Following our much talked about kick off last month, the Infolinks blog is excited to continue and showcase the people and stories behind some of our most successful Infolinkers. And today we present you this month’s winner and one of the most inspirational and colorful stories we found among our more than 100K publishers worldwide: The family owned entertainment blog “Celeb Dirty Laundry”.
Based in Montreal Canada, Celeb Dirty Laundry started as a high school project in 2007 by Robyn Good, the site today averages more than 2.3 million unique and 5 million page views a month. Today, the CDL is the flagship site of the MLRP Media Group, a family run business managed by Robyn’s parents: Annemarie and Jody, two retired college professors. We sat down with Annemarie Fraser who was kind enough to share with us her amazing success story.
Q: How did you find your way into the publishing world?
The whole thing started as a project my daughter started in high school, and 2010 when she left for her university studies, I decided to make Celeb Dirty Laundry my retirement project. That’s why the company’s name is MLRP media: My little retirement project. Today we have 7-10 full time writers and both my daughter and husband work with me full time, it’s our own family business.
Q: What is your favorite thing about your job?
First of all, the fact that I get to work at home, be with my family and raise my granddaughter. Also, this industry is always fun and the celebrity world is never boring. So when you combine your family with something you love, like I did with Celeb Dirty Laundry, you can never go wrong.
Q: Where do you see your site in 5 years?
Obviously we always want to grow. We doubled Celeb Dirty Laundry in volume in the past two years and we are hoping to repeat that in the following years. And one day I believe I will give it all to my daughter and her family and then maybe I might actually retire.
Q: To what do you attribute your site’s success?
When I first started Celeb Dirty Laundry I never said no to people or new ideas. In 2010 when we re-launched, I maybe had 500 readers, so I started to talk to people and other bloggers and I built a network of friends, partners and writers that really helped me grow.
I also looked at Celeb Dirty Laundry as a business from day one. I always talked to other sites and bloggers and I told them that alone we don’t have any chance of making it, but together with our powers and efforts combined we can actually create something that we can market and make money from. And I guess it worked.
Q: What tips can you give people thinking of entering the publishing world?
It’s all about the content. I always see people who start a website and they spend too much time and money on finding the “perfect theme” or “perfect design”. Don’t get me wrong, those things help a lot, but if you don’t have content that people want to come back and read then no design or font or theme will help you.
Q: What are your “dos and don’ts” for people thinking of starting a website?
Dos:
- Write about something you love
- Write content that you would want to read
- Find you voice, that’s the most important thing
Don’t’s:
- Don’t steal content!
- Don’t forget about social media. Always stay up to date and engage your readers
- Don’t let SEO drive your content, it’s the other way around.
Q: What is your overall experience with Infolinks?
I think that if I had to summarize Infolinks in one word it would be “dependable”, without a doubt. Whenever I talk to people starting a website I always tell them “sign up to Infolinks, they won’t let you down”. You guys are super easy to integrate and your payments are always on time, which is all I need from my advertising solution.
Q: How are we different than other networks?
I always have someone to talk to and to answer my questions. I have communication, which is great. I have worked with several ad networks in the past and most of them would almost never answer my emails, and with Infolinks you always have someone there, even if you’re not the biggest website in the world like Celeb Dirty Laundry. When you have a problem or a question sometimes all you want is an answer, and I always feel that I get the answers I need from the Infolinks support team.
Think your site is as interesting as Celeb Dirty Laundry?
Do you think your site has an amazing story like Celeb Dirty Laundry? Want to be featured in our blog? Let us know via Facebook, Twitter or Google+ and you might win our “website of the month award”. Check in with our blog in the upcoming weeks as we continue to feature in-depth interviews with the leading websites around the world.