haha…good question. i see how everyone’s point of view is skewed towards their own basket.
yes, affiliates are important, but they are secondary to the actual stability of operations.
tell you what, since its an internet based company, most important aspect is your business information system. meaning that the only way why you might stand out against other poker rooms is how you operate, your whole business process is the key genuine process.
what this entails is the actual automation of your business processes including software, customer support, payment solutions, commuincation with clients (vitally important), communication with suppliers/advertisers/partners (could be some other additions here)
now there is the presentation of your product – website. must be informative, attractive and most improtantly ( you know best!) a bit content driven. must be able to direct players, no matter what their level is, to download and play. i guess there are different ways of doing it but in any case you would want to show quite a bit of well researched content on your website both for seo reasons and for proper learning/reading experience.
now there is this aspect of having a forum. i would suggest just making articles as opposed to forum postings. although i’m in no way a good poker player, but my general experience with forums has been that when there is less than 100 posts, i never come back to the site again. in fact i tend to treat them on the harsh side. why? because imho one has to first have enough posts and issues before going public, otherwise it just looks embarassing. and you dont want that image associated with your “brand new” room.
there is a lot you could devote to advertising but it this all depends on the strategy of yours. what are you trying to achieve and through what means?
affiliates are important, thats right. i’m still not sure whether its a good thing to introduce aff. program to your gambling site straight away or later on. one of the reasons worth arguing is that affiliates will get better rankings for your own terms if you introduce an aff. program straight away. imho, give it 6 months to establish the name through different seo techniques before giving leeway to independent advertisers (affs).
i could go on for a while, but those are just some thoughts to get you going.
i think i’ve been blabbering now… :flush:
…err…i could be wrong too you know :tongue: