Best way to monetize my personal blog

[Squizzel]

Hey, ive been running my personal blog for a few months. Managed to get a few decent backlinks now and finally listed in DMOZ. Im adding an article every few days to it. Most of my visitors are pros from forums like 2+2. And im getting like 150 visitors a day. I plan on building that by getting more links and targetting more terms with my posts.

Im not sure the best way to monetize the site, Any suggestions? I have been thinking of writing an ebook and selling for $100-$200. Im a sucessful mid stakes player and made like $200k playing low/mid stakes cash games in the last 24months.

Other ideas are to try and offer rakeback but i think most of the people visiting my site already have rakeback. Im not sure how i convince them to signup through me.

Or, i could do something like open a training area where i sell an ebook and do training videos and then sell as a package, although it will be kinda hard to compete with some of the big names at sites like bluefire, leggopoker and cardrunners. I am nowhere near as good as the biggest names.

The website is Squizzel’s Poker Strategy Blog - BadVariance.com - Any thoughts and opinions apreciated. Thanks.

[corpfan1]

Check out the WARRIOR FORUMS - I'm sure they will have lots of ideas.

If you have some data about who your visitors are - that will help.

They must be interested in something OTHER than poker?

[Squizzel]

the site is all poker related but these are not the types of players who signup for bonus codes. most are professional poker players. most already are signed up to rakeback at various sites.

[MJ]

In my opinion the best thing you can do in a situation like this is use the blog as your source of credibility to build trust, with trust and credibility comes oppurtunity - especially in rakeback. Trust>credibility>rakeback deals - just a thought anyways.

[Matt Geer]

In my opinion the best thing you can do in a situation like this is use the blog as your source of credibility to build trust, with trust and credibility comes oppurtunity - especially in rakeback. Trust>credibility>rakeback deals - just a thought anyways.

I agree. Also, I don't know if I would really turn it into an affiliate site, to be honest. Why not have an escape of some kind where you and your viewers can just read content and enjoy it without having to worry about links and banners?

At the very most, I would use it for links (sidebar/blogroll/footer) to your other sites and maybe a small banner in your sidebar.

Ah..(idea as I wrote this) maybe just throw incontent links in to your money pages on your other site or to whatever poker room. That way it is still subtle and not heavy on all the affiliate stuff.

Just a thought-

[bagsy]

Ah..(idea as I wrote this) maybe just throw incontent links in to your money pages on your other site or to whatever poker room. That way it is still subtle and not heavy on all the affiliate stuff.

I love this idea and this is what i'm trying with a personal blog. My blog is about my musings on the gambling affiliate world, so while not entirely related to the stuff that poker/casino end users will want to read, from a search engine perspective the relevancy will still be there.

The more you write, the more you can link to other blog posts that interest you, and if they link back from their own blogs then you can really build up some good link equity this way.

As for the actual method of linkbuilding, I'd stick to in-content all day long. I'd bet that sidebar and footer site-wide links will not pass as much value as in-content links in the future, if that's not already the case.

[Mark]

I would use it to sell various poker software products or subscriptions to CardRunners or something like that. It seems your demographic would be interested in things like that.

Mark

[Unknown Webmaster]

Write good honest reviews of poker software and training sites.

I don't think I have ever read a review of Texas Calculatem that were written by someone who are both honest and know how to play poker. You obviously won't sell any copies of Calculatem, but the people who read it will trust you more when you actually recommend something fx. a training site.

The hardcore people won't really care, but I'm pretty sure there will be a ton of struggling small stakes players who read your blog, and they will probably be interested in training sites.

[Squizzel]

thats because texas calculatem is a piece of junk and no pros use it.

im thinking of writing an ebook/training videos package and sell for $200+. There is a leggopoker pro called bobbofitos and i was talking to him and he sold over 100 copies of his ebook which was selling for $750 each. I have read it and its decent but i think i could do something better then that. The same goes for the book sold by dailyvariance.com which has a few chapters written by cole CTS south which was sold for i believe $1800.

I might consider doing something like, signup for rakeback under me and rake $500 and get my book/training series for free. im guessing all of those could work.

[Unknown Webmaster]

The reason I suggested Calculatem, is that writing the truth about that kind of software will be an easy way to get start writing product reviews without giving the impression that you are selling out.

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As you said yourself, much of the success of the Slowhabit/CST and Bobbofito ebooks stems from the reputation of their authors.

After reading your about page I got the impression that you aren't trying to present yourself as some kind of poker god, and while you have good results, they aren't "OMG sick!!" compare to someone like CTS or Bobbofito. This may be a problem when marketing an ebook to the 2+2 crowd.

Don't get me wrong - I like the current style of your blog, and would hate to see it changed. But if you were selling an ebook, I think you would have to hype your playing abilities some more, and I'm not sure if that is something that you would enjoy.

In addition there are also a pretty big gamble involved with writing an ebook - You would probably spend 1-2 months writing, and if you were writing content for one of your sites you would pretty much be guaranteed a return - With an ebook there are a very real chance that you won't sell more than 10 copies.