Now that you have decided on moving on with gambling affiliate offers, it is high time to tell in detail about building a gambling affiliate website. Surprisingly, most approaches and methods are just the same as for any other niche, such as e-commerce, finance, travel, etc. The good thing about promoting affiliate programs via the website is that the traffic is almost free (apart from hosting and link acquisition costs).
As with any niche site, the key to success is persistence, patience, and a well-thought-out strategy. The gambling niche is subdivided into two major sub-niches: online casinos and online sports betting. Actually, each sub-niche has its specific features and target audience. Start with the topic you have more knowledge about or you are more interested in. Explore the sub-niche, study the market, and learn more about the target audience.
Building a Gambling Affiliate Website: Baseline
Like any business, a gambling website requires thorough preparation. Naturally, you have four key aspects to consider:
- Legal Issues
- Technical and technological solutions (aka software)
- Promotion
- Financial strategy (budget and planning)Legal issues
As you should already know well, any gambling business activity must be licensed, including online gambling. Basically, you have two options: the EU countries and offshore countries. Both variants have their advantages and disadvantages in terms of time, reputation, and budget. For example, you’ll need around six months to obtain a license in Malta.
Then, you have to register your business. This stage includes all the paperwork related to a business bank account and agreements with payment system providers. You can simplify (if your budget allows) this process by choosing a “White Label” scheme, which includes software leasing, the gaming license, and financial infrastructure, - in other words, you get a “ready-to-use infrastructure”.
Software
You need to build a gambling website (or blog). You can build a new website from scratch (some specific knowledge is required), pay a webmaster to create a new site, use a website builder (for example, services like Wix, Strikingly, or Weebly allow even inexperienced users to build a brand new website).
If you are capable of building and designing a website on your own, the matter of little interest is the choice of a Content Management System (CMS), a service that enables publishing and managing content, as well as indexing, formatting, and more. There are many options available but there are three CMSs that obviously stand out of the crowd: WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. Modern CMSs are very flexible and can be used for various projects, from simple blogs to gambling and news websites.
Professional online casino software may vary significantly in terms of price and quality. Besides the design, you need to consider the functionality of the software, including:
- Game management system
- Reporting engine
- Player management system
- Promotion and bonus management system
- Payment system
- Affiliate management system
- Anti-fraud system
Usually, a software package includes regular updates for software and games, technical support, and hosting. No doubt, the full software package might be costly, but quality and reliability are worth it. You may check SoftSwiss, PlayTech, Real Time Gaming (RTG), Microgaming, or Aristocrat to get an idea of available options and functionality.
Promotion
The key to the success of your online casino is a well-planned marketing strategy. First of all, you need to carry out thorough market research. Study your competitors: leading online platforms, how they promote their businesses, their implemented strategies, and so on. You can use the most effective marketing strategies and benchmark. You may partner with marketing agencies to make your brand-new gambling platform stand out in the market. SEO specialists might help you to launch your online casino smoothly and make it visible to the targeted audience. An affiliate program is a part of the general marketing strategy. Below we will discuss several ways to promote your gambling platform.
Budget and Planning
Ok, you’ve calculated all the major costs for licenses and registration, website launching, and marketing campaign. If you think that you can sigh with relief, you’re wrong. Any business entering a market requires special care in the beginning, particularly startups. Hence, plan your budget for at least one year. Keep in mind that costs for launching and promoting a new project will be higher compared to existing businesses.
Building a Gambling Affiliate Website: Promotion
The gambling market is extremely competitive, so a well-planned marketing strategy for all the stages of the project is an essential component of your success. First of all, you need to position your business — select a sub-niche you want to step in, determine unique features and functionality you intend to provide, define the differences from competitors, etc. Second, you’ll need to run a pre-launching advertising campaign to introduce your business. Online ads, media overviews, and presentations usually work pretty well. Third, post-launching promotion includes SEO, online ads, and everything that might work within the gambling niche. Next, develop your affiliate program and promote it. There are numerous affiliate networks that work with the gambling niche, some of them are specialized in gambling.
Affiliate networks
Join affiliate networks as an advertiser. Marketers from all over the globe like working with gambling offers. Naturally, gambling is considered a profitable industry. So, with the right strategy and attractive commission for marketers (affiliates), you can get visitors to your site. Comparing investments and results, affiliate marketing is definitely one of the most effective marketing instruments. Additionally, it often is the leader in ROI competition with other methods of promotion, such as SEO, media ads, PPC, offline presentations, and exhibitions. In return for affiliates’ help, you need to offer an attractive payment system to reward those who will send you traffic.
There are three models of affiliate payments:
- CPA (cost-per-action). In this case, a casino rewards affiliates with a fixed amount per specific action performed by a referral. In many cases, casinos pay only for deposits, but they can reward for registrations too.
- Revenue share. This model offers affiliates a share (percentage) of the casino’s profit from referred clients. Affiliates like this model as it offers a long-term (lifetime of a player) income. The rates may vary significantly and usually depend on the affiliate's performance; some casinos offer up to 50% revshare to their affiliates.
- Hybrid. This model represents a combination of CPA and revenue share models. Affiliates receive a fixed amount (lower than with a CPA plan) for a referred client and get a long-term percentage from the casino’s net revenue from this client.
Social media
We all know well that many social media platforms do not allow any promotion of gambling activity. But you still can drive traffic to your website: create pages on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest to build a community of loyal followers and keep your audience updated about new articles published on your website. You can use links to your platform.
SEO
Another important aspect for generating traffic is your ranking in search engines. SEO optimization helps you to make your website visible to a wider audience. Thus, research keywords for your chosen sub-niche and use them regularly in your articles. Do not forget about linking: make references to other pages of your website and use links to your platform from external resources. Gambling is a very competitive niche, so strive to get backlinks (links from other platforms to your website) in every possible way. By the way, some affiliate programs allow ‘testimonial links’ – you provide a brief summary about your partnership, so the platform posts it with a link to your website. You may get backlinks from other marketers too. There are many online marketing communities out there that may help you get in contact with other affiliate marketers, exchange experience, and backlinks. For the beginning, you may join some forums, such as Warrior Forum, AffiliateFix, or BlackHatWorld.
YouTube
YouTube channel might help to generate traffic to your gambling site. You can record and post original reviews of casinos, share useful tips, and make live streams. Use links to your website in titles and descriptions to your videos. Keep in mind that people often use YouTube search to find interesting and helpful videos for almost everything.
Quora
Obviously, many marketers underestimate Quora and its traffic potential. Answer questions on Quora and generate traffic to your website. This question-and-answer platform ensures long-term high-quality traffic. If you help the Quora community with educational answers, you build your own authority within the niche and attract new visitors to your site. Just do not get overly promotional not to get banned. Provide detailed thoughtful answers and link them to the relevant content on your website.
What payment model would you offer to affiliates?
1 vote
Note
Before jumping into the gambling niche, you need to study up the existing regulations related to gambling and gambling promotion in the targeted region (country). Some countries apply restrictions on gambling promotion. Google AdWords and Facebook Ads do not favor gambling as well. However, Facebook doesn’t ban app ads. Many marketers promote casino apps, driving traffic from Facebook directly to an affiliate offer or to the website enriched with affiliate links.
One more important aspect to get successful with a gambling affiliate website is analysis. Yes, you have developed a strategy and made a plan for the content but you need to follow up with results and changes. Always note popular materials (topics) and effective promotional channels, do not invest in materials and channels that do not work (do not generate traffic or drive low-quality traffic that doesn’t convert).
Conclusion
That’s it for now. Despite any existing bans and strict regulations, the gambling market will continue delivering massive income. When you have managed to make your website ranked and get free targeted traffic, you may earn quite decent amounts on affiliate programs. Step-by-step, you can expand your sub-niche site to embrace more and more topics.
