CAP Community Member of the Month Spotlight: June 2013

We are excited to spotlight CAP’s Community Member of the Month for June 2013… Congratulations, Kolo Colyer, also known in the forums as kolololo!
kolololo has been a member of CAP since August 2011 and is frequently seen chiming into thread to help people with everything from WordPress to link building techniques. It’s members like this that make this community as great as it is, and we want to give Kolo big thanks for being part of the CAP community.
We caught up with her to learn more about her career in the business!
How did you get started as being an affiliate in iGaming?
3 years ago for many reasons – health, lifestyle change blah, blah, blah. My husband and I moved from the capital to an apartment on the harbour. It is idyllic waking up each morning to the many changing faces of the sea.
Although we have plenty of work to occupy our time we decided we wanted to do something for ourselves and something for the future. After talking to a close friend who does affiliate work with many different industries we decided that iGaming was the industry that most captivated us, as Mick is a gambler!!!!!
So in the spring of 2011 we started to formulate our plans. Both of us had basic computer skills so everything we have had to learn so we are very pleased with the way it has gone.
We now have five good sites (well, we think they are), which earn money each month, pay for themselves, pay for expansion and make a profit, and we have plenty more which are in the process of being filled with interesting info., etc.
What are your top traffic drivers, and how did you learn them?
We have only ever used the search engines to drive traffic. Mick does the SEO, which is a permanent learning curve and we never cheat. I know plenty think that is naïve but grey or black hat practices are not for us…………….each to their own. Link building is something we must sort out but we don’t want to get it wrong and link with sites that are not squeaky clean so it’s a case of slowly slowly catchy monkey. We also have Twitter and Facebook accounts.
What factors do you look at when deciding on an operator?
I am the one that communicates with the affiliate managers and I like them to be friendly and efficient. If they act like they are doing us a favour they can go hang, and as with recent revelations if they don’t play fair they get kicked into touch.
I do research on the Affiliate schemes and find out much of the info on this forum and others.
There needs to be: no negative monthly carry-overs; no bundling; good basic commission; regular monthly payments; and, a good range of marketing material. It shouldn’t be a problem if you require specific geo-targeted banners, landing pages, etc.
Above all, exceptional service and support for the players plus a great gaming environment.
What are your thoughts on legal standing of the online gambling industry?
To be perfectly honest, I know I should have an opinion but I don’t really. I just go with the flow as it is all a bit complex as many countries have legalised all aspects of online gambling but some only legalise parts like sports betting or poker.
Last month (May 2013), online gambling became legal in Nevada so things are changing.
What was the biggest lesson you learned in your years of being in this business?
Be very cautious when dealing with the affiliate managers. Read the casinos’ terms and conditions and if they pull a flanker, remove them, as there are plenty of reputable companies out there. If all the affiliates stand firm against the shafters, ultimately they will have to change or go under. Now that’s a thought to keep you going!!