CAP Community Member of the Month Spotlight: April 2013

We are excited to spotlight CAP’s Community Member of the Month for April 2013… Congratulations, Kononen!
Kononen has been a member of CAP since January 2009. Over the years, Kononen has been super helpful with his posts, whether they are about telling us when a affiliate program backend is not working, or if it’s about helping other members of the community.
Thanks for all you do for the community, Kononen. It deserves to be recognized! We caught up with him to learn more about his career in the business!
How did you get started as being an affiliate in iGaming?
In late 2007, I was searching all over the web for a place where I could possibly make some money. Somehow I was able to find a few casino affiliate sites. I can’t remember the names, but I started to sign up for the programs.
It was a very easy decision because I’ve always liked gambling, but still didn’t know anything about online marketing. I launched my first Finnish site in 2008 and it all started from there. Now I have a lot of decent traffic making my sites successful, including my first English site, bestcasinobonuses.net.
What are your top traffic drivers, and how did you learn them?
My main traffic comes from the search engines, mostly Google. I have been visiting casino affiliate forums very often and I have learned nearly everything these. SEO is the most difficult sector in an online marketing. Only thing you can do to learn SEO is read, read and read.
What factors do you look at when deciding on an operator?
It’s very important to know who you are working with. I’ve been working with many of my programs from the beginning of my first site, and I’ve never had any problems with them. Search from the forums and ask other affiliates about the programs you want to know more. Most important things: are they trustworthy, reputable, friendly? There is so much more but those are certainly the most important to know.
What are your thoughts on legal standing of the online gambling industry?
I’ve been watching very closely in any news regarding legal situations in online gambling, mostly in Europe. I hope that markets will be open soon and gambling monopolies are going to be in the end of their road.
What was the biggest lesson you learned in your years of being in this business?
Hard to say any biggest lesson learned right, but there is one thing I can mention that all affiliates should remember… Spread your business into other countries. Don’t only target into one specific country, because it is going to be risky in that way for sure. I think Black Friday has been the biggest lesson for many. You never know what will happen in the industry, legal situations etc..
All I can say, spread the risk!