GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 2 - October 2007

46 events and the causes and consequences of them. If you weren’t working in online gaming right now, what would you be doing? Working in IT. Which football team do you root for in the EPL? I don’t support a Premiership team. But I am an avid fan and season ticket holder of my local team, Bristol City. We are currently enjoying a good start to the season in the English Championship and who knows, we may even be in the Premiership this time next year! What’s your favorite World Cup mo- ment? England getting to the semifinals of Italia 90. This was also my worst World Cup moment when West Germany beat us 4 – 2 on penalties in the semis. If you could pick any animal to be for one day, which one would it be? And why? It would be my puppy Jess. She is four months old and is adorable. I’d like to view the world from her perspective for a day. I hate to work for someone; it’s not for me. The big differences are that you depend on your boss, you have to work for him, every month you have to wait for a special day when you get your salary, sometimes the salary may be delayed – so you are not free. Somebody may say that when you work for someone else you have no risks and you always get your salary. But I prefer to work more, to think more and to earn more. When I worked for others, I didn’t apply all my knowledge and efforts because I knew that my boss wouldn’t pay me the salary I wanted. When I work for myself I understand why I work, what I do, how many hours I work and for what I work. What do your friends and family think about your gaming business? My parents don’t know about my business; they think that I’m still working as a soft- ware developer. They won’t understand it. Maybe I’ll tell them later, but not now. One of my friends is interested in the business, and some of my friends think that it’s not serious (which is fine with me, because I don’t like when they ask a lot of questions). Of course, this business is very serious for my husband, because he always wanted to start it, but he couldn’t do it without me. What were the most difficult challenges for you as a new arrival into the industry? And how did you meet them? When my site was new, it was very difficult to do link exchanges. I thought if my Page Rank was high I would have good traffic. And therefore I spent a lot of time exchanging links. Every day my husband found sites fromGoogle and sent themoffers to exchange links. Some of them replied and we exchanged links. My husband also submitted the site in directories. Another challenge was SEO; I knew nothing about it. I thought it was enough to add banners, links and reviews from affiliate programs and I would earn money, but it was not true. I started reading articles about how to develop a site, how to make it interesting, and SEO articles. Also I started reading forums. Another challenge was that I knew nothing about gambling, but I found what I needed in articles and forums. How else has the GPWA helped you as an affiliate? The GPWA is a bridge between affiliates Aksana Radaman | Continued fromp.16 would help me to get through this difficult period. I agreed to work at the affiliate program and left the company. Then, on July 1, 2007, I left the affiliate program and finally became a full-time webmaster. Why did you want to become a full-time webmaster? The main reason was money. I had a real chance to earn more and I couldn’t miss this chance. And my dreams could come true: to work at home, not get up early, have no bosses and managers, have my own business, earn goodmoney, have a rest and days off whenever you want. So, it’s a dream job, and moreover I like what I do. I can work even 12-14 hours a day and I don’t notice that I’m tired. What are the big differences between working for yourself and working for someone else? and affiliate managers, and if I want to contact an affiliate program I almost al- ways do that through the GPWA. You’re also running a site that targets U.K. gamblers.What attracted you to this market? I’m trying to target U.K. gamblers, but right now I haven’t had enough time to do it better. So far I’ve only bought a domain name with a co.uk extension, uploaded it to a free hosting site and added some content which is not even unique (one affiliate program allows me to use their content), and that’s all. So I think that to say I’m targeting the U.K. market is not right. Yes, I’m planning to create a large portal for U.K. gamblers, but not now, only after my main portal is finished. The U.K. market attracts a lot of webmasters and attracts me because the government there tries to regulate online gambling to make it safe, secure and fair for U.K. gamblers. Which things about working for yourself are easier?Which are more difficult? To make my own schedule is very easy for me, and I like to do that best of all. Also, nobody can ask me why a particular task wasn’t finished on time. It’s difficult for me to wake up early. Even if I really need to start working earlier than usual, and it’s very urgent to do one thing on my site, in most cases I don’t wake up. And it’s difficult to control all processes; for example, sometimes it’s very difficult getting paid by some affiliate programs. What challenges do you face working in Belarus that other affiliates might not have to deal with? One of the challenges is that the Internet is too expensive in my country. We have the most expensive Internet in the world, although we are based in the center of Europe. It’s not a big problem for me now, but it was when I started my site. Another challenge was Neteller, which doesn’t work in Belarus. It was a big problem when I could receive commissions only via wire transfer or checks, but now I have a lot of other good payment methods. At present I don’t have any significant challenges related to being in Belarus. GPWA TIMES | GPWA affiliate interview series