Sue from Best New Bingo Sites

– Ah! I actually have a standard answer for this, for use at non industry parties when someone asks “and what do you do?”   I used to say either “I’m in digital marketing” or “I write content for the online gambling industry” , but then I came up with this absolute killer: “I manage Best New Bingo Sites, the Compare The Market of the UK online bingo industry”. 

– We really like our bingo in the UK, even though the online version offers quite a different playing experience to a bingo hall. No need to pay close attention and mark the numbers off yourself (though you can if you like at some sites) and no need to call bingo – that all happens automatically, while you enjoy the attached chat room and/or play slot games on the side.

– We’ve got reviews of more than 180 UK bingo sites and more than 200 UK slot sites, mostly serving players who are looking for something even more niche inside our very niche industry. New bingo sites?  Dragonfish bingo sites? No wagering slots? Paypal bingo sites?  Somewhere to play Fluffy Favourites? We’ve got it, and you’ll find us at the top of the rankings when you Google it!  Thanks to our relationships with so many operators, we’re able to run many exclusive acquisition offers (for example, a number of operators have created bespoke £5 deposit offers specially for our very successful £5 deposit page).

– Our reviews cover all the stuff players need to know including things that are buried in the small print and our process for pos-itioning listings uses detailed click out and conversion date to ensure that the bingo sites that are listed at the top are the ones players actually want to play at.

How did you end up in the casino industry?

– I ended up in the casino industry completely by accident – my previous experience was in the music business plus a bit of website management. I’d been a stay-at-home parent for a few years and was looking for something interesting to do that would be flexible around school hours. In 2012, long-time digital marketer Luke Creigh picked up my CV from a recruitment agency and hired me to do some keyword research on a project that was nothing to do with online gambling (it was for a hair restoration project). That went well so I worked on a few other projects for him and then we did Best New Bingo Sites; it was originally going to be a PPC and Facebook marketing site but started ranking organically, partly because we launched into a bit of a vacuum caused by all the competition getting caught out by Penguin and partly because of a popular piece of content I wrote called “Is Online Bingo Fixed?”

 What made you want to start working for Best New Bingo Sites?   

– It was just one of a group of projects at the start, but I immediately found it much more engaging than the others.  Before we started Best New Bingo Sites, I’d never played online bingo or slot games in my life, but I’ve always been interested in maths, probability and risk; part of my degree course was in mathematical logic and the philosophy of mathematics and at a later stage I had a rather successful dabble in stock market spread betting.  So the subject matter was pretty interesting to me.  And what was also great was that as an older person, I was able to embark on a second career in something that hadn’t been invented when I left university and where everything was buzzing and developing and changing quickly.

What personality traits in you make you a skilled head of content? What have been your biggest challenges?

– Once Best New Bingo Sites had started ranking it was all about spotting niches we could corner the market in – no wagering bingo, for instance. To do that, I’ve needed

• Ability to foresee, understand and capitalise on changes in the industry
• Ability to research subjects more deeply and thoroughly and write about them more comprehensively than competitors 
• Drive to find out everything about my subject matter.
• Curiosity about what drives searches, clicks and conversions
• Insight into how our site serves search intent and about how Google understands that

– My biggest challenges have been

• Knowing when/what to delegate – I’d love to keep on writing all of the content myself as I did in the beginning but there’s not enough hours in the day. 
• Coping with disappointment and anxiety when we have a wobble in the search results 

How have you changed as a person from running Best New Bingo Sites?

– I was really nervous the first time I went to an industry conference and now I’ve become much more confident and outgoing in that type of environment.  I also feel that working in an industry where everything is constantly changing and developing has made me much more resilient and adaptable.

What are you most proud of?

-Getting #1 rankings on Google! It’s like when you play a video game and get to the top of the global leaderboard.  I’m also quite proud of winning the 2019 iGB Affiliate Award against some stiff competition from some much bigger organisations.  And generally proud of what we’ve built with Best New Bingo Sites in just a few years, starting from nothing.

Where do you want to be in 5 years?

– At the top of the search rankings for even more keywords after picking up on the next big thing before anyone else!  

Where do you think the bingo industry will be in 5 years?

– The industry is currently in the middle of a huge change that has been going on for a few years, caused by smartphones.  10 years ago online bingo was desktop-based and many people thought it would never really work on mobile due to limited screen size with no room for all the tickets, the chat, and so forth.  But now, more than 80% of our traffic is mobile and that’s been the case for a few years now!  As the devices have changed, so have the sites and the way people use them. It used to be that many bingo players weren’t interested in slots at all and stuck to good old-fashioned 90 ball bingo but since then, there’s been an explosion in the range of slot games on offer at online bingo sites.  When you play on a smartphone, you need the entertainment to be much more snackable than you do when you play on a computer; slots are ideal for that and we’ve also seen fast-moving single-ticket bingo games launched that is designed for play on phone screens.  5 years from now, it could be all about mobile casinos with a bingo area rather than bingo sites as such; the bingo will be used as an acquisition and retention tool but the monetization will come from slots.  The trick will be to ensure that the bingo experience is engaging enough to retain the players and at the moment, traditional bingo sites such as Mecca Bingo that have essentially transformed themselves into casinos with the bingo are getting this right whereas Jumpman, who have Pragmatic Play bingo as a plug-in with the chat disabled, aren’t.

– The industry also faces ongoing challenges in the form of increasingly restrictive regulation and I expect this to price many smaller operators completely out of the UK market

Personal and professional: where can people find you online?

– You can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn as BingoFairy and I also have a blog which I wish I had more time to keep up to date. I’m also on Facebook and Instagram but that’s mostly for personal stuff.