It seems that everywhere we look, there are people who are developing successful businesses and making money online. Blogging, podcasting, publishing – there seems to be so many different options, but there also seems to be a saturation. How can we create and grow a successful online business in a very crowded marketplace?

Our guest or this episode of Excellence Expected is Anita Campbell who has a wealth of experience in this area from her time as CEO of Small Business Trends. Anita is going to share some fantastic insights with us as well as some actionable tips that could get you started on the road to online business success.

We all have our passions, interests and experiences, so we each have our own unique voice. Therefore, each of us has an opportunity to create a profitable business in online publishing. Listen to this episode to find out how you could make your mark with your own digital publishing business.

Issue Challenged in this Small Business Podcast:

How can we build and grow an online business?

About Anita:

Anita is the founder, publisher and CEO of the hugely popular small business website, Small Business Trends. She was initially trained as an attorney and moved into consultancy before finally ending up as one of the most influential publishing figures in the small business space.

Anita built her online presence from scratch and she’s here with us on your favourite small business podcast to share her experiences and tips to help you get a start online.

Actionable Tips:

* Stick with it. It takes times to build up traffic so you should take a look at the metrics after 12 months or 24 months. This is not an overnight thing.

* Publish, Publish, Publish. You have to build up a body of work and put yourself out there consistently. Inconsistent or infrequent content creation isn’t good for your business. The more you can publish, the better. However, quality must be at the forefront of your mind. There are also huge search engine benefits.

* Figure out something to sell early on. You need to have some revenue sources until you can get your traffic to a point where you can attract advertisers or sponsors. You could write an e-book, produce a piece of software or work as a freelancer.

Top Quotes:

* “I realized the potential of publishing. Gradually the blog ate the business.”

* “There’s still plenty of potential for people to create a content oriented site and have it grow into a large site. You need to think about a narrow niche.”

* “If you can find an area or interest that’s not already well served, then there’s a tremendous amount of opportunity.”

* “When it comes to an aspiring entrepreneur, there’s plenty of opportunity to spot something that’s not being done or not being done well and bring your own particular flavour to it.”

* “You have to have something that you can use to make money with. These things can take a long time, especially if it’s supported by advertising. At first, you need to find money elsewhere to buy you the time to get to the point where you can earn real money through advertising or sponsorship.”

* “Sending reports to myself motivated me. The slightest bit of progress could give me the motivation to keep going. Measure things and really look at reports.”

Anita’s Links:

* Small Business Trends (http://smallbiztrends.com/)

* Anita’s Twitter (https://twitter.com/smallbiztrends)

Key Timestamps:

* 00:41 Challenged Issue

* 01:12 Anita’s Introduction

* 04:08 Why Digital?

* 07:42 The Opportunity of Online Publishing

* 11:45 Persistence