Poker Sharks.co.uk

A month in and the story so far is a postive one.

 The main game is behaving extremly well and the poker room on the whole is working well too.  We definately need more people to try out the poker room though, if you can’t see a table with anyone sitting on it sit on an empty table and someone will usually join you within a minute or 2.  You’ve just got to be brave and be the first to sit down!

 I did the first bit of marketing the other week on johnchow.com where i paid him to review Poker Sharks.  This is the first time I have paid for a review from someone who didnt know the first thing about Poker Sharks.  It was quite a risk as the review didnt have to be postive but i was confident that Poker Sharks would hold up to scutiny so went ahead.  Luckily the review was extremely postive with the only negative being that the main page is a bit confusing.  I think after a few days the main screen becomes second nature but i do take on board that first time players can find it a bit confusing.  I also know they dont like reading the Tutorial, so short of visting each new player and giving them a personal tour in not too sure what can be done, any suggestions?

But who cares what John Chow said, all we’re interested in is traffic and players right?

Well, to be honest, yes we are!

The traffic generating was very good, probably the biggest spike we’ve ever had.  The conversion rate for people to actually sign up wasn’t too bad but not as good as i hoped.  From the thousands of hits around 100 of them signed up.  This sign up rate is lower than i hoped but John Chow isn’t a gaming site so this would explain why people clicked the link out of curiosity then left soon after.

Poker Sharks is still in the early days and getting a post on a popualr blog will hopefully keep driving traffic for a while to come so i can reccommed the Pay per Review method to anyone who is thinking of doing it.  I wont be doing another one soon as its a bit of a luxury that can’t be done too much when youre first starting out – or atleast i would target my review at an actual gaming blog rather then a general internet blog.  So in answer to the post at john chows the review was worth the money and is a good method of advertising.  I would still strongly reccomend you dont rely just on paid reviews however, google adwords and press releases are the main methods i use and generate more targeted traffic.

 I have a big marketing drive that will be happening in the next month or so that will be targeting one of the biggest gaming sites on the net (theyre in the top 100 site in the world), if all goes to plan it could drive thousands of players in the first few days and hundreds more for months after.  The best thing is it will also be free, and everyone loves free.  Involves quite a bit of work though to actually make it a success and you only get one go at it so fingers crossed that poker room is bustling with players in the near future – but in the mean time go have a game today, i know its quiet but theres still enough players hanging around to have a good game.