GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 24 - April 2013

• Credibility – you can be great at SEO but if your content is superficial and if your site/brand doesn’t scream credibility, that negative word will spread faster and more freely than anything positive you can say. • Analysis – studying metrics from every angle and launching trial and error ef- forts on site to see what works and what doesn’t work. • Loyalty – working closely and candidly with clients and partners creates a better working environment and encourages everyone to understand each other’s goals and needs. • Partnerships – not simply link buys but solid working relationships to learn from each other and find ways to share ideas, traffic, success stories andwarnings about pitfalls (bad operators, for example). What prompted you to join the GPWA? How has it helped you? We knew about the GPWA but never had designated workers to reach out and explore some of these industry self-help groups. Now we see how important they can be. We are fairly new in the past six months and just now starting to take advantage of GPWA and networking with the many affiliates in the forums. What do you like about the industry? It’s always changing and always chal- lenging and you had better be nimble or creative to take advantage of sudden op- portunities and to get out of the way of sudden disasters. It’s nice to be able to create your own site and your own niche and watch it become a popular and mean- ingful destination. If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be? Regulate the U.S. market. It’s a huge market that already loves the industry and most gov- ernments are deprived of the opportuni- ties. It would open many opportunities for affiliates, but would also cut off some op- portunity. All in all, a regulated, healthy, uniform policy on gaming there would be terrific for all involved, from governments all the way down to the players. What surprised you most about the industry? Over the years, the dogged determination of forces in the U.S. to thwart online gaming has been surpris- ing and baffling. The determination and creativity of people to find new opportu- nities and business ideas has been sur- prising and refreshing. How long do you give yourself for an- swering e-mail? What e-mail tips can you offer? We try to respond within an hour or two, depending on the nature of the e-mail. Any tech or service e-mail goes immediately to the service queue, where it is handled immediately. We try to respond quickly, professionally and courteously and give a timeline of when something might be fixed or changed or introduced. We always thank people for their interest in the site and for taking the time to send e-mail. How do you manage your “to-do” lists? Do you use any special software to help you out? Simple calendar items that focus on daily, weekly and monthly chores. Then work back calendar lists so that we have our NFL project started 90 days before football season kicks off, etc. How much time does it take to keep your site updated? We have three or four people who touch the site on a daily basis, from writers to editors to SEO and marketing folks to metrics analysts and Twitter folks. It varies week to week and month to month. How much time do you devote to SEO and/or social networking in order to drive more traffic to your site? More SEO focus in the distant past, but more social focus (Twitter, mainly) in the past year. Facebook apps and other social commenting strategies are also paying off more in 2013. 59 GPWA Affiliate Interview Series