A Business Success Story
Woman To Woman

Excerpt for Successful Business Stories of SiteBuildIt

In March of 2003, I took the plunge and purchased SiteBuildit (SBI) following my dream to start a magazine for artists and writers.

An artist and writer myself, I decided that the best way to ignite a communal spirit among artists, writers, and creative individuals was to publish a magazine of collaborative creative works. It would be called Artella ~ the waltz of words and art (named for "art" and "telling"). I would publish it monthly, alternating between print and electronic issues.

Just a year later, I have over 1,000 paid subscribers to Artella, and a cornucopia of ancillary products that not only support the professional full-color printing of Artella the magazine, but also earn me a full-time income, and support a small staff to manage Artella's exciting expansion.

But how could an artist ever hope to master the engines?

SiteBuildit made it easy to learn how to optimize my pages for search engines. I quickly learned (actually SBI! took me by the hand and made the process "artist-proof"!) how to build traffic right into the content I was creating... as I created it.

The opt-in e-zine function was easy to use and it gave me hours of new free time; with my first Web site, I was handling all of my e-zine signups manually!

In a matter of just a few weeks, it was clear that my life would never be the same again.

Magic! The build begins

The next phase of Artella was very exciting. With a sparkly new Web site, growing traffic numbers, and a newfound confidence, I let the brainstorming loose. The fact that SBI does not limit file size of Web sites made it easy to "think BIG"...it was very freeing to know that I could grow to any size and not have to pay additional fees for new file space.

My brainstorming was grounded by the question, "What can I offer to help serve the needs of writers, artists, and creative individuals?" By approaching the growth of Artella from that point, rather than looking simply at marketing strategies or "bottom-line" goals, I was able to synthesize all of my big ideas and authentically select the ones that were most appropriate.

The expansion of my story of success

I started writing articles and giving free teleworkshops as a way to broaden the Artella community and get a sense of what was missing from the lives of creative people. After writing an article about non-linear goalsetting for creative people, I received over 100 emails within two days of publishing the article. That led me to creating my first e-course, "Goalar Energy: A Unique Guidance Program for Extraordinary Action".

From there, I developed more e-courses on a variety of topics, as well as eBooks, teleworkshops, and series of audio lectures. I started three online community forums to allow creative people to connect with one another, and I continued to listen to the challenges of these people's lives in order to discover needs that were not being met.

Because SiteBuildit allows me to affordably put forth so many different products and services, I can share a lot of offerings for free, and I think this an integral part of Artella's success. Nothing gets the "buzz" going like unique free offerings, and I'll share a hint...nothing feels as good, either.

Offering a constantly- revolving roster of free products can be part of what SBI calls "PRE-selling"...but I just call it following my heart. This approach has never failed me, yet!

Before I started with my SiteBuildit site just short of a year ago, I had one single product -- a magazine for artists and writers that I was planning to have professionally printed in full color. People told me there was no way I could make it work, financially. Guess what? They actually were RIGHT!

I don't mind telling you...

If I were not with SBI, I'd most likely have to be paying more as my company and site grows.

If I were not with SBI, I'd have a much harder time getting the stellar search engine exposure that I have now.

If I were not with SBI, it would be far more difficult to coordinate Web updates with my tech support team, now that I have grown beyond being a one-woman enterprise (yay!)

If I were not with SBI, I wouldn't have access to all of the new and upcoming SBI features and third-party connections that are announced in your practical and inspiring newsletters (the only marketing newsletter I need to read!).

In less than a year, I went from publishing a magazine as a part time hobby to launching a full-time creative business with a small staff, and a team of affiliates who enjoy helping me promote Artella's products....now that's a golden business success story!

Marney K. Makridakis
Founder/Editor
Artella ~ the waltz of words and art
www.ArtellaWordsAndArt.com
A magazine and support network for writers, artists, and creative spirits