GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 12 - April 2010

Age: 37 Hometown: Birmingham, U.K. Currently residing in: Herefordshire, U.K Favorite food: Not sure I have a favorite but I’ve been called a stupidly fussy eater. There’s loads of stuff I’ve never tried. One book everyonemust read: Come Together, by Josie Lloyd & Emlyn Rees Site: CasinoBeacon.co.uk got intoPPCuntil it becameprohibitively expensiveand I still don’t doanynow. I think I also ranbefore I couldwalk and launched far too many Web sites in too short a space of time. I didn’t outsource enoughwork and that’s something that’s still true today. It’s better to operate five quality, regularlyupdatedWeb sites than 25 sites that don’t get enoughattention. How has the GPWA helped you grow as an affiliate? GPWA was the first place I visited after deciding to get into the casi- noaffiliategame. I postedat SEF (Search Engine Forums) for some pointers on where to start and Rick (nascar1) got in touchwith someuseful stuff anda link to GPWA. Back then it was just an ezboard forum! It’shelped loads in somanyways. I’ve found programs to promote, infor- mation, somewhere to rant and I’vemade genuine friendshere. If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be? And why? Spam. I feckin’ hate spam and most of you who knowme have had to endure a rant about it at some point. Itmakes our industry look like crap and I’ve had ten years of people askingme if I’m “the one who sendsme all the e-mails”when I ex- plainwhat I do for a living. Itmakes our industry look shady and puts millions of peopleoff the ideaof trustingonline casi- nos. I’d like toseemorespammersendup in jail. And then set on fire. You recentlyposted in theGPWA forums that whenever you attend a conference you have to hide from the forums for at least threemonthsafterwards.Pleaseex- plain. Ah . . . do I have to?Let’s just say I have a tendency to arrive at a conference and spend thenext fewdays proppingup various barswith certain affiliatemanag- ers. It can only lead to trouble. I remem- ber spending twohours in thewrongcon- ference with Tim (Wagershare) because we’dhit thebar first. I also remember sit- ting down next to Bryan Bailey (Casino- meister) and asking him if he was in the casino industry too. Bad times. Howmuch timedoes it take tokeepyour siteupdated?Doyouusea contentman- agement system tomanage your site? I don’t havea contentmanagement system but I fully realize the idiocyof that. Iwel- come any suggestions on a good system touse. I’m inconsistent and I’ve spent peri- ods not doing enough work, followed by months of 14+ hour days, seven days a week. Right now I’m probably working far toomany hours day and night to up- date theWeb sites, but I’mplaying catch- up. Some of them need bringing back up to speed so I’m hoping to settle down to no more than 10 hours a day, once I’ve caught up! Timemanagement is one of the biggest issues facingaffiliates.Asaveteranaffili- ate,what timemanagement tips canyou offer your fellowwebmasters? Probably the best timemanagement tip I can offer is towatchhow Ido it and thendo theex- actopposite. In fact, Ineed tips fromany- one who’s nailed it. It’d be good to read an article about this in a future GPWA magazine with tips from other affiliates and casino staff. Whatdoyour friendsand family thinkof your work as an affiliate? Much of this will be familiar tomany of you.My fam- ily and friends don’t think I work partic- ularly hard and think I make money by playingonmy laptop. They seem to think 49 GPWA Affiliate Interview Series