GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 49 - April 2021

GPWA AFFILIATE INTERVIEW SERIES Let’s start with your professional back- ground. On your GPWA profile, you list “SEO Team Lead” as your occupation. Did working in SEO lead you to the world of iGaming affiliates? Greetings, everybody! I started my SEO life in early 2011. I was a student and got an opportunity to earn money instead of sitting in the uni- versity. So the decision was made to get a real job. I became a trainee in the SEO leading company, SEOPult, for the easternmarkets. By that time, I already knew some basics about HTML andCSS and several CMS platforms like MODx, Joomla and WordPress. It was a huge knack for me since all my tasks were based on the gambling niche analysis. Then one day in October 2011, I got a call from one of the biggest iGaming companies inmy country. And that changed my life entirely. How big is your operation? Do you have employees or use freelanc- ers? I don’t work only in the iGaming niche. At the moment, I have a bunch of good people around me, and all together, we have been doing SEO for companies of mutual friends for several years. So I would say that we are working like typi- cal freelancers. But in the past, I worked with several companies as team lead for in-house products in iGaming. Since SEO is one of your specialties, please tell us some of the biggest myths regarding SEO. I personally think that the biggest myth regarding modern SEO is that only big companies with enor- mous budgets win. We have several cases where within $100, we got top 10 positions in highly competitive markets. Besides, I do think that people who believe that a lot of content is a good sign are also wrong. I prefer quality over quantity. Check any Amazon-partners-related website—mini- mum pages, maximum useful information. Tell us about your blog section. Does it help with traffic and converting traffic? We run it with the boys just for the experiment. It doesn’t bring any kind of traf- fic or clicks at all. Unfortunately, an average casino player who is searching for a casino review only needs a button. If you are not building a community around your website, all these blogs and news are good only for Google bots. You do not appear to be active with social media channels for your sites. Can you explain why? Is social media something you think you will delve into at some point? Speaking truth, I don’t have time for that. Of course, my team and I can find some help from the outside, but we should spend any extra money on content, back- links and newwebsites. We are not the biggest compa- ny, not targeting competi- tive keywords or looking for social activity.Maybe, in the near future, we will rethink this position. Oleksii K. - artrust99 Book Worm A voracious reader all his life, “atrust99” has gone frombeing a curious gamer as a kid to a self-taught and successful SEOexpert and affiliatemarketer G P W A t i m e s . o r g 52