CAP Community Member of the Month Spotlight: March 2013

We are excited to spotlight CAP’s Community Member of the Month for March 2013… Congratulations, muffincrumbs aka Jared Bates!
Jared has been a member of CAP since September 2012. Since he first came into the community as a new member and new affiliate, Jared has been an active member, always asking the right questions and showing his dedication to succeed as an affiliate. It’s really admirable to see this, when so many others have left the industry because of challenges.
Congrats to you, Jared, and thank you for being a valued member of the community!
How did you get started as being an affiliate in iGaming?
I have worked in the casino industry in various aspects since I was 16-years-old growing up outside of Atlantic City, NJ, from parking cars to managing design teams. I graduated college with a BS in chemistry and a BA in theatre arts in the average amount of time, 4.5 years. I hold several awards for my designs at the World Gaming Expo and other gaming trade shows in numerous countries, as well as for my unrelenting work ethnic in the management of union teams. This simply means I only let them drink a few beers while driving their forklifts… My educational background is very diverse and I get board of the same things easily, so I decided that I would go back to school to learn physics. Obvious choice, I know.
Soon after my post graduate sprint, I found myself wanting to work at marketing and generating income on my own terms, rather than being contained to an already existing company. This is where it starts to tie in I promise. You see, my family has had a strong presence in the casino industry since the inception of gambling in the US and I love them in just about every aspect. It’s just the way it has always been, so when I was thinking about reentering the industry, I decided to teach myself web design and search engine optimization by creating my first casino affiliate site. One of my new collages already landed a spectacular job and I was getting offers that just did not resonate with me whatsoever.
I did not expect CBR | casinobonusandfreechip.com to actually make anyone real money, especially myself, let alone become a contender in the USA online casino market. I wanted to learn about the science of online marketing, rather than just its administration. I wanted to learn more about search engines in general, knowing that they both would play a pivotal role in my company’s future, whatever that was going to be. I also wanted an outlet to share my knowledge of casinos, strategies for them, poker exploits, and…. you know, a self-hosted blog. Having been part of them since I was a young man I could not be happier with where this has taken me.
What are your top traffic drivers, and how did you learn them?
Search engines are my only real traffic source. Google drives my traffic because it knows my content is relevant to casinos, and it knows this because the articles on CBR provide information is both useful and not found published elsewhere. In addition, the reviews and bonus lists are organized so that viewers can compare many different facets of the casinos before making a final decision, rather than leading someone down an obvious trial. I believe that the internet simply had a thirst for this data, since there are so many small sites, and decided that CBR would fit the bill in some respect. Then, I paid attention to what keywords people were using when they decide to stay on my site for more than a few seconds. I used that data to write more content so that I would be able to satiate the public’s appetite for those particular terms. This is opposite of most business models of how to establish a presence in the search engines, by not establishing a set of keywords at all I was able to corner a part of the market that needed cornering. Against the grain, and hard to follow, but it is working for me.
What factors do you look at when deciding on an operator?
They have to be openly accessible to more people than just myself. This means they have to “say hi” on the CAP forums, or otherwise gain my respect through means that do not include traditional forms of B2B marketing. I will answer an email regarding advertising only one or twice, leaving the opportunity for the operator to demonstrate their willingness to work with me, and more importantly, their presence as part of the gambling industry’s community. At the same time, I research them here on CAP and on other forums/blogs to see in the eyes of others and, hopefully, if they will be a sustainable investment. If I have learned on thing from doing this, it is that honest advice is priceless and this has been the best place to grow as an affiliate.
What are your thoughts on the legal standing of the online gambling industry?
I think “Times are-a-changin” in the US, and most of the whispers around here sound like bad quotes from Die Hard. Fubar comes to mind as well but anyway… who owns the traffic? We do. I see this as an opportunity to not back down when others are afraid of what can happen to the state of gambling and online casinos in the USA. If the big boys want to reach top rankings, and if they ever get the chance to make said websites available on a national level in America, are all still if’s right now. It is territory we have become well entrenched in and in this regard, I am going to embrace whatever change happens. If we stick together, I am sure we can leverage any of these changes to befit what I have found to be the best part of an industry I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Thank you so much for this recognition and here’s to a successful future for all.
You can reach Jared Bates on Google+ and by email: [email protected]