I thought folks would enjoy watching it though.

I thought it might be fun to write about how to do an article exchange, because I think a lot of people are doing it wrong.

Today I received the following email:

Hello,

I saw your website(example.org), I will be interested exchange articles with you , let me know if interested.

Thanks John

Out of respect for the privacy of the sender, I’ve changed the name in the signature and replaced the URL that was mentioned with “example.org,” but the rest of the email I left intact.

If you want to exchange articles with another webmaster, it’s a good idea to use their name in your salutation. That’s not always possible, because not everyone makes their name clear in their contact information on their website, but since my name is actually in my email address, it would seem safe to use it. I should point out, too, that I don’t have a “contact” page on this particular site he asked about, so he must have gotten my information from the WhoIS database. Since my email address matches my name in the WhoIS database, it would have been easy to type those extra five letters into the email. “Hello, Randy.”

I might sound angry, frustrated, or offended that he didn’t include my name in the salutation, but I’m not. The goal of this post is to explain how to do an article exchange. One of the first keys to doing such a thing is getting another webmaster to agree to it. You’ll see more success if you use the other webmaster’s name in your salutation.

The other thing about the email that I thought was disappointing was that it didn’t include ANY information about “John”‘s site. How would I know whether or not I want to exchange articles with you if I don’t know what your site is? Exchanging articles and/or links with anyone was a great linkbuilding practice in the wild and carefree days of my webmastering youth, but now I’m being more discriminating. I don’t think I’m the only webmaster who’s being more discriminating, either.

A lot of poker webmasters would have deleted the email without replying, but I was looking for something to write about here, and I thought if I wrote back, I could get another email and more ideas for content. So here was my reply:

Hi, John-

You might send over more details–like what kind of article you’re planning to write for my site, what kind of article you want me to write for your site, and what site you’re writing to me about?

I received the following reply:

Hello Randy,

We’d like to post short (about 250 words) unique SUBJECT REDACTED related articles, with a couple ( usually max 2 ) backlinks in the text of the article, we’d like to get the same.

Here’s a couple of our SUBJECT REDACTED related websites:

LIST OF 12 WEBSITES REDACTED

Do you also run more sites?

Please send them.

I’m waiting your answer.

John

In the email above, where you see something all in CAPS with the word “redacted” at the end of it, that means I’ve deleted what I felt like was private information. I’m not trying to shame or embarrass anyone here–I just think looking at actual emails received during my day-to-day business makes for more interesting content than a lot of random thoughts I’m having.

I’d suggest that articles that are only 250 words in length probably aren’t worth publishing, especially if it’s part of a “link scheme.” That’s not necessarily a dealbreaker, but the impression I get from these two emails is that this particular webmaster is working in bulk. I’m more of a quality guy than a quantity guy, so I wrote him back and told him I didn’t think this was going to work out.

Suggestions and Takeaways

Here are some suggestions I have for people who want to build links via article exchanges:

1. Don’t suggest an exchange at all. Instead, ask if you can write a guest post or a guest article for the person’s website. Suggesting an “article exchange” seems to focus more on the reciprocal nature of the linkbuilding, and while I’m not convinced that reciprocal linking is as devastating as most SEO pundits seem to think it is, focusing on it too much is a mistake.
2. Pitch an actual article idea. Get to know your prospect’s website, and when you contact the owner of the site, pitch an article idea that will fit in well with the rest of the content on his site. For example, if your prospect has an article about how often you should bluff in a poker game, you might suggest that you could write an article about how often you should call or re-raise your opponent’s bluffs.
3. Provide some credentials. Mention in your email inquiry who you are and what your writing experience is. If possible, give some examples of guest articles you’ve written for other sites, or point to some of the content on your own site that you’re especially proud of. If you’re new to the poker industry, mention that you’re just getting started as a poker writer, and you want exposure. If you’re an experienced poker writer, maybe the prospect will recognize your name.
4. Stop focusing so hard on the link. Penguin has hammered people who are building links just for anchor text. Focus instead on getting traffic to your website via the links you build, and focus also on building your reputation and brand for your site. Even if you can’t get a link, if an audience is large enough, it might be worth writing a guest article for the site just to get your name into print. (Your site does rank for your own name, right? Or at least your name plus your topic area? For example, this site ranks well for “Randy Ray SEO.”)
5. Quality trumps quantity. If you find an obscure site that doesn’t seem to get much traffic, don’t let that prevent you from asking them if you can write a guest post. If the site publishes good quality content, then that’s someone you want on your team. Get to know the person. Promote his website. Write a guest post for him and think of it as planting a seed that might take a while to grow.
6. Don’t publish someone else’s article just because he agrees to publish yours. You need to maintain high editorial standards for your site. If you’re publishing other people’s crappy content on your site just so you can get links from their sites, you’re not doing yourself any favors at all.
7. Don’t skimp on the quality or length of an article just because you’re writing for someone else’s website. The Internet is all about visibility and reputation now. You should put as much effort into the content you produce for other people’s sites as you put into your own content for your own sites.

Doing an article exchange might make sense, but doing it in a cheap, high-volume way is just asking for trouble when the next iteration of Penguin is applied. You can create so much more value from guest posts and guest articles if you’ll only put in the effort and focus on quality over quantity.

Poker website reviews seem to be an in-demand product offering. By that, I mean that I’ve had multiple inquiries about what services I offer, and I’ve decided to start offering poker website reviews as a service. (And honestly, I’m not going to limit myself to just reviewing poker websites, either. I’m qualified and willing to review casino websites, gambling websites, or any other kind of website. I just specialize in the poker niche.)

I’m charging a flat fee of $750 for a gambling SEO review. If you’re interested, get in touch with me.

What do you get for $750?

I’ll provide a written report on how to get more traffic to your poker website, with actionable steps for you to take in order to get more traffic, more conversions, and more cash.

This isn’t some automated report, either. This is an actual human review of all the SEO aspects for your site. I’ll provide advice and steps for you to take related to keyword research and discovery, linkbuilding, onpage optimization, and conversion optimization.

You’ll get a written list of the SEO issues on your site that you need to correct.

You’ll also get a written list of action steps you should take.

I’ll also answer specific SEO questions related to your site.

This service does not include a consultation over the phone. It includes the written report, which I can turn around in less than a week. It also includes answers to your questions about the report via email.

I’ve supported myself and my family doing SEO for my own websites since 2004.

I worked for one of the top cardrooms on the Internet doing SEO, and during my 18 months there, the site’s search engine referrals TRIPLED. The .net version of the site saw its traffic QUADRUPLE.

Most people who know me understand that I’m not a real salesy guy, so I’m not going to provide much more in the way of sales copy here. I’ve had multiple requests for consulting and for website reviews, and this is my way of responding to those requests. Most people contact me asking for consulting, but they don’t know what they want an SEO consultant to DO. And I’m never sure how to approach their situation.

Now, by offering poker website reviews, I’m able to offer them something specific and deliverable.

As of right now, I can turn around your website review in less than a week. If my service starts getting swamped with orders, I’ll update this page with new information about turnaround times. Since I do the analysis and write the reports myself, the amount of work that I get will determine turnaround times in the future.

What’s the difference?

Your definition is probably different from mine. I think that an external keyword tool is a tool that uses information from someplace other than your website. For example, Google has an Adwords keyword tool. External is the name of the game when it comes to that tool. It’s not using information that you have access to when it suggests keyword phrases. It’s using information that Google has from its own data. (If someone who worked for Google were using it to decide what kind of content to create on Google, then it would be an internal keyword tool for that person.)

I think that an internal keyword tool is your server logs, or your analytics account. You’re using information from your own data about who visited your site and for what keyword phrases. I prefer to use my internal keyword tools for research, because I think they give me stronger clues about where the strengths of my particular site lie.

For example, I get traffic for the phrase “poker seo.” I can assume from that fact that I could get traffic for similar keyword phrases, and I like to play mad-libs with the keyword phrases that send me traffic. So for this particular phrase, I’d just brainstorm a list that replaces one word with another word and see what I come up with:

• gambling seo
• texas holdem seo
• casino seo
• poker search engine optimization
• gambling search engine optimization
• texas holdem search engine optimization
• casino search engine optimization
• poker link building
• poker keyword research

And so on. For me, this is a better way to generate a list of ideas than using the Google tool. A lot of times, I’ll find keyword phrases that show little or no estimated traffic in the Google keyword tool. But I get consistent traffic for those phrases. And sometimes I’ll find a supposedly huge keyword phrase using the Google Adwords tool that gets little or no traffic, even if I rank very high for the phrase.

Of course, some of those phrases will be winners, and some of them will be losers. And some of them will become new query spaces if I write about them often enough. (Few people were searching for the phrase “seo theory” until Michael Martinez started writing about the subject in his blog.)

I also use the results of both my external and internal keyword research to generate large lists of phrases in KeywordStrategy.org, which I’m having a complete love affair with right now. If you get a chance, take a look at my review of KeywordStrategy.org. It’s one of the most useful SEO programs I’ve ever found.

Full disclosure. I’m an affiliate of KeywordStrategy.org. If you sign up to use the tool, I’ll make a small commission.

Also, I’ve arranged with Fraser Cane, the owner of the site, to offer a 10% discount to anyone I refer to the tool. Contact me in the comments or via the forum or via my email address if you’d like to receive the 10% discount on the service. (I’ll send you an email inviting you to try it out.)

So what IS KeywordStrategy.org?

I’m having a love affair with KeywordStrategy.org. This is the only SEO tool I’ll need moving forward. At first glance, it seems like it’s just a tool to help you with keyword discovery. And it does have that aspect to it, and it handles that job as well as any other tool I’ve ever used. I think their tool is far superior to Wordtracker, SpyFu, or KeywordDiscovery. (Or any other keyword suggestion tool I’ve ever used.)

Most of the keyword suggestion data, at least initially, comes from the Google Adwords suggestion tool. But where Keyword Strategy.org starts to distinguish itself is by following the traffic on your site to find out what keyword phrases are bringing traffic to your site already. It automatically adds those keyword phrases to your database.

You log into a dashboard on their site to manage your keyword phrase database. At any time, you can blacklist a particular keyword phrase, so that it NEVER shows up in your reports again. Fraser’s philosophy is that you should never have to look at a keyword that doesn’t matter to your site more than once.

The dashboard includes a column that begins with your list of keyword phrases. Then it presents columns for the following information:

• The URL for that phrase on your site.
• The estimated monthly searches for that phrase according to the Google Adwords keyword tool.
• The number of visitors who came to your site for that phrase.
• Where your page ranks in Google for the phrase.
• How much competition there is for that phrase on the Internet.
• The estimated CPC for that phrase per the Google Keyword Tool.
• The KEI score for that keyword. (That’s a number called Keyword Effectiveness Index–it’s a rough tool, and I don’t put too much stock into it, but it’s nice information to have.)
• The number of internal links you have pointing to that page.
• The number of external backlinks you have pointing to that page.
• Tags and groups–you can set these up yourself. (For example, you could have a batch of pages tagged “bonus code pages.”)

You’re able to filter the list of keywords that you’re looking at by any of these columns. For example, if you have 3000 keyword phrases in your database, and you only want to see the phrases that get more than 150 searches per month and that have fewer than 10,000 competing phrases, you can set up those filters. Then you can write new content around those phrases, or optimized some of your current pages for those phrases.

The site also has an “Optimize” tab on the dashboard. It looks at the keyword information in your database, compares it with your site, and provides you with a to-do list for optimizing your pages. For example, I don’t have an XML sitemap live on one of my projects, so that’s a to-do item. I also have 20 keywords that are attached to pages on my site but that I haven’t included in the text of the page, so I can edit those pages to include those phrases.

The “Alerts” tab provides you with updates to what information the site has changed in terms of the information it has for your website. For example, if the program attaches a keyword phrase to a particular URL on your site, that will show up on your list of updates on the “Alerts” tab.

The tutorials and videos explaining how to use the site are excellent. A complaint I have with a lot of sites is that you MUST watch the videos to learn how to use the site. I prefer to read instructions, as I read quickly and my comprehension is pretty good. KeywordStrategy.org includes text along with all their tutorials so that you don’t have to watch the videos, which can save you a ton of time on your learning curve.

The site also offers support from Fraser himself, and it has an active forum full of users. You’ll also find a lot of good SEO tips in the site’s blog.

I wholeheartedly recommend KeywordStrategy.org. If you want the 10% discount, and you want to try it out, get in touch. I’ll even help you figure out how to use everything if you need help, although I don’t think you’ll have much trouble actually using the product.

The WordPress Plugin

I almost forgot to mention that KeywordStrategy.org also includes a WordPress plugin that automatically links keyword phrases in your posts to other posts with targeted anchor text based on the information in its database. This is a huge advantage, and a great tool. KeywordStrategy.org would be a great value without this tool, but with it, it’s an even better value.

On a Side Note

I wrote a blog post a couple of days ago that was somewhat critical of Fraser Crane’s suggestion that you can build a very successful and profitable site without ever building any links. In fact, he thinks that building links has a lower ROI than producing fresh content for your site.

Since he’s built a website that gets 80,000 visitors per day using his strategy of not building links, I’m in no position to argue. My approach, in the past, to building new websites was to build a dozen or so links to the site to get the ball rolling and then focus on building content. In the last couple of years, I’ve spent more time getting on the linkbuilding treadmill, and my income has suffered because of it. It’s time to get back to my old method of building sites by doing exhaustive keyword research and writing lots of great content. It’s what I enjoy doing anyway.

Finally, here’s a concrete example of how using KeywordStrategy.org has helped me while operating this site. Yesterday I saw that someone had found my site for the phrase “can poker sites just change terms and conditions.” I looked in Google, and I was #5 for the phrase, but I didn’t really have anything written  specifically on the topic. So I wrote a post yesterday, and now I’m #1 for that phrase. I know that phrase isn’t going to set the world on fire, but the post didn’t take me weeks to write, and if it generates 30 new visitors a month because it ranks higher now, I’ll be happy.

This discussion in the forum is relevant to this post too: What Metrics Do You Track?

I’m most familiar with this question from the perspective of a poker affiliate, but I can see how a poker player might be interested in the answer to this question too.

It’s been my experience that most poker sites have a clause in their terms and conditions that allows them to change their terms and conditions whenever they want to. But I thought it would be interesting to do some research into a specific poker site to see what their terms and conditions pages say about whether or not they can change their terms and conditions whenever they want to.

One Example: Can PokerStars Change Their Terms and Conditions Whenever They Want To?

According to their terms of use page, PokerStars reserves the right to make amendments and changes to their terms of use at anytime. Here’s the wording they use:

PokerStars reserves the right to update or modify this Agreement or any part thereof at any time without notice and you will be bound by such amended Agreement within 14 days of it being posted at the Site. Therefore, we encourage you to visit the Site regularly and check the terms and conditions contained in the version of the Agreement in force at such time. Your continued use of the Site shall be deemed to attest to your agreement to any amendments to the Agreement.

Does that policy seem draconian? They don’t have to provide any notice, but they encourage you to check the terms and conditions regularly. Do you check the terms of service at the sites you visit regularly? I guess your option is to not use their site if you’re not willing to agree to their right to change their terms of service any time they want to.

What about the PokerStars affiliate program? Can the PokerStars affiliate program just change their terms and conditions whenever they want to? Here’s what their terms and conditions document says about it:

PokerStars reserves the right to update or modify this Agreement or any part thereof at any time without notice and you will be bound by such amended Agreement within 14 days of it being posted at the Site. Therefore, we encourage you to visit the Site regularly and check the terms and conditions contained in the version of the Agreement in force at such time. Your continued participation in the Programme shall be deemed to attest to your agreement to any amendments to the Agreement.

That’s essentially the same text as the main site.

Is that something you should agree to as a poker affiliate? In the past, I’ve always agreed to such clauses by default when I signed up for the affiliate program, but more savvy businesspeople might be a little more cautious. When I worked for Hotels.com, it wasn’t unusual for a larger affiliate to negotiate a different terms and conditions sheet that superceded the agreement that was posted on the website.

I think a reputable business ought to provide affiliates with written notices to any changes to their terms and conditions, and I think most reputable affiliate programs, including PokerStars, do provide such notice. But from what I can tell reading the clause in their agreement, they’re not required to provide such notice. They just have to post the changes on their site.

What Happens When a Poker Site Changes Their Terms and Conditions?

I’ve seen poker sites change their terms and conditions any number of times over the last few years. The reaction from players and webmasters varies based on what the actual changes involved. Sometimes there’s a lot of anger and vitriol posted on forums about such changes. Sometimes poker sites even revert their changes. But most of the time, most terms and conditions changes at poker sites go unnoticed.

If you’re a poker player and you want to play poker at a poker site, you’re probably just going to have to deal with the fact that poker websites are able to change their terms and conditions whenever and however they want to. I’d have a hard time thinking that you’d be able to negotiate a separate terms and conditions agreement that would apply to you as a player.

On the other hand, if you’re a poker affiliate or a poker webmaster, you’ve got the ability and leverage to negotiate your own agreement with a poker site. You can and should take advantage of this. The safest option for a poker affiliate is to negotiate a flat monthly payment for placement on your site for a specific period of time. You might not make as much money with such a model, but the risk is a lot lower.

For example, suppose you negotiate a $150 CPA with a poker site. Then three weeks later, they decide to switch you to a revshare deal. According to most poker sites’ terms and agreements with their affiliates, they’re allowed to make that change whenever they want to. What looked like a good deal might turn out to be a bad deal.

On the other hand, if you negotiate a deal with a poker site where they pay you $300 a month for six months for a 336X280 banner at the top right hand corner of the content area of every page of your website, and you have them prepay the $1800, then you’re all set. They’ve got their exposure. You’ve got your money. In six months, you can negotiate a higher flat monthly rate. Or the poker site can negotiate a lower flat monthly rate. But you don’t have to worry about a change to their terms and conditions being posted to their website and you being bound by it within 14 days if you don’t say anything.

The main reason that I thought his post was so interesting was because he compared building links in order to rank #1 for a single keyword phrase was like playing the lottery, while writing a lot of content in hopes of ranking for a lot of longtail keyword phrases was like investing in an index fund. I thought this was a great analogy–in fact, it fired up my imagination. In fact, I haven’t blogged here in a while, because I haven’t had anything to say, and that post was an inspiration to me.

That being said, I wish that search engine optimization were as simple as just writing a lot of content. If writing lots of poker content automatically translated into getting lots of poker traffic, then I’d be a wealthy man. I have plenty of time and inclination to write lots of pages of poker content. In fact, I think I write pretty interesting poker content–it’s not as interesting as the content I write about poker SEO, but I’m a better SEO than I am a poker player, so it shouldn’t be that surprising.

But if you engage in no keyword research and no linkbuilding, the you’ll see no search engine traffic. If you don’t think about some of the fundamentals of onpage optimization, then you’re not going to see any traffic either. You’ve heard the hypothetical example of a million monkeys typing for a million hours and completing the works of Shakespeare? That’s pretty much happening on the Internet already, although I don’t think any of them are anywhere close to creating something like the works of Shakespeare.

But when you’ve got that much content going live all the time, you have to be able to differentiate in order to rank. One of the ways to differentiate is via linkbuilding. Sure, some niches are small enough that you can probably generate a lot of traffic just by writing constantly all day every day. Heck, they’re probably small enough that you could get plenty of traffic by just writing a single poker every day five days a week. I’m not sure that this holds true for the poker niche, though. My friend Michael Martinez likes to call poker a hypercompetitive space, and in a hypercompetitive space, you’re going to need links to compete, even if you’re targeting nothing but longtail traffic.

To be fair, I don’t think Fraser is suggesting that you ignore keyword research or linkbuilding. Heck, his website sells a keyword strategy tool, so keyword research is very important to his strategy, to be sure. And he makes an important point–he points out that if you write one article for your site, then build 100 links to it by creating 100 more articles to link to it from various places, then you could have gotten a lot more mileage by just creating 101 pages of content for your site. I’m a fan of that strategy, I am. But it’s not enough.

But his point, I think, is that building 100 crappy articles on 100 crappy sites in order to generate 100 crappy links is going to allow you to rank for a single keyword phrase temporarily. He doesn’t write about linkbuilding on his blog much, because I don’t think it’s his favorite aspect of SEO. (It’s not mine, either.) But I think you do need a base of links in order to make your pages “important” enough to Google or Bing to rank, even for longtail stuff. The easiest way to get that base is by submitting to some of the higher quality directories, like Best of the Web.

Sometimes that’s not enough. If you’re still not attracting even longtail traffic after writing 10 or 20 or 50 articles for your site, then you probably need some more links. Article directories like EzineArticles still work for building ranking. It’s not the most efficient way of getting poker traffic, and it’s not even the most efficient way to build links or get poker rankings, but it’s still a strategy to include in your article. Publishing 100 articles to promote your content elsewhere ISN’T necessary. But it’s not a bad thing to publish an article here or there to build your rankings for certain keyword phrases.

The best way to go about publishing guest content to get links is to find some sympathetic webmasters who know you, and make arrangements with them to provide them with some content. If you write well, and if you have a specialized knowledge or skillset, you’ll have little trouble finding someone who’ll publish your work online. They might even want to trade guest posts, and if they do, you should go for it. The guest content on your site will freshen things up. And you don’t need to worry about the links not counting because of some mythical reciprocal link penalty–that’s one of those SEO myths that should have been dispelled a long time ago.

The most important thing about Fraser’s post, though, is his perspective on how to think about and execute a long-term strategy for a website. If you’re trying to win the lottery by ranking for a phrase like “online poker,” then you’re courting a lot of heartache and disappointment. And even if you succeed, you’ll probably only succeed temporarily.

I’ll try to expand on the analogy a little bit. The expected return on a lottery ticket is 50%. So if you buy $1 million worth of lottery tickets, mathematically, you’ll only win $500,ooo. So you’ve lost $500k. After 30 days, if you reinvest your “lottery winnings,” you’ll be broke. If you spend $1 million trying to rank for the phrase “online poker,” then you lose your ranking when Google changes its algorithm, you might have only made $500k before you lost the ranking too.

On the other hand, if you invest $1 million in an index fund, you’ll earn 5% or 6% on average. That doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but it’s $50,000 or $60,000 a year. And if you keep investing, then that annual return will grow right along with your principle. If you can rank for 1000 different poker niche keyword phrases, even if Google changes its algorithms, chances are some of your rankings will go up and some of them will go down. Your earnings will continue to raise.

You don’t have to choose between getting poker traffic and having poker rankings. You can do both. But a slow and steady, sustainable approach will get you there better than a get rich quick scheme that involves linkbombing your way to success. That’s my thinking, anyway.

I’ve been meaning to review Best of the Web for quite a while. I’ve been submitting sites to the Best of the Web directory for years now, and I have some ideas about how valuable their website directory is. In the interest of full disclosure, I am an affiliate, and if you use any of the links in this review to submit a site to their directory, I’ll receive a small commission. That being said, my plan is to write a straightforward, honest review of the Best of the Web directory.

Since 2005, I’ve submitted 49 websites to BOTW.  The most recent site I submitted was submitted on September 4, 2011, so I am a current customer there, and I’ve spent significant amounts of money on directory listings from their site. Clearly, I see value from a link in the Best of the Web directory. I should also point out that not all (or even most) of the sites I’ve listed there are poker websites. In fact,  several of the sites I’ve submitted don’t even belong to me; I’ve occasionally done submissions to BOTW for businesses I was consulting with.

Of the 49 submissions I’ve made, 48 of them were accepted. I tend to operate content-rich websites, so I was a little disappointed in a rejection rate of 2.04%, but the site that was rejected was a blog. If you’re submitting a blog to the Best of the Web blog directory, they have a requirement that the blog has been regularly updated for at least six months before listing it. That’s not an unreasonable requirement, and if you’re paying attention to the information on their submissions pages, you won’t get confused and discover that when it’s too late. (Besides that, you’ve read this review, and so now you know not to submit your blog until it’s six months old.)

Overview of the Best of the Web Directory

Brian Prince and Greg Hartnett are the CEO and President of Best of the Web. I met both of them years ago when I worked for Hotels.com. They were very successful affiliates in the hotel and lodging industries, but I didn’t get to know them well, as another account manager in my office handled their account. In any event, I doubt that either of them would remember me. (I left Hotels.com in 2005, and I stopped working in the affiliate marketing department there in 2004.) I can say that they understand how to run a profitable website though, because they were VERY successful affiliates.

According to the About Us page on Best of the Web, there are at least 14 people working for the company, which immediately puts it ahead of most website directories on the Internet. I don’t know how many employees work at the Yahoo Directory, but I’d assume it’s comparable. DMOZ only has one paid employee as far as I know, but who knows how many volunteer editors work there. And since AOL owns DMOZ now, they might have assigned additional staff to the project too. And Best of the Web likely has a large number of editors, both paid and volunteer, managing the website listings, of which there are many. According to their Careers page, they are hiring editors. (I don’t have a clue about how many employees work at JoeAnt, but my guess is that, like DMOZ, it’s almost entirely volunteer-driven.)

According to their About Us page, Best of the Web is the Internet’s oldest search directory. I’m not an expert on Internet search history, so if someone is, I’d be grateful if they could comment on how true that claim is. I know that DMOZ is pretty old, and so is the Yahoo Directory. My guess is that none of those directories in 1994 were what we think of as directories in 2011. In fact, to think that any kind of Internet directory has been around for 17 years or more just plain makes me feel old.

Their mission, according to their About Us page, is to create a comprehensive directory of content-rich, well-designed websites. They want to provide the Internet community with meaningful guidance they can trust.

I think that having a goal of a comprehensive directory of content-rich and well-designed websites is a noble one, but possibly a goal that can’t be achieved. To be comprehensive, the directory would have to include ALL well-designed, content-rich websites on the Internet. Presumably, more of those are spring up every day, and if the Best of the Web directory were listing them comprehensively, they’d have no business model. After all, if the directory were comprehensive, no one would ever need to pay a submission fee, would they? I’m being needlessly literal, but that’s what happens when you spend five years getting a bachelors degree in English.

Best of the Web actually now consists of multiple directory, including a general web directory, a blog directory, a UK directory, a local directory, a software directory, a senior housing directory, and an online degree directory. Most of their additional directories will be of little interest to the average poker webmaster. Most poker affiliates will be interested in their main website directory and possibly their blog directory.

How Much of an SEO Benefit Does a Listing in the Best of the Web Directory Provide?

I’m unable to provide an exact measurement for how much of an SEO benefit a Best of the Web directory listing provides, because it’s impossible to measure such things. For one thing, it depends on which category your website is listed in there. It also depends on how many other websites are listed in your category. It’s also possible that search engines might consider some categories of the directory more or less valuable than others.

For example, when I visit the “Poker Guides” category, I look at the Google Toolbar to see what kind of visible PageRank is showing. I see a gray bar, which would seem to indicate that the page as no PR at all. Of course, being a relatively sophisticated SEO, I understand that this is NOT an indicator that the page offers no benefit SEO-wise.

Another way to measure (at least roughly) how much value a link from a page might have is to look at the Google cache date for that page. In this example, the cache date is August 4, which means that the page hasn’t been cached in about six weeks. I prefer to see a page that’s been cached within the last 30 days, and the fresher the cache date, the better.

Another way to guesstimate the value of a page would be to look at how well it ranks in Google for its target keyword phrase. In the case of this example page, a legitimate target keyword phrase might be “poker guides directory,” since all three of those words are included in the page’s title tag. According to my rank checker, the page is #18 in the Google results for that phrase, which is good news. It might not get a lot of (or any) traffic from that phrase, but Google at least thinks the page is relevant and worth listing fairly high in the results. (I’d be satisfied with anything in the top 100, and disappointed with anything less than that.)

And the amount of direct traffic you might receive from that page matters too. Honestly, I’ve never seen a lot of direct traffic from Best of the Web to any of the sites I have listed there. And I’m not sure that any of the minimal amounts of traffic I’ve received from the directory were from real consumers. Most of them are probably from snoopy webmasters who are wondering who else is listed in the directory and how well they rank.

If you have a lot of time to spend, you could also go through the listings in a particular category in the Best of the Web directory and see how well they rank for the anchor text that is used in their listings. I don’t have time to do that for the “Poker Guides” category, since there are 60 listings there. But if most of those sites listed there rank well for that anchor text, that’s a good sign.

It’s my opinion that a Best of the Web directory listing is a solid backlink for purposes of SEO, but it’s also my opinion that the effectiveness of the link varies dramatically based on which category you’re listed in.

Aspects of the Best of the Web Directory That I Like

Here’s a list of what I really like about the Best of the Web Directory:

• They allow multiple listings for a single website. For example, there’s a subcategory of  “Poker Guides” for “Poker Rules.” If you launch a site that reviews 20 different online poker sites, then you’d probably qualify for a listing in the Poker Guides category. But if you launched a section of the site specifically targeting rules for 20 different poker games, then that subsection of your site would qualify for a second listing.
• They review sites quickly. A Yahoo Directory submission takes at least 7 days to be reviewed and listed. A DMOZ submission might be reviewed at any point in the next hundred years (or longer). But a Best of the Web submission is reviewed within 3 business days.
• They’re not expensive. A Best of the Web listing costs an annual fee of $149.95. That’s less than $15 a month. Good luck finding a link with better SEO benefits anywhere else in the poker industry for less money than that. And you can pay extra for a permanent listing, which is what I prefer to do. (The cost for a permanent listing is $299.95, which is the same as what Yahoo charges.)
• They have standards. A website directory that accepts every submission will provide a limited amount of benefits from an SEO perspective, and that benefit will probably go away pretty quickly. My theory has always been that the harder a link is to obtain, the more valuable it is. A link from BOTW isn’t next-to-impossible to obtain, so it’s not alm0st-priceless. But they do have standards for a listing, so my theory is that a link from them provides some benefit.

All in all, I think that a listing in the Best of the Web directory is well worth the money for an SEO in almost any industry. I’d pay careful attention to which category I submitted to, and I’d consider planning my content sections so that I might be eligible for multiple listings. The next time you’re thinking about renting a link for $25 a month, consider picking up an additional Best of the Web listing instead. It’s more valuable, more cost-effective, and it will motivate you to expand the content on your site in interesting and unusual ways.

Suggestions for How to Improve Best of the Web

I don’t have a lot of suggestions for how to improve the Best of the Web directory, because I think it’s pretty awesome as it is. I do have a single suggestion that I think would be pretty powerful for the Best of the Web directory if they’d implement it, and that’s to launch a blog similar to the now-defunct “Spark,” which was the blog that the Yahoo Directory ran for years. You can see archives of the Spark Blog here. Each blog post covered something that was relevant to the date on which it was posted, and each blog post included a list of links to relevant information related to that subject. Just to pick a random example, on December 29, 2006, Spark published Plant a Tree – Save the World. The short post includes 18 high quality links to various pages on the Internet–that provides a lot of value to the reader.

If Best of the Web launched a similar blog, and posted to it every day, they’d create a great, content-rich resource for the Internet. But more importantly, if they promoted each post, it could act as linkbait for the site. The linkjuice from those posts could be filtered to various categories in the site, making links from those categories more valuable. THAT would be a value add. I’m pretty sure that was Aviva Directory‘s strategy when they posted all those great articles in the “Readings” section of their site.

Conclusion

Okay, I’ve rambled on at great length here in my review of Best of the Web, but what does all this boil down to? I don’t make a lot of recommendations for services and tools on this site, but I AM recommending getting listings in the Best of the Web directory if you can. I think it’s a good value for your money, and I think you’ll be happy with the results you see. Will a BOTW listing make your website a success? Not by itself, no. But along with listings in Joeant and the Yahoo Directory, a listing in BOTW can be a good foundation for a linkbuilding campaign. I start almost all my linkbuilding campaigns that way, and as long as those directories maintain their editorial integrity, it will be hard to poison that well via overuse.

Here’s a list of categories that a poker webmaster might consider submitting to:

• Poker – This is the top-level category. I wouldn’t submit to this category unless I ran a site that covered multiple poker topics and had at least 100 pages of content. Even then, your site might be a better fit in one of the subcategories.
• Omaha Poker – Launching an Omaha subsection on your site and going for a second listing makes a lot of sense. Another strategy would be to launch a separate Omaha site, list it here, and link back to your main site where it makes sense to do so.
• Stud Poker – The same advice I wrote for the Omaha poker category applies here.
• Texas Holdem -The same advice I wrote for the Omaha poker category applies here.
• Video Poker – I don’t really think of Video Poker as being a subcategory of Poker, but that’s where BOTW put it. Butthe same advice I wrote for the Omaha poker category applies here, more or less. But I wouldn’t add a video poker subsection to most sites even to get this link, because really, video poker is a subcategory of slot machines.
• Poker Forums – Adding a forum to a poker site is a no-brainer, but make sure there’s plenty of activity there before submitting it to this category. Otherwise it will just be rejected.
• Poker News – This is like the Omaha category. You could add a news section to your site, or you could launch a separate news site.
• Poker Blogs – I don’t actually recommend submitting to this category. I feel like the way they’ve set up the navigation for the listings here will minimize the amount of link value you’d receive.

Those aren’t the only places to consider submitting to in the Best of the Web directory, but they’re a good sampling.

This article was written by Roger from Casinosites.com

Here I’m going to talk a little bit about our “gaming partners” and why they’ve really sucked lately. This is kind of a spin off of articles you’ve probably read such as “why your link exchange emails suck”. For the sake of this article I’m going to refer to us as the webmasters and the gaming programs as “partners”.

Your Email Approach Sucks Big Time

The very first thing our potential partners need to fix is their approach in getting our attention through emails. There is a reason webmasters put privacy blocks on their site, it’s to not be bothered unless it’s very important. Emailing us with a cut and paste offer is NOT going to get you anywhere. In fact it’s more likely damaging the company you work for.

When I see an email come in through a privacy protected email via whois I won’t even open it but simply read the snippet and then usually instantly junk it, feeling a bit pissed as well. Websites have contact emails for a reason, and it’s not usually for business to business proposals.

Look at Our Site, Not Our Email

If you insist on emailing a potential gambling affiliate website, take the time to look over the site before emailing. Get to know what the sites about before shooting off an email. I tend to get about a handful of emails a week from gambling sites wanting me to promote their product in which the site has absolutely no connection.

• Example: I have a poker site that deals with bad beat jackpots that is in need of new partners. The email I received was the standard copy and paste mass email stating, “your site looks very interesting and we should be working together.” First off, the gambling site sending the email didn’t even have a bad beat progressive jackpot, but in fact I already have an account with them via the same email address simply from a different site. On top of that I already work with an affiliate manager.
• That leads me to the second suggestion; surely poker sites can do some due diligence and have some way of finding out if they are sending out emails to their sponsors that already have an account. In the rare instance that a cut and paste “query” from an operator does get read by us webmasters, for god sakes make sure it’s not being sent from someone absolutely clueless about their program. Again, that leads me to another point.
• So the potential partner has managed to avoid the spam filter, not get instant deleted, and somehow catches our eye for some reason. When I follow up on the email it’s not going to be about something specific. If we wanted to promote their program we simply would be already, unless they have something actually compelling that we’ve missed (a non cut-and paste email). As in this case I asked if Hollywood Poker (Ongame) was planning on implementing a bad beat jackpot because after looking at their website and other Ongame poker programs, no such progressives were being offered. Here comes the wonderful follow up email to my request and they all generally go the same. “I’m not sure at the moment but we are offering players a $600 bonus (standard) and think you could do really well promoting us.” WTF, why even compose an email like this when you have no idea or actual value in creating an actual business proposal. It’s equivalent to me sending an affiliate manager an email promising to bring them tons of traffic, give me $500 CPA, not naming my site, and then following up with some nonamepokerwebsite.com with a brilliant review portal that has no potential in less than 3 years.

The Mass Follow Up Requests

Ok, so now that they’ve sent you one email many times I’ll politely say I’m simply not interested. Generally I just delete the email because they didn’t take the time to write a legitimate email in the first place. Right now I have in my email box at least 5 follow-up requests from some site called CasinoLuck asking if I’ve had a chance to read the original email. Even these follow up emails are cut and pasted and can tell are automated somehow. Talk about a good way to never want to do business with someone.

Hire Some Legitimate Representatives

We’re all prone to mistakes, and I’ve hired a couple people that may not know exactly what they are doing to a full extent. But, hiring people to mass request affiliates to promote your product is very harmful to your program in the long run.

Some Advice For Gambling Sites

Hire GOOD affiliate managers. Many of them are out there and in need of work especially with current circumstances. They are worth their weight in gold. Not only do they have very good contacts but they already know the gaming business in and out. I’ll never forget when I had to explain an affiliate manager I had what a “hybrid deal” was. Instead of spending $100k on a few people to waste webmasters time, put that money to good use and hire someone enthusiast about the business, responsive, and knows what they are talking about.

Some of the best managers out there don’t even get in touch with their partners. When we need help we’ll send an email out, the only thing we want in return is a speedy response and one that is informative. Proper casino, sports, and poker managers will go above and beyond and give you information that simply they know from being on the operator side of things for so many years and in the end will help the AM, the online sports betting site, and the affiliate.

Feel free to leave your pet peeves in the comments below, I’m sure there will be many! We’re not here to bash gambling sites but to give future employees a little bit of what we expect and don’t expect.

How to Launch a Poker Forum Network

If you want to create some sites which generate their own content and links, then you should think about launching a poker forum network. It doesn’t (in fact it shouldn’t be) a large network. It should be a small network of 3 or 4 poker forums that can all stand on their own. But you can cross link them within reason, and I’d be surprised if a network this small would trigger any kind of Google penalty.

My suggestion would be to launch all the poker forums in the network at the same time, and include links to all 3 poker forums in the footer of each forum. It wouldn’t hurt to throw in a couple of links to some sites that aren’t yours that you like too, but maybe use different sites in each footer. I wouldn’t put more than 5 or 6 links total in each footer.

Why would you need multiple poker message boards though?

That part is easy. You just focus each forum on a different poker topic.

For example, you might launch a forum for each of the following poker games:

1. Texas holdem
2. Stud
3. Omaha

Boom. There’s your poker forum network.

Another example? You might launch a forum for each of the following poker topics:

1. Online poker
2. Live poker
3. Poker travel

That third option could be a helluva great forum, because you could include subforums targeting various cities, states, and even countries.

Linkbuilding for a Poker Forum Network

I wouldn’t bother doing a lot of linkbuilding for this “poker forum network.” I’d invest in a few good quality directory links for each forum. I might do a single article distribution campaign for each of the three forums. After I had maybe 10 or 20 decent links pointing to each forum, I’d let them alone in terms of linkbuilding, and then I’d spend my time creating content and encouraging discussion.

Developing Participating for a Poker Discussion Board Network

The hardest part of this process is going to be getting people to participate on your forums. But if you write compelling content, you can get people involved in discussions with you. Let’s face it, the forum on my site is a poker forum, even though it’s a TINY little poker niche. (It’s also an SEO forum, but it’s a tiny little niche there too.)

The smaller the niche, the better chance you’re going to have of developing a following. It would be hard to launch a general poker strategy forum and see much success. The competition is too stiff.

But what aspects of poker aren’t being served by existing poker forums? What about poker on television? Is that something people would discuss on a forum? I think that idea is a no-brainer. If you launched a forum devoted exclusively to poker television shows, I think you’d be surprised at how much traffic and participation you’d be able to generate.

You could launch a forum that does nothing but discuss various home poker variants and variations. Your participants could post poker games they play at their house at their kitchen table. There has to be an infinite number of home grown game rules and variants you could write about. My guess is that people are making up new poker variants in their home games all the time. (I know for a fact my father-in-law is doing just that, because he’s got a new damn game every time I go to his house. Most of them suck, but I digress…)

On the other hand, you could find a poker niche for a forum that is SO small that you’d never be able to find participants. For example, I think you’d have a hard time getting participation in a forum about poker movies. There just aren’t that many poker movies out there to discuss, and the ones that do exist aren’t always discussion worthy either. Sure, I could discuss The Cincinnati Kid at great length, but discussing Rounders wouldn’t take long.

But Wouldn’t a Poker Forum Network Be Hard to Monetize?

In my experience, all forums are harder to monetize than static sites. But nothing says that your forum can’t include a static content SECTION. For example, if you launch a poker forum devoted to home poker games, you could include a static section for classified ads. You wouldn’t have to charge the advertisers much to get the ball rolling, either. Start by offering free ads, but give the advertisers options to upgrade.

I love the idea of monetizing a poker forum with a classified ad section. People can sell used poker tables there, or poker coaching, or extra Full Tilt Poker ballcaps, or whatever. You give them 250 characters to play with. If they want their headline to be bold, they have to pay an extra $5 at the time they list it.

You could even launch a classifieds section using some of these classified ad scripts that are out there. I have no experience with any of them, but I’m assuming that their similar to various forum software packages. (In other words, they’re probably adequate to the task without being something amazing.) But heck, I’d start by just including my classified ads section on a static page.