating. A good way to get cheap traffic is to get a site approved by Google News. Doing so enables you to hit the first page of Google for news stories. If you have a writer who knows how to attack Google news then you can generate hundreds of uniques a day with just a couple of daily articles. You can generate targeted traffic with Google News, although most do not. You can even buy a Google News approved site for less than $1000 on some affiliate forums. It is easy to “pump up” traffic for a site using general news stories which in real terms have little value as the traffic is very difficult to convert.
Targeted Traffic
A good affiliate site will be ranking highly for quality key phrases that convert. For example, if a site is ranking highly for the search phrase “poker bonus” or “bingo bonus” then this is the type of targeted traffic you are looking for.
Before buying any site find out what sort of traffic the site is generating. Find out what are the main key phrases the site is targeting.
Also look for what key phrases the site is “nearly” ranking well for. If the site is ranking bottom of page one of the Google search results for let’s say “bingo bonus” or even page two or three then you know that with a bit of work you can push it top 5 perhaps to boost revenue.
You do though need to understand how to calculate page and domain metrics plus of course how to analyse back links profiles. There is no point trying to push a key phrase to top 5 in Google if the sites that hold the top 5 position have strong back link profiles. Every day I’m amazed at affiliates pushing for key phrases they don’t have a chance of ranking top 5.
Domain Names
Many gambling domain names, in my opinion are in general overpriced and don’t offer a decent ROI, perhaps more so now that Google Instant is live. Many affiliates go crazy for exact match domains paying a small fortune for which in many cases they will never recoup. There are of course some exact match domains that are great value, but again you need experience to spot these. Google is changing giving more ranking power to big brand type sites. It is a fact that sites built as a brand, with thousands of quality content pages, can rank for many decent key phrases without many back links using just the power of internal links. I would rather build a big content site on a catchy 2 word new $10 domain than spend a small fortune on a domain such as bingobonus.com. In my book, big brand type sites with hundreds if not thousands of pages are a better long term bet than thin affiliate type sites using exact match domains. There are though are always exceptions.
How To Value Sites
As a general rule, quality sites sell based on 10 to 24 x monthly revenue. This though depends on many factors such as:
The content of the site (quality and quantity)
The type of traffic the site generates
What key phrases the site ranks
What key phrases the site “nearly” ranks
The quality of the sites backlinks
The history of the affiliate account (rising or falling)
The type of the affiliate accounts
The quality of the affiliate accounts
There are of course sites worth less than 10 x monthly revenue, plus of course sites worth more than 24 x monthly revenue if they have great potential. This article has only really covered the very basics as an in-depth article would require dozens of pages.
For inexperienced buyers I would strongly suggest you take a step back, taking the time to research more about affiliate sites. Analyst predict strong growth in the online gambling sector for a good few years so waiting a few weeks until you have gained more knowledge is not going to hurt.
