Anita Campbell

Your question has been sent to Anita Campbell. Ask another

• How can I drive traffic to my web company?

  • 

    There are so many ways to drive traffic to a Web company that it’s hard to know where to begin answering. But I guess the best place is to look at where you target audience hangs out.

    In the case of a Web business, find other sites, including social media sites, that attract your target audience. See if there’s a way to partner with them. Or if they are competitive sites to yours, study them to see if you can figure out the types of things they are doing and do them better.

    In the case of social media sites, pick a few and master them. I happen to also own and run a social bookmarking site for small businesses called BizSugar.com. I gave 5 pointers here for how to use a site like that to drive traffic to your blog and website: http://www.cubeonlinemarketing.ie/insider-tips-on-using-social-media-bookmarking-sites-for-online-marketing/

• What is your opinion on hiring Graduate students in the early stages of a startup?

  • 

    As long as you have a clear idea of exactly what tasks you expect to be done in your startup, then hiring Graduate students is a great way to get smart affordable help. Give them well-defined tasks and it can work well.

    The problem that many startups have, however, is that in the early stages things are still vague. You need LOTS of help, but the help you need is to figure out what needs to be done in the first place!

    Take marketing, for instance. Graduate students may not have enough practical experience to decide what kind of marketing your startup needs, how to strategically create a campaign, and the tactical steps to carry it out. If you need help that can set strategic direction AND carry it out, then consider carefully whether you may be expecting too much from a Graduate student. Smart as they are, they may just not have the experience to do what you need. And unless you have the time to mentor and develop their talent, it could be frustrating for you and them.

• Do you find e-mail newsletters to be an effective tool for marketing a startup?

  • 

    Absolutely, an email newsletter is a superb tool for marketing. Just remember that email marketing is best for staying in touch with those you already have a relationship with, or those who sign up voluntarily and give you permission to market to them (permission marketing, as Seth Godin calls it). Email tends to reap rewards longer term, not immediately. Give it time for your email database list to grow. Getting people to pay attention to your startup is one of the hardest things — an email newsletter will help you stay top of mind, so that you don’t squander the effort it took to get in front of that person to begin with.

• How do you find writers to contribute to SmallBizTrends, and what is your compensation structure?

  • 

    To answer the 1st part of your question, I’ve outlined here how we find and grow great writers here: http://sprouter.com/question/5357-how-do-you-find-great-people-to-write-for-your-site

    As to your question relating to compensation structure, we have two basic structures:

    (1) Uncompensated quest posting: these are opportunities to have your voice be heard in front of the Small Business Trends audience, but you receive no compensation for posts. This describes a large number of those who post on the site — they are people looking for visibility and audience reach.

    (2) Paid freelance /professional writer pieces: We give you assignments and deadlines. The typical range is $30 to $100 per post, depending on skill levels and your background. Quality writing, original thinking, subject matter expertise, adherence to deadlines, and willingness to spread the word about your articles on social media are what we expect. In exchange we give prompt payment and great visibility.

• How do you find great people to write for your site?

  • 

    How do we find great people to write for Small Business Trends? Three methods:

    (1) We look around a lot. We spend time visiting other sites, leaving the occasional comment, as a way of opening doors. We observe writing style and get a glimpse of what people are good at. Also, one of the reasons I acquired BizSugar.com is due to its nature as a community website. It’s a terrific place to spot new bloggers.

    (2) We get a lot of requests submitted to us, either by bloggers wanting to submit guest posts, or from professional writers looking for freelance work. The guest post requests that have the best chance of getting our attention are by those who participate in the site by commenting and who are persistent.

    (3) We employ a professional editor. I’ve learned the value of a good editor to improve upon writers' work (including my own!). A good editor can make most people scale greater heights with their writing.

• What is the best way to monetize your niche website/blog?

  • 

    The easiest way to monetize a niche blog or website is using Google AdSense ads. You create worthwhile content, attract traffic, and then run ads on the site.

    However, most people make modest earnings from AdSense ads, or even any other kind of ads. For many people it will be more rewarding to develop products of your own that you can sell. Information products, software, productivity tools, etc. can be good products.

    Another option is to become an affiliate of related products and sell those using affiliate links.

    Others use a blog or website to attract leads for consulting services or other services. This can be quite lucrative, particularly if you position yourself as an expert source.

• what sort of advice would you give a self funded start up company

  • 

    Cash will be your #1 issue. You probably know that no matter what you forecast, it will take twice as long and cost 3 times as much (or is it 3 times as long and twice as much?). Whatever … there will be pressure on your P&L and your bank balance. Find a reliable source of cash flow. For several years I wrote for other sites and did consulting on the side in order to bring in much needed cash flow while starting my current business. But at least I could sleep at night without worrying about debt.

• How do you get the word out when you post a new article on SmallBizTrends?

  • 

    By far the biggest way our content becomes known is through reader “word of mouth.” Our readers sharing content is critically important — and it grows over time. One of the great benefits of persistence is that the more people who get to know the site, the more people who will share your content.

    We have several other means of spreading the word:

    • RSS feed
    • Subscribers to daily email updates through FeedBurner.com
    • Syndication partners, such as Newstex and certain websites that we have given advance permission to distribute content or include our headlines
    • Twitter (including an automatic content feed and also my own personal Twitter account — and all key site personnel use Twitter, too).
    • Twitter updates will automatically update certain Facebook Pages and LinkedIn Accounts
    • Email newsletters
    • Including social sharing buttons on each post
    • Through being search engine friendly
    • BizSugar.com
    • Strategic publishing times (earlier in the day is better)

• What's your advice for someone starting a content site?

  • 

    First, pick a narrow niche. With millions of blogs and other sites online, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle if you start a broad-interest site. Instead, fill a void that the broader-topic sites can’t address. The narrower the better. Example: don’t start a site for “entrepreneurs” — there are just too many out there already. Instead, start a site for “craft entrepreneurs” or “manufacturing entrepreneurs” or “entrepreneurs in XYZ region.” Yes, your potential audience will be smaller, but you will be providing them with the level of subject matter insight they hunger for, so you are more likely to stand out and not just be another egg in the carton.

    Second, get a great domain name that exactly matches your site name and your niche focus. One mistake I made is picking a site name but not having the exact match URL for it. Lots of confusion ensued! After 7 years, I recently bought that domain name at auction and spent a pretty penny, just to avoid confusion and lost traffic.