Over the weekend my neighbor John decided to break out the classic board game monopoly. It has probably been between 10-15 years since I played monopoly last. During this intense Saturday beer drinking / monopoly session, I realized that internet marketers and affiliates can actually learn quite a bit from monopoly. With no further ado I give you 10 Things Internet Marketers & Affiliates Can Learn By Playing Monopoly.

1. Make The Right Decisions Early – As in monopoly, your future success as an affiliate can usually be gauged by the beginning of your career. If you make wise decisions and begin acquiring property and wealth early on, your future career will be bright.

2. Residual Income, This Is The Goal – In monopoly you are not playing to simply get lucky and collect a nice payday when you get free parking. You are building a portfolio of properties that will return dividends every single time someone lands on them for years to come. Likewise in affiliate marketing, most professionals are not in the game for one good month. Great affiliate sites are like Boardwalk with a hotel on it. They convert better and make more money than any other site on their block.

3. Acquire As Much Property On The Block As Possible – If you can acquire all the properties on one block (or color) in monopoly, you can leverage them to return better dividends by building houses and hotels. In affiliate marketing, if you can own or build all the top properties in a certain niche, you can leverage them against each other. If you “own” the entire niche, you will get more visitors and in return get paid MORE every time a web visitor searches within your niche. Owning only one site within a niche is never as profitable.

4. Improve The Property You Already Own – In monopoly, the more improvements you do on each property, the more money you will make when a visitor lands on it. The same goes for internet marketing. Although acquisition plays a key role in the success of both, so does constant improvements of what you already have. In monopoly you add houses to property with goal of owning a hotel. As webmasters, we add content and features. Once you own the authority site for your specific niche, feel free to stick a red hotel on top of your monitor!

5. Seize The Moment When You Get Lucky – There is no doubt that you are going to have to find a little luck and be in the right place at the right time to win a monopoly game. When you get lucky and land on boardwalk, BUY IT! When you land on Free Parking and have a windfall, invest it wisely. When your opponent doesn’t see you on their property, grab the dice and roll fast.

Every successful affiliate has had at least some luck in their career. The key is capitalizing on this luck. When you surprisingly find your site ranking great for a killer term, analyze your conversions every day and make them better. If you have a windfall month, parlay that windfall by doing improvements on your sites to make you more the next month.

6. Negotiating – Be In The Position Of Strength – When you are broke in monopoly, or you only own 1 of the 3 properties on a block, you are not in a position of strength to negotiate. The same goes for affiliate marketing. If you own and control your niche market, you can then negotiate what you want within that market. To get into this position of strength, follow numbers 1-5.

7. Jail Sucks And Is The Equivalent Of A Google Penalty – In a monopoly game, you can often go to jail by having a bad roll of the dice. Jail can be very expensive as you are not collecting on your properties. Not to mention, once you go to jail, your competitors can pass you by and laugh, and the traffic to your property is worthless.

As an affiliate you can also have a bad roll of the dice as well if you engage in unethical or black hat SEO techniques. Being penalized by google mine as well be called “webmaster jail” if you rely on SERPS for your traffic and income. Bottom line is be ethical and build authority for your properties. This is your virtual “get out of jail free card”

So there you have it. Here are 7 tips that can give you baller status in both the game of monopoly, as well as the game of internet marketing. If you’re like me and haven’t played monopoly in years I highly recommend it. You can learn more about the game of monopoly by visiting the previous link. There’s a also an article about Life Lessons from Monopoly there. Likewise if you’re an affiliate and enjoyed this article, pass it on!

And if nothing else, share a comment or two!