Please introduce yourself and your website.
My name is Bob Bentz and I am the president of Advanced Telecom Services and Olympic Internet. I am also an avid fantasy baseball playe and began Fantasy Baseball Dugout in December 2007 with my nephew, Jonathan Bentz.

Why did you start it?
We started the blog because we were both very successful fantasy baseball players and we wanted to impart our knowledge to the public.  I also thought it would be a great way for me to keep in closer contact with one of my nephews.

What was the biggest success so far?
The biggest success we’ve had so far is when we started writing about Baseball’s Hottest Wives.  Prior to it, we were struggling in getting traffic despite writing some compelling articles, but Baseball’s Hottest Wives really put us on the map and differentiated us from the other fantasy baseball blog sites on the web.

We nominate wives throughout the year and then the ones that get the most reads, are put in as finalists for the Baseball’s Hottest Wives vote.  That’s when the real activity begins.  We add this feature late in the season to try to keep interest among fantasy baseball players who are out of the race in their own fantasy baseball leagues and possibly paying less attention to their teams.  Last year, Heidi DeRosa repeated as Baseball’s Hottest Wife thanks to an onslaught of votes and publicity generated by a St. Louis radio station.

What are the statistics of the site, and how do you make money with it?
Fantasy Baseball Dugout went live in January 2008 so we are now entering our third baseball season.  We average 11,000 unique visitors per day, but do significantly better in March when fantasy baseball players are seeking information to prepare for the fantasy baseball draft.  March is the Christmas time for fantasy baseball sites like ours.

We make money mostly through the internet advertising networks on a CPM basis.  We also do some pay per click promotions with Google AdSense and similar companies.

Where do you get the new content from?
It’s no problem for us to get the information to write about.  I am a Phillies season ticket holder and we both subscribe to the MLB package.  Therefore, we are just as likely to watch an Angels game or a Pirates game as we are to watch a Phillies game.  We also read countless magazines and web sites to get story ideas.  I guess you could say when we are not working our day jobs, we are reading and learning about baseball.

We like to write feature articles and go in depth and offer more information than just raw statistics.  There are a lot of statistical sites out there and we both have other jobs so we can’t keep up with them.  For instance, this week I’ve written two stories about the Cuban pitcher Aroldis Chapman who defected a few months ago.  We want fantasy baseball players to go to their draft with some interesting facts about players like Chapman that goes beyond what his statistical projections might be.  If all you think about is stats, you are not increasing your enjoyment of the game of baseball.

How do you promote your site, what works and what doesn’t?
We have received tremendous interest from our press releases, most notably the ones with PR Web.  Thanks to PR Web, we have had Fantasy Baseball Dugout picked up in major daily newspapers in Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and St. Louis.  If you have an interesting angle like Baseball’s Hottest Wives, the traditional media will write about it.  There is a great opportunity, especially with newspapers, where cutbacks in jobs have been common.  Make the writers’ jobs easier and you’ll get publicity outside your normal sphere of influence.

In retro-spec, what would you do differently?
There are a lot of fantasy baseball blogs on the web so you need to do something different to get significant traffic.  Baseball’s Hottest Wives did that for us.  If I were to do something different, I would have started out with this feature earlier.

Any tips for people just starting out?
The biggest tip I can give to new bloggers is to find time to write something every day.  If you know you can’t write something every day, post-date an article.  You want the Google BOT to get used to visiting your site and finding fresh content daily.  It takes a full year before you will start getting any significant traffic so stick with it and don’t get discouraged.  If you are writing good stuff, they will come (just like Field of Dreams) and find something to make your site different than the rest.

Please tell our readers your favorite blogs.
Our favorite blogs include NCAA College Cheerleaders, because as you can tell, we like pretty women.  We like to read articles from ESPN’s Buster Olney and Peter Gammons.  We like Erin Andrews for other reasons.  We also believe a lot of our success is due to our knowledge of search engine optimization so we read a lot about it on sites like SEO Moz, Search Engine Land, and Get Clickz.

Most people start a blog with the idea of being a published author, as that is intriguing to them.  We, however, have never taken our eyes off of the revenue producing opportunities that a blog like this produces.  With some effort, you can make your blog a nice extra income source.

I’ve even written an article about How Students Can Make Money Blogging.  It’s far better than working at a local fast food restaurant in terms of income, flexible hours, and experience.  Imagine going for a job interview and telling the company that you are 22-years-old and have already started your own business.  Now, that’s experience that will set you apart from your competition.  Just like Baseball’s Hottest Wives has.

Bob, thanks for the interview!