Do you really earn via casino affiliate?

I have been running my casino affiliate website, for the past two years, but I haven't earned a single penny so far. I'm not sure whether it's because my strategy isn't effective or if it's simply a matter of time and luck.
Could you share a realistic timeline for when a casino affiliate website might start generating income? Also, what is the earning potential in today's market for someone building a casino affiliate business from scratch?
Hearing about realistic expectations and timelines would be very motivating, not just for me, but for many others who are putting in consistent effort without seeing results yet.

Hey,

If you are running the site for 2 years now and that brought in literally 0 (though I do it as a hobby so would keep on doing even for 0) - the isse is most certainly the strategy and / or direction you are taking.

Could be either one of:

- The keywords you are "targeting" are not actually in demand
- The keywords you are "targeting" don't have any conversion intent
- The terms you are ranking well for don't have any conversion intent
- You aren't ranking well at all

In case of the "You aren't ranking well at all" option you are likely looking at:

- You are competing for something that is not worth competing for. i.e. trying to rank for terms on the level of "bet365 review" or something like that
- You need to up your backlink game - from your last post I had a look at the BL profile and I can say this is most certainly the case
--- Though before you attend to the above point it would be best to explore all other ones to actually understand what you need / want to rank for and what is actually realistic
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Side note, you don't only earn money by getting commission, you can also:

- Sell "top" homepage positions and produce paid brand reviews. Many brands (especially the ones that are cold emailing you) will be willing to pay up for a top HP spot and a good review

- Sell links / posts on your site. This gets looked down on, but imo there is no reason for that. Just make sure that paid publications pass a sanity check from your end and you will not face any issues. Quite the opposite, you will be paid to publish content that may actually get you some additional organic visitors.

I always read about affiliate earnings, timelines, which keywords are good, or which GEOs to focus on... but I rarely hear about which traffic sources you guys rely on. Is it Google? As a newbie expecting an income, you might as well just stop your efforts right now.

In my opinion, it is almost impossible for a generic slots or casino site to gain enough authority to rank for anything more than 6-word long-tail phrases. Even if the handful of remaining top dogs went to sleep today, that wouldn't change.

The time when Google fed affiliates with free SEO traffic is gone. Affiliates are unwanted, and in YMYL niches, even more so. On Google's page one, maybe only 3 or 4 natural rankings are left available. All the rest is paid ads, AI features, or Google's own products and cross-links. And it will become worse!

I've had websites before which have only referred a single player which resulted in thousands in earnings. Don't give up!

You need to be producing content that no-one else is producing. To do this you must get inside the head of the people (players) you want to attract. How do you do that? Well, If you're not a player, go to the Reditt Gambling forums and look at the sort of questions and discussions people are having, that will give you content ideas, as these are the people or people like them that you want on your site. Then start producing the content.

I made a good living from not doing keyword research, because the keywords i went after were too small in volume to appear in the tools.
I was a player first so knew what sort of content i'd like to read, so i created that. It's a simple formula - don't try and take on or compete with the established big boy affiliates or the terms they go after, that day has gone, plough your own furrow. A small slice of a big cake is still worth quite a bit, you can make a good living from the crumbs.

What's the exact reason you are not generating any income?

Is it due to little or no traffic to your website, or is it due to low-quality or bad casino affiliate partners with no conversions, even though you are getting traffic? Sometimes, websites with bad CTA (Call to Action) placements can also lead to low or no conversions. You have to figure that out first.

If you are primarily targeting SEO traffic but are not getting any, then there is a problem with your website, its content, or your SEO strategy.

A two-year-old website means you have already passed Google's sandbox period for new sites, and you should be able to rank at least for long-tail keywords. However, your site needs to be updated to align with Google's latest SEO guidelines.

Don't forget about Bing and Yahoo as well; those search engines should also bring you traffic, although the search volume is lower than Google's. Implementing structured data will give you the opportunity to capture traffic from AI chatbots, as a growing portion of users are now switching to platforms like ChatGPT and Grok. You need to cover all these aspects to maximize traffic to your site, instead of relying solely on Google.

Good luck!

I think you are well past the timeline where you would be expecting to see strong results. And if you're saying you haven't earned a single FTD then there is definitely some issues with the site.

iGaming affiliate marketing is extremely competitive. Most people here would suggest focussing on niches in the market or unique content/keywords to find success.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CasinoAffiliateHost

I've had websites before which have only referred a single player which resulted in thousands in earnings. Don't give up!

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A lot of earnings can come from a few unique players that bet big/play large. Very random/high variance.

I would say earning via google is way more difficult that's pretty much dominated by parasite seo, big media (also parasite) and repurposed domains. actual old scxhool experts only a handful show. though there are avenues which can be very lucrative if you work out how to use them. Things are changing so I would focus on a new strategy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by winningspin

I have been running my casino affiliate website, for the past two years, but I haven't earned a single penny so far. I'm not sure whether it's because my strategy isn't effective or if it's simply a matter of time and luck.
Could you share a realistic timeline for when a casino affiliate website might start generating income? Also, what is the earning potential in today's market for someone building a casino affiliate business from scratch?
Hearing about realistic expectations and timelines would be very motivating, not just for me, but for many others who are putting in consistent effort without seeing results yet.

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I think it comes down to your strategy. If you're trying to compete with the big boys you're not going to get much traffic, focus on 3-5 word keywords to start.

Getting Google traffic is getting harder and harder, focus on getting Ai citations, quality links from other wesbites, etc. There's been a lot written on all of this, just do the work and it will pay off.

It depends on whether you have targeted traffic on your website.

Very smart answer ... something like:
... uh, I think about a Lambo, would it makes sense for me?
... yes, sure if u have a drivers license?!

Hey Winningspin,

Your situation is definitely not unique. I had a quick look at the site and there are quite a few areas I think you could work on before worrying too much about how long monetisation should take.

I’d start with a Google performance analysis because some of the pages appear quite slow, particularly image delivery.

I’d also look at your calls to action. On some pages it takes a while before the visitor gets to the actual offer, so bringing a clear CTA higher up the page could help. I also noticed some cards and CTA elements that don't seem to be working as intended.

Your navigation could probably be simplified as well. The About section is useful for trust, but I’d prioritise your main commercial pages and move less important links to the footer.

Content depth is another area I’d focus on. Building more detailed operator/provider pages, supporting articles and stronger internal linking between relevant pages should give both visitors and search engines more context.

I’d also look at adding clear affiliate disclosures, responsible gambling information, age warnings and proper terms and conditions if they are not already present.

Finally, I’d review the site on mobile because I noticed a few styling issues on some pages.

I would not focus too heavily on a fixed timeline for earning. Two sites can be the same age and perform completely differently. I’d first concentrate on traffic quality, rankings, user experience and if visitors are reaching and clicking your offers.

I hope this is helpful and that you succeed.