It’s quite interesting how many successful bloggers there are that are successful for “blogging”.
In most professionals and industries you need to be awesome at a specific skills that gives you authority, which then allows you move onto different areas.
In the blogging niche, you can become a successful blogger… just for blogging!
In today’s “meet the bloggers” interview we will be talking with Anil Agarwal who started his blog at BloggersPassion.com with the sole intention to become an awesome resource and help other bloggers.
The site was started in January 2010 and it’s now a top 20,000 Alexa web site!
Be sure to read the full interview below to see how Anil made it all possible.
1.) Please tell us about yourself and how you got into blogging?
This is Anil Agarwal, the man behind BloggersPassion.com blog.
Since I’m into internet marketing domain for some time now and blogging is one of very important aspect of promoting a website on internet.
This is how, I started getting deeper insights about blogging industry.
I had been reading popular blogs like Labnol.org (following since it was on Blogspot), Problogger.net and zacjohnson.com for many years.
I have been blogging for the last 5-6 years but in the recent 4 years type, I started taking blogging very seriously.
BloggersPassion.com was started on 1st Jan, 2010, on WordPress, which is the best blogging platform.
2.) What is the focus of your blog and why did you choose that niche?
On BloggersPassion.com, I primarily blog about blogging and seo related topics.
With this blog, I’m aiming at helping my blog readers drive huge amount of traffic on their blogs and website and at the same time, help them with making money from their traffic.
3.) How are you currently monetizing your blog traffic?
When I started blogging, the only way I was monetizing my blog was through Google Adsense.
But soon, I realize It’s not a wise decision to keep all of your eggs in a single basket.
And thus I started looking for Google Adsense alternatives.
Currently, most of my earnings are coming from affiliate products sale.
No doubt, I’m still using Google Adsense as one my monetization method on my blog.
4.) What do you know now that you wish you knew when you first started blogging?
I think I have improved as a blogger over the period of time.
When I started, I don’t know much about blogging and how to go about it.
But with experience I learn a lot about it like how to optimize my blog contents and how I should be monetizing it.
It’s not a wise decision to place too many monetization widgets at a time on your blog, just stick to two to three at a time.
You should always be experimenting with your moentization widgets and stick with the one’s which gives you maximum benefits.
5.) What are three blogs that you visit almost daily?
I use to spend 2-3 hours of my time on daily basis to stay updated with latest happenings in the search engine world going through the blogs like Google Webmaster Central, Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Land and SEOMoz Blog.
And to learn more interesting stuff around blogging, affiliate marketing, social media and conversion rate optimization, I go to Problogger.net, SmartPassiveIncome.com and Quicksprout.com.
6.) Can you give us three recommended tools/services that you use with your blogging?
Here are some tools that I use on regular intervals to fulfill different kind of needs I use to have:
- SEOMoz Pro
- Google Adwords Keyword Tool
- Google Webmaster Tools
7.) What advice would you have for someone who is just starting with their first blog?
You should be blogging about the things, you are good at or interested in being good at.
Don’t start blogging because you are seeing few of friends or people in your circle are making decent amount of money from their online blogs.
You should be very sure about the niche you will be writing about before starting your blogging career.
With blogs, you are supposed to write detailed posts around the chosen niche and you cannot continue that thing for long if you don’t have the interest or finding it boring soon after starting.
So you need to have lots of motivation and passion about the chosen niche.
As I had noticed it takes some time in getting success in the blogging niche and thus you need to keep on writing and promoting your blog with the intention, soon you will become successful.
8.) What’s the best advice or tip you’ve discovered about blogging since getting started?
You should have some topic in mind even before start writing and turn off all distracting factors like Gmail, Google Analytics, Facebook etc to focus on your writing.
9.) If you only had $100 to start a new blog, how would you use it?
If I had just $100 and I need to start a professional blog from scratch, I will
– Buy hosting from Hostgator or Bluehost which will cost me $50 type
– Buy a domain name for one year costing around $10
– Buy a premium theme from Elegant Themes website which will cost me $39 and in case I had more money to spend, I would go for Thesis or Genesis framework.
10.) How can readers of the blog get in touch with you?
You can know more about me and what I’m blogging about here.
And Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus here.
Thanks again Anil for taking the time to share your advice and story with the Blogging Tips community.
If you would like to learn about other bloggers and how they are finding success online, be sure to read through our blogger interview series.
