GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 48 - December 2020

GPWA AFFILIATE INTERVIEW SERIES needed to make educated choices and enjoy their online gaming. We adapted some old content and created plenty of new content for the new version of the site, so we are happy with what the site has to offer at the moment. We are not stopping there, obvi- ously. We have formulated a monthly plan for casino news, strategy articles, banking reviews, software reviews and game reviews, which is executed every single month. There are usually three members of our team in- volved in every single piece of content that is published—writer, editor and the person uploading the content —and this has proved to be a very good quality control strategy. What’s your approach to SEO and drawing traffic to your sites? How much time do you spend on SEO spe- cifically? I am a firm believer in organic traffic and on-page SEO.We ensure to always follow latest Google SEOguidelines and give our best to understand user intent and satisfy the search query. We use tools like Ahrefs and Google Analytics to identify the keywords we could target, but we don’t do any keyword stuffing. We’ll create a well-structured page or article with nice custom images designed to give the user all the information they need on the subject as well as ensure a quality user experience. We believe that this kind of ap- proach results in building trust and generating conversions. Having said that, we don’t spend too much time on SEO in the conventional sense, but both myself and our writers al- ways have SEO in mind when formulating a content strategy, creating content briefs and writing the articles. What have been some of the biggest changes to the industry since you started and how have you managed to adjust and survive? I first entered the industry back in 2008, but I started taking a keen interest few years later. A lot has happened in those 10 years, including regulation changes in the U.K., U.S., Sweden, Australia, Netherlands and now Germany. Also, big investment compa- nies have entered the industry and bought out successful affiliates. And then the emergence of markets such as Canada, Japan, India, Brazil, Asia and LATAM. Let’s not forget the switch from desktop to mobile and the increasing popularity of live dealer games. How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected you both personally and professionally? The pandemic has ob- viously changed everyone’s lives, and I was angry with our authorities for imposing long curfews and constantly manipulating data and lying about the actual situation. But, I did go to the office every day and that definitely helped reduce the stress imposed by isolation. Also, I spent some quality time with my family. During the curfews, I read I never allowed myself not to be aware of the latest developments in the industry, following the changes daily and making sure to act accordingly where needed. I believe we did well to ditch sports betting and focus on casino for both our own sites and our content writing company. Also, we recognized that affiliates were starting to turn to non-English markets due to less competition and included over 25 languag- es in our offer. G P W A t i m e s . o r g 50