GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 2 - October 2007

44 Charlie Hyde | Continued from p.12 a number of places, both organic and paid methods. Early on I built a content management system to handle the content on the sites. This really has saved an incredible amount of my time. I built up a network of six casino portal sites targeting different demographics. Some of the sites target the global audience, some target U.K. players and some target other groups like high rollers and first-time players. How has the GPWA helped you as an affiliate? To be honest, I don’t think I would still be a gambling affiliate today without the GPWA’s help. I had limited marketing experience before I started my first portal. I had good experience with the design and development of sites, but I hadn’t done any active marketing-type work. I was expecting that all to be fairly obvious stuff. Back when I first joined the GPWA, the core part of the forums was hidden away from non-members. I had no real idea how many people were posting and what the community was like. When I submitted my application, I had to answer a number of questions, which all seemed a little excessive just to join a forum! When I was approved as a member, I realised how much excellent information and guidance were there in the private forums. The other members were so helpful in answering my questions. I spent a long time reading up on the guidance in the forums and then set up a totally new portal. Only after I launched this new site did I start to make any real money. What advice can you offer people new to the industry? The best advice I can give is to give it a try, but to remember that you have to stick with it. Getting into this area of affiliate marketing is, unfortunately, more difficult now than it has ever been. It takes a lot of work before you start to see results, but Nandakishore | Continued from p.11 attending a couple of gaming exhibitions, that becoming a gaming operator could be a disaster, especially if you are a total newcomer in this area. I found an alternative in becoming an affiliate. I knew that my IT background, some SEO knowledge acquired during the nineties, and my connection to software developers in India would help me to build up a reasonably good site within a relatively short period of time. What were the most difficult challenges for you as a new arrival into the industry? And howdid youmeet them? The most difficult challenge was my total ignorance in gambling. Without gambling experience, I found it very difficult to assess the requirements of the online gamblers. What games would they like to play? What type of information would they like on our site? So, I started reading gaming guides, histories of card and slot games, and playing online for fun using the help texts. Finally, I decided to contact a few passionate gamblers and watch them playing. This was definitely the most important part of my learning process, which is still ongoing. What is currently the most difficult part of your work? Our site is growing and we know that it would be more effective if we had a few more sites interlinked. I don’t have enough resources for the required content management and SEO of all that. But this is the same situation I am familiar with from my old software company. You must have patience and continue making as much progress as possible. How has the GPWA helped you as an affiliate? Very significantly indeed! When I introduced myself after being admitted as a private member, there were, as usual, many congratulations, and almost all of them said, without GPWA they wouldn’t be where they are today. I didn’t realize then that they really meant it. The help of GPWA is to a great extent help coming from the entire community — although we are, after all, a bunch of competitors. But we all know the net revenue we get through networking. For a newcomer like me, all that I have learnt about the gamblingbusiness through the GPWA is absolutely invaluable. What do your friends and family think about your new line of business? They are used to my doing odd things. So it is partly amusement for them and partly curiosity. Will he really earn some good money this way? What advice can you offer people who are just starting up in the industry? 1. First, don’t let yourself be lured into starting your own casino, white label or whatever. That is a perfect non-starter for a newcomer. Better think of starting as an affiliate. 2. Go to conferences and exhibitions like CAP, CAC, etc., and talk to affiliate man- agers, casino software providers, epay- ment providers, SEO experts. 3. If you have no experience in gambling, play online casinos with fun money and read as much as you can about gambling rules, histories, etc. 4. Visit as many affiliate sites as you can. 5. Define your focus: what type of infor- mation you want to present on your site, for whom, in what language, for which countries. 6. Make your concept and decide whether to build the site on your own or outsource it. 7. In any case, learn SEO and, if you can afford it, get an SEO expert. 8. Choose a suitable IT infrastructure and the right design and implementation tools. 9. Build the site, start filling it up with contents, do SEO and don’t go online un- til the site is stable. 10. Do all that only if you’re prepared not to expect any revenue for six months, at least. Howlongdidittakeforyoutostartearning money? Six months. If you weren’t working in online gaming right now,what would you be doing? Nothing, if I would listen to my wife. But she knows that is not going to happen, although as a retired person, I could afford that. After I started my IT career almost 40 years back, I started neglecting reading literature. I have thousands of books at home. I would start reading them again. GPWA TIMES | GPWA affiliate interview series