Anita Campbell started Small Business Trends in 2003 as an advice blog for small business people and entrepreneurs. Today, it is an online publication with hundreds of contributors and more than 1 million unique monthly visitors. Anita joins the TNT webinar series to share her tips, tricks and experiences in transitioning her site from a blog to one of the most respected small business destinations on the web. A few of the things she will cover include: Must-have tools to help drive traffic and operate the site Tracking stats in Google Analytics to see what drives the most traffic The role of social media in building traffic to your site How to create the right content mix for your audience The role of guest contributors in building your online presence

1. Anita Campbell
Publisher, Small Business
Trends
@smallbiztrends
Atlanta Tribune Technology for Business TNT (Tips 'N
Tricks) Webinar Series - Hosted by Brent Leary
How to Create an Online Publication (Not Just a Blog)
Brent Leary
CRM Essentials
Atlanta Tribune
Twitter:
@BrentLeary

2. Agenda
•Introduction/Housekeeping
•Featured Presentation
•Q&A
•Twitter use #TribuneTNT
•Facebook.com/TechnologyForBusine
ssSake

3. SmallBizTrends Network
• Award-winning online publication
• Premier source of news, resources,
and advice for small business
owners, entrepreneurs and small
biz managers

4. Snapshot
• What We Do
• News and information site
• Laser focus 100% on small businesses - 0 to 100 employees
• Everything small business owners and their management staff need to
know: news, people, products, services, resources, books, events,
government policies, research, advice, motivational tips and more
• Focus on the practical: how small business owners, managers and
entrepreneurs can apply the news, resources and information
• Special events: Twitter chats, webinars, Hangouts, Awards programs
• Editorial Staff Includes
• Professional journalists and editors formerly with publications such as the
Wall Street Journal and Entrepreneur magazine
Tagline:
“Small business success … delivered daily”

5. What it Takes to Run It
• A Team
• 5 full-time
• 18 part-time
• 400+ contributors
• Service providers and partners: UX Department; Freelancers on ODesk and
Fiverr; other freelancers
• Customized Platform
• Customized WordPress (Pligg for Awards sites and BizSugar)
• Many third party plugins not robust enough; custom coded
• Process
• Time is money!
• Remote workers increases challenges
• Reducing friction & inefficiency is key to profitability and quality

6. Creating Content
• Sourcing Content - Where We Get Stories
• Public GMail tips address: sbtips@gmail.com
• MyYahoo account we call News Central -- with small business feeds and
our pitch inbox.
• Individuals emails and calls received by Editor, Publisher and writers
• Writers or team sometime suggest topics
• Twitter!
• Date-driven (e.g., Small Business Week, earnings releases, conferences)
• Process - How We Work Internally
• Morning editorial meeting - chat and Nextiva for voice calls
• Assignments for writers entered into Simple Author Manager system
• Google Apps / Drive used for collaboration

7. Creating Content Cont’d
• Tools We Use to Write and Edit
• Tweak Your Biz title generator tool (titles are 50% of success!)
• Yoast SEO Plugin
• Shutterstock licensed images (or images intended for media)
• Copyscape Premium for contributed articles
• A good spell checker

8. BizSugar Snapshot
• What It is
• A community sharing site
• Focused 100% on small businesses
• A place where small businesses can share their blog ad video content for
others to see.
• The best content is voted on and surfaced to the “Hot” area
• A great listening source used to learn “what’s happening” and “what small
businesses are talking about”
• Who uses it
• Over 1 million registered accounts worldwide
• Hundreds of thousands of active users in a given six-month period
• Features
• Weekly Top 10 newsletter
• Active social accounts
• Special events such as “Ask Me Anything” and Branded Contests

9. Tweak Your Biz
• What It is
• A group site for entrepreneurs and small businesses to share
• An international audience, with good participation among the British Isles,
Ireland, Europe, Australia and the United States
• Professionals, small business owners and entrepreneurs write original
articles
• Features
• Smaller, more intimate feel
• Engaged community
• Active social accounts

10. Traffic
VISITS
1,000,000
PAGEVIEWS
1,400,000
NEW VISITS
51%
TIME ON SITE
5:58
Source: Google Analytics

11. Other Key Metrics
125,000
RSS
SUBSCRIBERS
220,000
SOCIAL
MEDIA FANS
17,000
EMAIL
SUBSCRIBERS

12. Community Engagement
Active Social Sharing &
Community Involvement
10,000 SHARES
PER WEEK
1,275 COMMENTS
PER MONTH

13. Audience: Business Size
Small Business Trends draws a targeted small business audience
Source: Bizo

14. Audience: Industry
Source: Bizo

15. Audience: Decision Makers
Small Business Trends visitors are senior level and owners
Source: Bizo

16. Audience: Functional Area
Source: Bizo

17. Source: Bizo
The Bizo Marketing
Traffic Index of 2014
places Small Business
Trends among the
top 10 in sites that
attract the largest
percentage of
marketing traffic at
#7
Amplified Marketing

18. Audience: Demographics
Age Male / Female
Education Household Income
18-54 52% / 48%
College Graduate $64K – $120K
Source: In-house Survey; Alexa; Facebook

19. We look forward to
working with you in the
very near future.
Thank you!
SmallBizTrends.com
Contact: Tamar Weinberg
Chief Strategy Officer
tamar@smallbiztrends.com