GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 2 - October 2007

45 it is still worth it. It is very easy to set up a banner farm website and put it online, but this won’t work for long. Creating a website with plenty of good, unique and fresh content for your visitors is the key. Spend time writing articles, news, reviews and adding it to your site. The search engines put more emphasis on the content of sites these days than ever before. If you keep your website fresh, add good content and optimise your site, then you should begin to rise up the search result rankings. How long did it take to start earning money? Probably 3-to-4 months before the first payment. I expected it to pour in straightaway and I was disheartened when it didn’t. As I modified my sites, added content and learned where to advertise, the money started to arrive in dribs and drabs. You never forget the feeling you get when that first cheque arrives! It was enough to keep me pushing along with the development of my sites. What are your favorite hobbies? I usually go to the cinema with friends once a week. I go to the gym and work out 3 or 4 times a week. I love to ski. The fresh mountain air, incredible scenery and thrill of the slopes make for a very special experience. I have skied for about the last 15 years, mostly in the French Alps. With a bit of luck I will be off to Lake Tahoe for an extended ski trip sometime early next year. I can’t wait! Which team do you root for in the EPL? This is a slightly sore point at the moment! Sheffield United (a.k.a. The Blades), my local team, was relegated from the Premier League at the end of last season. The team had succeeded in being promoted at the start of the last season. The city is keeping its fingers crossed for another bite at the premiership apple soon. Go Blades! If you could pick any animal to be for one day, which one would it be? I think I would be a meerkat. They work well as a team, with one meerkat always looking out for the rest of the pack. When one pops its head down, another one pops straight up to keep an eye out for Dave Sawyer | Continued from p.14 as a result. The online gambling industry is the largest private sector employer on the rock and due to its small size, you can’t help but to get to know people from the other gaming companies based there. Our apartment building also had a great view of the Rif Mountains in Morocco across the Straits of Gibraltar. Add to that the fact of having the Costa Del Luz and Costa Del Sol on your doorstep, and it made for a great base. The motto whilst we were there was certainly work hard and play harder. I left Ladbrokes in August 2005 to concen- trate on making it as a full-time gambling affiliate. My first site, Online Casino Re- viewer (onlinecasinoreviewer.com), was started the previous year as a hobby site, putting to good use my own experience and knowledge of online gambling gained during my time with Ladbrokes. However, it became clear to me that once I started to achieve good rankings in the major search engines, I had to decide to take the gamble and work full time on OCR. You now run Bath Rock Media Limited. What does the company do? Bath Rock Media owns all the websites which I manage. Primarily we are an online marketing company focusing on the online gaming industry, although we are currently exploring other areas online to move into. What are the most difficult challenges for you as an affiliate? And how do you handle them? Obviously this has to be the legislation changes in the U.S. and elsewhere concerning online gambling. The UIGEA in particular has had a massive effect on the industry as a whole. Ensuring you are not solely reliant on any one source of traffic is of paramount importance to all affiliates if they are to still be around in a couple of years’ time. As an affiliate you need to learn quickly to adapt to change. Dealing with site scrapers and search engine spammers who steal your work is also a continual day-to-day occurrence. How has the GPWA helped you as an affiliate? The GPWA enables you to communicate with other like-minded individuals, sharing knowledge and resources. It is invaluable for networking, not just with fellow affiliates but also with the affiliate programs. The GPWA has introduced me to many different people, whom I have subsequently met at conferences and thus become good friends with. What advice can you offer people who are just starting up in the industry? This industry is not a get-rich-quick scheme. To succeed you need to be prepared to put a lot of hours into research, content writing, learning seo and also Web site design. It is a continual process. Ensure you do your research. The days of banner farms earning webmasters a lucrative revenue are well and truly over. View your site or sites from a visitor’s perspective. After all, you want people to keep coming back and also recommend your site to their friends and family. To this extent only promote casinos, sportsbooks or poker rooms you would be happy to frequent as a player. Trust is very much the key in this industry. Use Google. After all, Google is your friend. Join webmaster forums such as the GPWA and benefit from the knowledge of those who have been involved in the industry for a long time. If you can afford to, visit affiliate conferences such as CAP Euro or the CAC. Networking is invaluable and allows you to put faces to names. Last but not least, do not become disheartened. If you are passionate about your work and are prepared to put the hours in, it will come good eventually. If you had to list three keys to success for an affiliate, what would they be? Perseverance, honesty and integrity. How long did it take for you to start earning money? A little over a year. What was your favorite subject in school? And why was it your favorite subject? History. I’ve always been fascinatedby past predators. They are incredibly agile and at the hint of danger they scoot out of the way. I think it’s pretty cool that they work so well together.