Guest Author - Jennifer L. Thompson

I recently interviewed Linda, owner of the Contestgirl website. This is part two of our interview. You can find part one HERE

Jennifer: What are some of the challenges you've faced in running a website?

Linda: Fortunately, I do get a lot of assistance from my husband when he's not at his day-job. He knows computers and programming and has done most of the technical work. Without his help, it wouldn't be nearly as efficient and easy to use. The site is becoming very popular and this sometimes creates slowdowns in the functionality. We're looking into ways to improve any lags
created when the sites usage peaks. Also, it's very easy to find lots of
contests every day, but takes a long time to put it all onto the site,
because I need to skim the rules for each. I also get lots of email from
the sites users and try to answer in a timely manner. I do like to have
time during the day to run errands and keep the household running, so, I'd
say finding enough time to keep the site fresh, answering my email and
running my home are the biggest challenges at the moment. I'm doing it all,
but it's a balancing act.

Jennifer: What are some of your future goals for the Contestgirl site?

Linda: At some point, I would like to add a modified forum. Because the site now takes up so much of my time, I'm not quite ready yet to do this. A forum would require a lot of moderating, as they can become flashpoints when
people don't get along. I have a lot of wonderful people contributing
'comments' and interacting now and love the co-operative nature of it all. I have a real contesting community and it would be nice to give people a
better way to interact with each other.

I'd like to share an unexpected benefit of running this website, is that
I've made some terrific contesting friends and have also connected some of
my contesting community contributors to each other for friendship. I've had
so many people thank me for making their day brighter. Some of these people
are housebound because of illness and have found this hobby and the people
they interact with in the 'Comments' makes their day much brighter. I also
get such a kick when people write to me to tell me how happy they are that
they won a prize or received a free sample. I get a lot of positive
feedback from www.contestgirl.com users, and it really makes my day a little
brighter too. The level of pleasure the website has brought to myself as
well as others was not something I had planned or expected.

For more information, visit the Contestgirl website HERE