I have started interview series again. And this time, I interviewed Anil Agarwal, founder of BloggersPassion, one of the best blogs to learn blogging and SEO.
He is a successful blogger and shares lots of amazing stuff at his blog.
If you are struggling to get traffic to your blog and making money, read this interview till the end.
In this interview, Anil shared lots of amazing stuff like major sources for making money, how to optimize blog posts to rank better, tips to improve blog organic traffic and more.
Let’s dive right in.
Interview With Anil Agarwal from BloggersPassion
Hi Anil, Please introduce yourself to UpdateLand readers?
Thanks a lot Jyoti for inviting me on your blog.
My name is Anil and I’m the founder of Bloggers Passion blog where I’m trying to help my blog readers in improving their website traffic and revenue. I started this blog in 2010.
I also write a ton of case studies on website traffic and revenue topics to help my blog readers with the same from time to time. Sharing couple of them below. I hope UpdateLand readers will also like to know.
How I made more than $13,000 within a week during cyber week?
In 2018, we end up making $106,000 plus income from Bloggerspassion.com blog which is an increase of 35% from 2017 ($65,000). You can read more about our latest traffic and income report at Bloggerspassion.
Apart from Bloggers Passion, I recently started a hosting project at HostingMonks.com where I will be sharing web hosting related solutions to my blog readers.
How did you come to blogging and what was the main purpose to start BloggersPassion ?
I started my career as an SEO expert and I happen to create blogs (for traffic and links) to promote company websites I was working for. But soon I realized the true potential of blogging.
Since I was not much happy with the salary I was getting from companies I was working for, so I have to look out for alternatives using which I can make some extra income.
Like most of other bloggers, I started with free blogs on Blogspot and created blogs on finance and health related topics. Made lots of mistakes like keep on using blogspot blogs for a long time, wrong niche selection and Adsense was the only way I was monetizing my blog at that time.
Then I started my first blog at scopeformoney.com (which does not exist now) which I sold via Flippa to a UK guy for $35,000 in 2008 (as I need funds for my home purchase).
In 2010, I started working on Bloggers Passion with the aim to make a name for me in blogging and SEO industry (Apart from revenue motives). I’m trying to work on Bloggers Passion in a way, things should keep improving with time.
In the past, we were relying heavily on Google search and as a way to diversify our traffic sources, we are trying to be more active on other platforms like Facebook group, Quora and YouTube channel to name a few.
Which blogs do you usually read to enhance your skills?
Sharing the list of few blogs I happen to be for different needs:
Search Engine Roundtable & Search Engine Land: to keep track of Google algo’s and other SEO industry updates
Backlinko Blog & Matthew Woodward: for learning new things about SEO industry
How do you optimize your blog posts to rank better in Google? Please elaborate with examples if possible.
Jyoti, I would suggest you to go through this post, where I tried to explain the exact process I follow to get rankings for my target keywords on Google.
What are your major sources for making money from your blog? Please elaborate how you make money using these resources.
Most of my blog revenue comes from affiliate products selling these days. I have been trying to promote trusted web hosting, themes, plugins and SEO tools related tools on my blog.
To build traffic on products I want to promote, I happen to create reviews (WPX review), comparisons (WPX vs SiteGround), Top 10 type list posts (Top 10 managed wordpress hosting sites), How to’s (how to launch your first blog on WordPress), deals posts etc.
Sharing below a screenshot showing the amount I made while promoting a single product on my blog (Check the amount of clicks & revenue generated from them):
What you do to improve your blog’s organic traffic regularly?
We work on improving the existing posts (by improving its SEO values and content quality) and while creating new posts, we try to target easy to rank long tail keywords.
I’m using a SEO tool called SEMrush to fulfill all of my SEO needs like keeping track of my keyword rankings, backlink audits, website audit, keyword search and competitor analysis etc.
While creating a post, we work on doing proper on-page SEO for it and then wait for few months to see the actual potential of that post. If it started showing up in top 15 or 20, we try to build some quality links for it through guest posts, blog commenting, social sharing and through internal linking etc.
Since website speed is a big ranking factor on Google, so we work on improving the speed of our blog from time to time. Most of pages on Bloggers Passion should load within 2 seconds on major devices (Desktop & Mobiles).
Sharing our home page speed using a tool called GTmetrix:
Which things a blogger should keep in mind while starting a new blog and what should do to make it successful?
- Don’t compare the starting of your journey with someone else end result.
- Don’t pick a niche on the basis of others success. Pick a niche you are most passionate about.
- Once you have picked a good niche, setup your self hosted blog, start producing quality contents on your blog and keep on gaining more and more knowledge about your niche topics.
- Don’t forget to do keyword research for every topic you write on your blog and learn the basics of SEO.
- Keep producing quality contents on your blog and try to promote it via different channels.
- If you continue producing quality contents and promoting it at the same time, you should be able to see some success with your blog within just 1-2 years.
What mistakes you made so far in your blogging journey and what you have learned from them?
I have made lots of mistakes in my blogging journey and it’s also true I learnt a lot from them. Sharing few of mistakes I made and few on which I need to work on:
- For many years I was not building any email list on my blog. No doubt I started working in this direction, but still I need to master it.
- I have been very late starter with video content. I uploaded my first video on my YouTube channel in this month only. I will try to get better at video content creation (in Hindi & English) in the coming days. But still I’m a beginner here.
- Not doing any keyword research for the first 2-3 years of my blog. Since we did not spend any time on doing keyword research during the initial years of Bloggers Passion, so we end up creating lots of posts that are not driving any traffic from search engines. Now we are working for improving them and in case cases we are de-indexing and doing the redirections as well.
How do you manage your time?
Here is my daily routine for blogging (Mon- Friday)
6 AM – 6:15 AM (checking emails, stats, sales etc)
6:15 : 8:15 AM: kids schools related activities
11:30 am to 3 PM (Blogging stuff)
3 PM to 4:30 (Lunch break, 30 min walk)
4:30 to 7:30 PM (Blogging)
10-15 min towards the end of day to check emails etc
I have team who help me with content development, web design & development related needs.
What is your strategy to find new keywords which already not covered by other bloggers?
It’s very hard to find a keyword that has some search volume and is not being covered by any website or blog owner. I try to target long tail keywords that have less keyword difficulty and less competition.
Before making decision about a keyword that we are targeting, we should check the quality and authority of top 10 sites that are ranking for that term. If we can create better content than them and can promote it properly, we should be able to outrank them in sometime.
Which link building techniques you personally use and what things one should keep in to mind while create backlinks for his/her blog?
Sharing below the backlink strategies that I’m using these days:
- Try to write posts for top blogs in blogging and SEO industry.
- Be part of roundups that are happening
- Accepting interview opportunities
- Giving testimonials to people who are reaching me.
- Writing high quality comments on top blogs in my niche.
- Spreading words about my content through Social networks.
- Doing internal linking naturally.
- Writing well researched and highly educational content which attracts lots of natural links in the long run.
Few thing that I keep in mind while creating links for my blog:
- I try to get backlinks from target blogs and websites only.
- I avoid getting links from sites that have no search traffic and no authority in my niche.
- I try to do lots of variations with my anchor text (Branded, Branded plus keyword, long anchors, generic anchors etc) while I’m building links.
Now, we have reached at the end of interview. A big thanks to Anil for accepting my interview invitation and investing his precious time in replying all questions. I hope you guys will be enjoy this interview with Anil Agarwal from BloggersPassion and learn amazing blogging tips from him.
If you have any question for Anil Agarwal, drop a comment below right now. He will be happy to answer you.