GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 41 - July 2018

GPWA AFFILIATE INTERVIEW SERIES about A little bit more Chris Trenka His sites are allfreechips.com bonuscasino.ws casinobonuslister.com hotslot.org microgaming-casino.ws nodepositcasinoguide.com rival-casinos.net rtg-casinos.ws His favorite book is The Stand by Stephen King He is 45 years old He is living in his hometown of Hudson, Ohio, USA His favorite food is ribeye steak with blue cheese Hudson photo by Kenneth Sponsler/Shutterstock; Ribeye steak photo by Piti Tan/Shutterstock How do you decide what casinos to promote? I promote any casino that agrees to my terms, and that I feel are worth it. There are just some casinos you know are not on the level from the get-go. Do you gamble online or in brick- and-mortar casinos? I used to gam- ble online and in Vegas before I started this. It is still fun, but when you real- ize how many people make a living off of people gambling, it really takes away from it. When I was younger I always wished we could have a casino in Ohio, and now we have a few that I don’t even bother visiting, so my outlook has changed quite a bit. What traits do you look for in an affiliate manager and affiliate pro- gram? No. 1, I like an affiliate manager I can get a hold of. In most cases, with Skype this is not an issue anymore. Sec- ondly, it kills me when a manager comes to me to get listed, then gets angry that either I am not fast enough or their cur- rent offers do not sort well on my sites. As far as programs go, nothing is worse than getting a new affiliate manager every few months, or when they change the terms of your deal without notice or at all. So many times the big programs like Fortune Affiliates and Buffalo just dispose of all agreements and say you’re now on X instead of Y. Programs like that instantly end up in the rogue section. What prompted you to join the GPWA? How has it helped you? A friend of mine that also got into iGaming was active on GPWA, and I was looking for an alternative to some older affiliate sites such as CAP at the time to have some insight into the industry. The GPWA is great resource for many things and has helped me with contacting programs and deciding on programs to promote, but the biggest benefit is other webmasters. The amount of help I have received is amaz- ing, and I try to give what I can in return. What do you like best about work- ing in this industry? The freedom of being my own boss and not having to follow a 9-to-5 work day. Although some of my work days are much longer, I can take a week here and there with no issues, or simply say I am done working for the day. It’s hard to believe there are many other industries that are as rewarding today. If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be and why? A standard payment processing for affiliates separate from any gambling, allowing the free flow of commissions anywhere in the world. Being paid in the U.S. is still not easy – a new type of Neteller that is 100% accepted by the U.S. and the rest of the world would be great. What do you think the industry will look like in five years? In five years, I see the U.S. becoming more segregated by states protecting their casino borders, as well as more and more regulation around the world. To succeed, webmasters will need to adhere to overwhelming restric- tions and break up displaying content specific to regions. What do your family and friends think of your work as an affiliate? Most still have no idea what exactly I do. It’s easier to say I do online marketing, and if it goes further than that it’s about managing ad campaigns for online casi- nos. I do feel most are happy for what it allows for my family and myself. What’s your approach to SEO and drawing traffic to your site? I like to build pages in a way that I feel will be on target for SEO results. Past mistakes teach lots of lessons with SEO, such as the time I added 2,000 slot machines with no real content. Google frowns upon not only adding a lot of pages at once, but when the pages are all the same without a review, it is just terrible! Currently I do not spend much time at all – anything new falls into the same basic guidelines I already worked toward hav- ing. Items such as improving site speeds are ongoing, and a switch to https was the last big project. How much time do you devote to social networking for your site? Virtually none; I created a worker bot to handle them all at this time. Other W W W . G P W A T I M E S . O R G 52