GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 22 - October 2012

GPWA AFFILIATE INTERVIEW SERIES We know that you’re living in Mexico now, but you list your native language as English.Were you born in Mexico? I was actually born in Calexico, California, on the Mexico border, and lived in a small agricultural town called Holtville in California. My mom is from Oklahoma and my father was a California na- tive. He always wanted to move to Mexico. In 1974 we moved to Ajijic, Mexico, which has always been a popular expat retire- ment community. You started working in SEO way back in 1994, long before most people had Internet connections at home. How has the online business changed in the last 20 years? Is it eas- ier or harder to succeed now? What tools available now do you wish you had then? Back in 1994 I started a couple of small websites and hosted them on an old Mac Quadra 600 AV with a 64 Kbps Internet connection, and in 1997 I started my own small ISP company called Lagunanet in Ajijic. The only other option for Internet was 40 miles away, which was long distance and very expensive. SEO has changed drastically over the last 20 years. Back then you could rank a page in a couple of days and design was all done with manual HTML markup using a text editor. There were a lot of quirks with browsers back then. Netscape and Mosaic were the popular browsers and rendered pages very differently, but then again there were fewer Internet users and while pages ranked quickly people were very uncomfortable do- ing any kind of online purchasing. As far as being easier or harder to succeed now, I believe it is much more difficult, especially in the online gambling industry, where trying to stand out and be unique with different content – which is what needs to be done – has become very hard. When it comes to tools I believe the whole industry has changed for the better. Content management systems such as Joomla! and WordPress give you the ability to knock out a site in a matter of hours, which back in the day, using Notepad, could take weeks. When did you launch your sites? I began playorgambleonline in 2007 and fivestarcasinos shortly after that. How is your Spanish-language site (casinosyruleta.com) performing for you? I have really not done much with that site, mainly because I write my own Spanish content and looked at casinosyruleta.com as a long term project. I was starting to do OK with both my English casino sites but took a big ranking hit after Penguin so I am really focusing on them right now. How did you become involved in the industry? I have always loved technology and I guess I just kind of grew up with it. It was very easy for me to adapt so I have tried to take advantage of the business opportunities it has offered, first with a small ISP and later with online marketing. How long did it take for you to start earning money? With my casino sites it took me about four years and that was working part time three or four hours a day. Are you satisfied with the progress your gambling sites have made so far? That’s a tough question, but yes, it has definitely been a roller coaster ride with the search engines, mainly the big G, which we all know is the main search engine the average per- son uses. Trying to keep revenue consistent has been much harder and things are changing so quickly from day to day with search algo- rithms, it’s hard to nail down the best SEO practices. You’ve posted that you also have some sites that are not casino related. What is the focus of those sites? And how do they compare to your gaming sites in terms of traffic and revenue? I have several different sites promoting anything from acne products to health and weight-loss supplements. As far as revenue goes it is less, but it is more consistent, and many prod- ucts are easier to rank compared to trying to achieve high rank- ings with casinos. What traits do you look for in an affiliate manager? How about in an affiliate program? That’s a good question. I think when I started I did not get a lot of support from casino af- filiates other than receiving weekly promos, but I think an af- filiate manager should be open and steer new affiliates in the right direction. I feel many affiliate managers have a lot of good insight as to what ranks and what does not, but many are reluctant to pro- vide a lot of that info for one reason or another. I have found that most affiliate managers do not even acknowledge you un- til you actually begin making some money – at least that has been my experience. I think casino affiliate managers could learn a lot from manag- ers in the health and supplement industry as they are literally willing to hold a newbie’s hand to draw in those sales. ROD rod.collins Advice from an SEO pioneer: As the industry changes, make sure you change with it GPWA Affiliate Interview Series