LINK POPULARITY MYTH

THE FFA LINK POPULARITY MYTH

FFA, otherwise known as Free For All links pages, allow you to add your website to their long list of links, for free. Why? so search engines crawling the pages find you and index your pages. Good idea? Sure, back in 1999 it was. Worked well actually until around late 2000. That’s when you could go to your friendly neighborhood FFA page and type your link in for instant addition, and for good. Today, try that out. Submit your page to an FFA site if you really believe they are important. Go back in a few hours and look at that same page you submitted your link to. Utto, it’s not there? Why’s this? Because you were already bumped by a thousand others doing the same thing. Once a certain amount of links are on the page, the website drops those on the bottom off, but you still get a million junk emails either way. FFA sites are well known for the junk mail. Once you place your site in an FFA you’re also agreeing to receive “all you can read” for the next 12 months or so. That’s probably where a lot of those “opt-in” email lists you see for sale come from. You’ve just opted in by linking in.

So what now? Well, you are welcome to do as you wish should you decide to handle your own marketing strategy, but we do know that our services are at the top. We’ve disclosed about 10% of what we do in terms of marketing campaigns. The other 90% is what keeps us separate from everybody else. Unfortunately, we can’t share what that other 90% is since it is the key to our company success, but we’ll give you a couple interesting examples below.

This is how we begin to create the target marketplace. Target marketing is what brings the traffic to your website. For example, did you know that …..

82% of of online casino visitors visit land casinos
61% of casino & sports gamblers play golf
82% drink alcohol, with 77% of that being beer
73% read newspapers, 75% own cell phones
Half bank online one-quarter trade stocks online
56% are married, while 44% are not
34% enjoy fashion and clothing
51% smoke cigarettes – 8% smoke cigars
84% place bets on sporting events
47% of those bettors place their bets online
47% of online gamblers are male

(The info above is old, new info is confidential)

Those statistics, combined with basic demographic data profile a tech-savvy, well-educated and well-informed audience with disposable income. What we disclosed above is a small 2% sample of where we begin when directing a new marketing campaign to a target audience. In summary, the online gambling market has grown nearly 300% in the past year alone. It is one of the few sectors of Internet-based commerce to maintain profitability in light of the dot-com breakdown. Our old 2002 stats reveal 170 million Internet users have visited Internet-based casinos worldwide, and the potential bettor market of 2001 stands at 34.8 million. These 34.8 million spend a per capita average of $175.00 on Internet gambling annually. The relationship between the rollout of broadband Internet access (Cable, DSL, Satellite) to residential areas and the likelihood for home users to gamble online is staggering.

Additionally, the target markets for the online gambling industry are surprisingly diverse. The largest market consists of professionals, men and women, age 35-50, with a household income of at least $60,000 U.S. living in 3 main areas of the world. There are some other markets whose demographics prove they are about to boom over the coming years in relation to gambling online, but we cannot disclose those locations at this time.

MORE ON DEMOGRAPHICS

Many people today believe that woman are taking over the online gambling scene, but we have discovered different. Online gaming visitor demographics yield surprising results. Remarkably, the market is evenly split among men and women. Online gambling does not follow the male-dominated image associated wtih land-bansed casino gambling. The average age of the online casino visitor in 2002 was 41 and appears to be climbing. Most visitors are professionals with post high-school education and a high median household income averaging $64,000 U.S.

MARKET TRENDS

Payout time and turn-around time on incentives and bonus programs are make-or-break factors for visitors of online gambling websites. A 5 minute turn-around time on bonus implementation is a practical goal. Self-imposed account warnings and accout cappings, transaction logs, and audit trails are becoming key services potential customers look for. Sports opportunities that include fantasy games, stats games, and exotics attract additional customers. Convenient access to statistics, streaming media to watch events online, and news are essential for success in the sports industry.

BROADBAND AND DSL INTERNET MARKET GROWTH

We have noted that broadband Internet access growth, when associated with online gaming, has a similar acceptance. As broadband Internet access increases in the home, so does online casino traffic. Home-based subscriptions to DSL and cable are projected to grow 77% by the end of 2004, with 2 certain markets leading the way, which we again cannot disclose. Now here’s some remarkable comparison. The typical profile of a broadband user is in-line with the online casino target market: 65% are 25-44 years old, 60% have a college degree, over 50% have a household income of $50,000 U.S. or more.