# Cristiana Cantomelo

> Senior SEO strategist specialising in off-page SEO, publisher partnerships and link acquisition across Brazil, Portugal, the UK and other international markets. Open to remote roles.

- Role: Senior SEO Manager / SEO Lead
- Location: Portugal
- Availability: Based in Portugal. Open to international remote roles and selected contracts.
- Email: [cantomello@gmail.com](mailto:cantomello@gmail.com)
- LinkedIn: [Cristiana Cantomelo on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/cantomelo/)
- Website: [cantomelo.com](https://cantomelo.com/)

## Summary

Crawl complete. Found: 10+ years in digital marketing, 7+ of them in SEO, publisher partnerships in some of the most competitive markets online and the occasional unconventional solution.

My career hasn't followed a straight line. That's probably why I don't approach SEO with a fixed playbook.
I've worked across some of the most competitive markets online, built off-page strategies, negotiated publisher partnerships, coordinated international campaigns and turned complicated workflows into processes teams can actually use.
I like clear priorities, useful data and strategies that can change direction when the evidence does. I'm not here to fill a spreadsheet with links. The work has to serve the business.

## Employer stories

- [Five websites. One competitive market.](https://cantomelo.com/work/authority-in-brazil/): KaFe Rocks (now Time2Play), 2019 – 2023. Owned Brazil's off-page strategy for five affiliate sites, from publisher sourcing to a site-wide navigation partnership on one of the country's largest news portals.
  Evidence: 1,053 placements independently verified (live or in public web archives) across 566 referring domains, deduplicated across order records, agency reports and backlink indexes.
- [Brazil and Portugal, at network speed.](https://cantomelo.com/work/north-star-network/): North Star Network, 2024 – 2025 · freelance. Owned link-building strategy for a sports-media network's Brazilian and Portuguese properties, including betting sections hosted on major publishers: a six-figure budget and hundreds of placements in eleven months.
  Evidence: 442 placements recorded for the Brazilian and Portuguese properties during my contract; 292 still live in October 2026 on 204 referring domains and 48 more confirmed in public web archives.
- [Publisher partnerships in two very different markets.](https://cantomelo.com/work/igaming-portugal-brazil/): iGaming.com, 2024 – 2026. Led off-page SEO for Portugal and Brazil: a small market with few premium publishers and a huge one with too many to choose from.
  Evidence: 55 placements on Portuguese and Brazilian publishers found inside my time there, 42 still live with the link, including Jornal de Notícias, Diário de Notícias, Notícias ao Minuto, Executive Digest, SAPO and Tecmundo.
- [Same discipline. Different industry.](https://cantomelo.com/work/uk-finance/): MJ Group (TradingGuide), 2022 – 2024 · freelance. Took publisher acquisition from iGaming into UK finance for a trading-platform comparison brand, where relevance and trust matter even more.
  Evidence: 84 placements from my contract period verified live in October 2026, on 82 referring domains.

## Case studies (rankings are Ahrefs estimates; timing, not proof of cause)

- [not ranking → #1 for "casas de apostas que aceitam pix" (Brazil, Sports betting)](https://cantomelo.com/cases/pix-betting-sites/): When Pix was new, I built links from Brazilian news sites to a guide to betting sites that accept Pix. Over the following months it went from not ranking to the top 3, then #1 (Ahrefs).
- [#17 → #2 for "casas de apostas com bônus" (Brazil, Sports betting)](https://cantomelo.com/cases/betting-bonus-guide/): No shortcuts: about one editorial link a month to one page, for two years. The guide climbed from page two to #2 for a competitive commercial term.
- [#7 → #1 for "codigo bonus betano" (Brazil, Sports betting)](https://cantomelo.com/cases/betano-promo-code/): A crowded brand-code results page. I placed fifteen editorial links over nine months to a football site's Betano code page, which moved from #7 to #1 in that time; content and on-page teams worked on it too.
- [#21 → #11 for "casas de apostas" (Brazil, Sports betting)](https://cantomelo.com/cases/casas-de-apostas-hub/): “casas de apostas” gets around 100,000 searches a month. While I ran targeted link acquisition, a niche NBA fan site's betting hub moved from #21 to #11 (June to October 2024). Its later top-3 move coincided with a network-wide change and isn't claimed.
- [#2 → #1 for "codigo promocional betclic" (Portugal, Sports betting)](https://cantomelo.com/cases/portugal-promo-codes/): Second place is the hardest place to move from. While I placed links from Portuguese regional and club sites, two promo-code pages on a national newspaper's betting section reached #1 in September and October 2024.
- [not ranking → #1 for "melhores cassinos online" (Brazil, Casino)](https://cantomelo.com/cases/casino-homepage-to-1/): Not ranking in December 2021. During a summer push of links from Brazilian news sites it moved from #24 in June to #1 in November 2022 for “melhores cassinos online”.
- [#1 on launch day for "melhores casinos online" (Portugal, Casino)](https://cantomelo.com/cases/jn-guide-number-one/): A sponsored casino guide on Jornal de Notícias, one of Portugal's biggest newspapers, was observed at #1 for “melhores casinos online” hours after it went live in June 2024.
- [#18 → #1 for "best crypto wallet uk" (United Kingdom, Finance)](https://cantomelo.com/cases/uk-crypto-wallets/): Same discipline, different industry: a steady link programme to a UK trading-comparison site's awards pages and #1 for “best crypto wallet uk” by February 2024.
- [33 publishers cited for "press citations" (Brazil, Digital PR)](https://cantomelo.com/cases/data-studies-press/): Links you can't buy: research studies that Brazilian newsrooms, including Terra, Metrópoles and Olhar Digital, quoted as a source.

## Markets I've worked in

- Brazil: iGaming and sports · Owned off-page strategy for affiliate sites, then link acquisition for sports-media brands and publisher-hosted betting sections.
- Portugal: iGaming and sports · Publisher partnerships in a smaller, fiercely competitive media market.
- United Kingdom: Finance · Publisher outreach for a UK trading-platform comparison site.
- Japan: iGaming · Publisher research and link-building coordination for two Japanese-language sites.

## Experience

- Senior Off-Page SEO Manager, iGaming.com (Mar 2024 – Apr 2026, Full-time · Remote)
  - Owned off-page strategy for Portugal and Brazil.
  - Researched and negotiated with publishers, including national news titles; evaluated subfolder, branded-channel and sponsored formats.
  - Worked with on-page, technical, content, analytics and finance teams on localisation, QA and indexation.
- Off-Page SEO Lead, North Star Network (Jun 2024 – Apr 2025, Freelance)
  - Owned link-building strategy for the network's Brazilian and Portuguese sites and publisher-hosted betting sections.
  - Managed a six-figure link-acquisition budget across Brazil and Portugal: agencies, direct publisher relationships, delivery checks and invoice reconciliation.
- Off-Page SEO Lead, MJ Group (TradingGuide) (Nov 2022 – Mar 2024, Freelance)
  - Publisher acquisition and outreach for a UK trading-platform comparison site.
  - Supplier management, editorial coordination and publication QA.
- Off-Page SEO Lead, KaFe Rocks (now Time2Play) (Jan 2023 – Dec 2023, Full-time · Remote)
  - Formalised the off-page leadership I already held: strategy for five Brazilian affiliate sites, plus casinocontaatras.com.
  - Recruited and directly managed one team member; managed agencies and writers.
  - Publisher research and link-building coordination for two Japanese-language sites (ankaji.com, ikasaman.com).
- Senior Online Marketing Manager, KaFe Rocks (now Time2Play) (Jul 2019 – Jan 2023, Full-time · Remote)
  - Built Brazilian publisher relationships and link programmes for five affiliate sites.
  - Negotiated portal partnerships, including site-wide placements on iG's main navigation and in the footers of Gazeta do Povo and Tribuna do Paraná (2021–2022).
- Affiliate Manager, iDigitalMedia (Aug 2018 – Apr 2019, Portugal)
- Media Buyer and Account Manager, Clever Advertising Group (Mar 2016 – Aug 2018, Porto, Portugal)
- Regional Commercial Manager, Dermofarm (Jan 2012 – Feb 2016, Lisbon, Portugal)

## Skills and tools

- strategy: SEO strategy, competitive analysis, market prioritisation, authority development, content-led outreach
- authority: off-page SEO, digital PR, publisher partnerships, editorial link acquisition, brand mentions
- operations: commercial negotiation, agency management, budget planning, team leadership, campaign QA, reporting
- stack: Ahrefs, Semrush, Google Search Console, Majestic, Moz, BuzzStream, Hunter.io, Surfer SEO, Asana
- ai: Claude Code, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini (research, prototyping and workflow experimentation)
- beta: AI search visibility (GEO/AEO): active learning and experimentation
Note: items marked beta are being learned now, not past experience.

## Education

- Bachelor's degree (Licenciatura) in Public Relations, Universidade da Maia (UMAIA), Portugal (2008–2011)

## Recommendations (verbatim, LinkedIn)

- Tim Tepass (Founder and CEO, KaFe Rocks (now Time2Play) · senior to Cristiana, December 2023): "Cristiana is a one-of-a-kind online marketer, who understands how to lead teams, and has 360° knowledge of SEO (on-page, off-page and AI powered SEO). Any team would be lucky to have her!"
- Toke Møller Theilade (Managed Cristiana directly, December 2023): "Cristiana was a key asset to the team as well as the business. She is reliable, dedicated, professional and has an impressive knowledge of her field. She is a great team leader and teammate, and it was a pleasure working with her."
- Daniel Monteiro (Reported to Cristiana directly, December 2023): "I had an amazing experience working with Cristiana as my manager. She possesses extensive knowledge of SEO and the iGaming market, consistently offering creative and effective solutions that played a crucial role in achieving our OKRs. Beyond her expertise, Cristiana stood out as an active, kind, and supportive manager. …"
- Viviane Wirthmann (Worked with Cristiana on a different team, December 2023): "Cristiana's understanding of the Brazilian market landscape was impressive. She consistently demonstrated the ability to analyze trends, identify opportunities, and develop effective link-building strategies that targeted the right audience. Her proactive approach and strategic thinking were key to our success in achieving sustainable growth in the region. …"
- Sonia Letycia Santamaria (Worked with Cristiana on a different team, December 2023): "… Just as personable as she is effective, Cristiana has an aura of expertise and excels at directing link-building activities. She stands out in coordinating outreach activities and leading a high-performance team with a strong focus on growth, and always promotes team collaboration. …"

## Contact

- [Email Cristiana Cantomelo](mailto:cantomello@gmail.com): Open to international remote SEO roles.
- [LinkedIn profile](https://www.linkedin.com/in/cantomelo/)

## Optional

- [Full site](https://cantomelo.com/)
- [Sitemap](https://cantomelo.com/sitemap.xml)