Capitolhillseattle.com is an experiment in community and journalism. A big part of that experiment is surviving and, hopefully, thriving. The goal is more than being interesting and documenting a piece of the day to day here on Capitol Hill. The goal is to last. And grow.

The plan for survival and growth, then, is to sell enough advertising to

1. Maintain a quality site
2. Share compensation with the people who put effort into making the site better (more on this at the end of this post)
3. Be able to afford providing free advertising for small, local businesses
4. Turn away advertising that is low quality and not locally focussed
5. Compensate myself with what’s left over

Gettin’ paid
Along with our cousin site over at Central District News, we have been running a trial of our advertising system for the past several weeks, inviting local business and groups to test out the system by placing advertising for free. The response has been solid: 30 advertisers got their message out to about a thousand people every day interested in Capitol Hill. Thanks much to you pioneers. Your effort and feedback was much appreciated. And, hey, you had to like the price, no?

Now it’s time to step it up a level — our paid ad system is ready to roll. It’s a simple system. You pick your daily budget (as low as $.50 per day), and we’ll deliver the perfect mix of viewers to fit that budget. We bill you for the balance at the end of each month. You create as many different ads as you want and they’ll all work within your pre-selected budget.

Ready to let it rip? Get started here: http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/ads/setup/adcreate

Need help with putting together a graphic for your ad? Check out this roster of neighborhood graphic designers who are ready and willing to provide you with great looking ads within a neighborhood budget.

Or you can go with our Text Ads option and have an ad live and running on the site in the time it takes you to write two lines of sparkling local ad copy. Text Ads are very cool — anybody can do it. Even kids! (with parental supervision, of course).

Always free advertising for locals
If you have already placed free ads on the site, you can upgrade to paid ads very easily. Just click the “Your Page” tab, navigate to the ads page from the “Ads” link near the top-right of the page, and then click the “upgrade” link for any ad you want to convert to a paid placement. It will take you through the process of selecting a budget, entering your billing information, etc.

We are also keeping a place on every page and in every inventory to allow free advertising for local businesses. We have dedicated more than 10% of our advertising inventory to free ads to help local small businesses and non-profits spread their story to the neighborhood. As more paid advertisers come online, the number of free impressions will drop as the number of paid placements increase, but we will always maintain the 10% for Local buffer as our thank you to the Hill.

Gettin’ rich

Still reading? Good. Because here’s the juicy part for site contributors. As part of our new capitalist pig revenue strategy, we’ve decided to take the pinko commie route to success. There are lots of reasons to contribute a great post to Capitol Hill Seattle — now we’re adding one more. Young journalists in training, struggling writers, folks looking to have their lattes subsidized by the Internet — consider joining our CHS Revenue Sharing program. Starting now, we’re putting a system in motion to share advertising revenue with the neighbors who help create the site’s content. The more your posts are read, the more you will make. Remember, also, only the best site content makes it to the CHS homepage. We’ll continue to filter what comes in and decide if it makes it off the stories page and onto the front page. It’s a meritocracy!

If you are interested in joining:

1. Sign up for a CHS account and make at least three posts
2. Send us a mail with your CHS username and any other information you think we need to know about.
3. If your posts are up to snuff, we’ll add you to the system.

We don’t plan on turning away anybody from the program but you never know. The last thing we want to do is encourage a bunch of crappy posts. So don’t be crappy! You might want to check out these 12 tips for being a neighborhood blogger to help you out. And, to set expectations, we’re not talking huge money yet as we are starting with ZERO paid advertisers in the system. But it’s a start and more reward for your effort than any other neighborhood blog can offer, no? If you post already but don’t want to participate in the program, that’s cool too. I know that some of you are driven by nothing more than knowing you brought a smile to my face. You’re so sweet.

So there you have it. An exciting new era for the site and a great opportunity for local businesses to reach engaged, active neighbors. If you have a business or your group wants to get the word out, please give us a try. You can also help by spreading the word to the businesses you frequent around Capitol Hill. Thanks for reading and thanks for being part of Capitol Hill Seattle.