[Journey] IM Newbie vs. the Casino Affiliate Big Boys - A David vs. Goliath Story. Let's go!

That's right. This thread will hopefully be the place where a classic David vs. Goliath story takes place.

Who's the IM newbie in the thread title? That would be me.
Who's the Goliath of this story? The casino affiliate sites owned by big media companies currently occupying the top spots on Google.

My goal for this journey: Build and rank a casino affiliate site and earn money through commissions.

Note: The site will not be in English, but rather in my native language (a European language that shall remain anonymous for this journey).

So, what makes an IM newbie stupid or brave enough to take on the very difficult industry that is the casino affiliate niche?
Well, I do have one advantage even though I'm new to internet marketing. I've been working as an online freelancer for the last 4-5
years now, and I've had big success as a casino content writer.


A bit more abut my background story in the casino business:

I started my freelancer career on Upwork and quickly got interested in the casino niche as there was a big demand for writers in my language there.
Within two years I became a top ranked freelancer with 100% positive feedback and a lot of money earned.

The last couple of years I haven't used Upwork at all though, because I've been working directly for some of the big boys in the casino industry located in Malta
outside of Upwork.

That's also how I know the following:

- Many of many competitors in this journey will actually be a mix of my former and current clients!

Fun fact: Did you know that many affiliate sites are owned by big gaming companies that also have their own casinos? This way they make sure that if people
don't sign up for their own casinos but for their competitors, they can still earn from it

Why do I think I can succeed in this very competitive niche?
I have learned a great lot over the last years and I honestly think I'm one of the top 5 writers in my language in the casino business. I know that some of the landing
pages I've written for former clients are ranking in top spots on Google as of this moment. So the CONTENT should not be a problem. I am confident that I can
write equal or better content than all of the current sites ranking in the top spots.

What will be my biggest challenge?
Link-building for sure. I've read so many guides on this forum on all kinds of topics for the last two months, and link-building seems to be by far the most difficult one.
Since most of my competitors are sites owned by big media companies, they obviously have big budgets I can only dream of as well. That means I need to work
smarter and better than them.

When it comes to keyword research I feel more confident. I've read some really good guides and I've spent countless of hours learning and understanding how
to do keyword research the last couple of months.

What have I done so far?

- Keyword research: I have figured out what will be the main keyword I will try to rank for. I also have the additional money pages planned.

- Bought a domain: This is a fresh domain directly linked to the main keyword I'm gonna try to rank for. I looked for some expired domains for a while, but couldn't
find anything interesting (and I wasn't gonna pay XXXXX euros for the most attractive domains). But I'm actually quite happy with the domain I've ended up with.

On the other hand I guess the "sandbox" effect I've read so much about here will be a challenge for the first 6 months though.

- Started writing content: This week I started writing content for my main landing/money page. I will use SurferSEO to write and optimize all of my landing pages.

What's next?

- I will try to finish my main landing page within the next week.

- When I've written the first landing page I will set up my website.

- I'll try to write one landing page per week for the next 1/2 months.

- After that I'll write some supporting pages and maybe some reviews of the most popular casinos in my market.

- When I'm happy with how my website looks and I've added a decent amount of content, I'll apply for various casino affiliate programs.

After all of this is done, I guess it's time to let Google do it's thing and let my content start aging.
This is also when I'll start to do link-building. I've already planned to reverse engineer my competitors links as much as I can, as this is
a method I've seen recommended by many successful people here.

Why am I documenting my journey?
I've read and learned a lot from other journey's here already, and I find it really motivating to read about other people's success.
So this journey will also be a way to keep myself motivated since it's being posted in public.

What are my goals for this journey?
Well, I want to earn money, passive money. That's the main reason behind starting this affiliate journey. I'm gonna be realistic with
my goals though, as I know this is a very competitive niche.

So these are the goals I've set myself:

- Make my first commission

- Rank top 20 in Google for my main keyword
- Rank top 10 in Google for my main keyword
- Rank top 5 in Google for my main keyword
- Rank #1 in Google for my main keyword

- Earn €500 in one month
- Earn €1000 in one month
- Earn €5000 in one month

When do I expect to achieve my goals?
I have no idea, but I'm not expecting anything to happen the first 6 months. I'm in this for the long haul.

That's it! Hopefully someone will find my journey interesting.

Well, you're not exactly a newbie - you have a lot of knowledge on the subject
Nevertheless, this is going to be tough - wish you luck op

I'm also about to start an affiliate site promoting casino offers - I know even with a small amount of traffic it can bring in some nice additional income.

You definitely do have an advantage and I'm sure you're going to do really well here so keep your head down and stay focused - It will definitely be tough and I do wish you all the best!

Following!

GenesisOne said:

Well, you're not exactly a newbie - you have a lot of knowledge on the subject
Nevertheless, this is going to be tough - wish you luck op

Click to expand...

Thanks, it's indeed gonna be tough!

Well, for the content part I'm definitely not a newbie. But considering up until a few months ago I had never even used Wordpress or knew anything about keyword research or what link-building even was, I still consider myself a newbie for this part of internet marketing

ThemeWave said:

I'm also about to start an affiliate site promoting casino offers - I know even with a small amount of traffic it can bring in some nice additional income.

You definitely do have an advantage and I'm sure you're going to do really well here so keep your head down and stay focused - It will definitely be tough and I do wish you all the best!

Following!

Click to expand...

Cool, do you have any experience running sites like this already?
Yeah, the good thing is we don't need a lot of traffic to make it profitable.
Thanks, good luck to you as well!

Oakman said:

Thanks, it's indeed gonna be tough!

Well, for the content part I'm definitely not a newbie. But considering up until a few months ago I had never even used Wordpress or knew anything about keyword research or what link-building even was, I still consider myself a newbie for this part of internet marketing




Cool, do you have any experience running sites like this already?
Yeah, the good thing is we don't need a lot of traffic to make it profitable.
Thanks, good luck to you as well!

Click to expand...

Kind of, been making affiliate sites for over a decade. Taken on the big niches but not casino related and done pretty well

I have a few ideas of what I'm going to do and how I'm going to market it but again, not really going for the big sites this will be more a hobby site and something I'll do on the side of my main sites.

Never know we might come across each other's sites down the track one day

Wishing all the best, please do keep us updated.

Somewhere here on the forum one guy mentioned that relevant forums were a great deal for him to outrank his competitors - they provided his site a topical authority in addition to guest posts/niche edits. He is also in casino niche, but not sure about that. I don't know if there are a lot of forums related to casino, but it's a good start to build your links anyway.

Good luck, you'll need it!

Just over 1 month has passed since my opening post, so it's time for a small update on this project.
To be honest I haven't been able to spend as much time on it yet as I thought, as I have so many different projects going on at the same time.

But here is a little recap of what's happened since the last time:
- Finished main landing/money page (About 8k words - optimized with SurferSEO)

- Finished second landing page (About 4k words - also optimized with Surfer)

- Changed theme. This took a lot of time. I had started out using Mercury theme as I had read many people recommending it, and at the same time it was available in Festingervault. However I found the theme not very user-friendly at all, and I struggled to make the changes I wanted to do. I then decided to sit down and research potential new themes. Luckily I stumbled upon a theme called Poka. Unfortunately not included in Festingers vault, but I decided to buy it anyway, and I feel it's definitely worth the money. It feels way more user friendly and customizable according to my needs than Mercury.

The site still doesn't look great though, as I focused on getting my first two pages live before starting to customize the design.

- I started making a social fortress for the site, making profiles at the main social media platforms.
- I built a few web 2.0 backlinks, but I don't wanna overdo it at this early stage so I try to keep it slow.

- It took about two weeks for the main page to index, and about one week for the second page.
- Today I saw that I've been getting my first few impressions on the site, and it seems like some of my keywords have popped up in Googles top 100 (yey!). That feels like a nice little motivational boost.

Not all of these positions are correct. Some I couldn't find at all in the top 1000, but others were about right.


That's about it as far as this update goes.

Shwepps said:

Somewhere here on the forum one guy mentioned that relevant forums were a great deal for him to outrank his competitors - they provided his site a topical authority in addition to guest posts/niche edits. He is also in casino niche, but not sure about that. I don't know if there are a lot of forums related to casino, but it's a good start to build your links anyway.

Good luck, you'll need it!

Click to expand...

This sounds like what I read on a thread from Bluematter (https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/h...y-competitor-made-me-36k-in-4-months.1444539/), but that wasn't in the casino niche as far as I can see though? Or maybe it's a different thread? Anyway I already took a note of this strategy, and I've been thinking of implementing it as well if I find any fitting forums for it. Thanks

Thanks for posting your journey

whats the difference with your main and second landing page (except word length)? and why dis u make two?

Hi, did you gave up on this journey?

Update?

Good idea and plan. Looking forward for your updates. Good Luck

looks tough, do you have a budget for backlinks?