Looking to start blogging for business or just want to take your blog to the next level?
Read how BloggingJunction.com started to get traffic and generate money…
I had the privilege to interview its owner (Saksham Talwar) by email about his blogging experience and experiments. Enjoy.
I know youâre only 16 years old. It is quite impressive to see youngsters take the blogosphere by storm and succeed when others are just dreaming about it. So, when (and why) did you start blogging and what is the story behind creating www.BloggingJunction.com?
My blogging story started back in 2008 with a small Blogspot blog where I wrote about wildlife and nature. I had no intentions what-so-ever of making money via blogging before I moved on to a self-hosted domain two months after I created my first blog.
My first self-hosted blog was about computer tips and tricks. For the first year I didnât make a single dollar, but I learnt a lot about blogging, SEO, advertising, social media, etc. In 2009 I decided to shut down my computer tips blog and start afresh with a new blog – Blogging Junction. I decided to share my experiences; some things that helped me build a better blog and will be helpful for other newbies too.
How did it feel to write in the beginning and how often did you create content to help launch the blog?
In the beginning I was a bit confused about the topics to write on as I had just one year experience in the blogging field and most of the tips I was going to share already existed on many other blogs. Still I decided to give a try and wrote blog posts on what I learnt during my first blogging year and as BJ progressed, I also shared tips on what was making it to progress!
I had made it a point to write at least 1 article a day and sometimes even 2, but due to my high school studies I could just write 5-6 blog posts a week.
As the competition today is a lot higher, for new bloggers I would recommend to write at least 1 high quality article every day and if possible 2 or more than that.
What methods did you use to help promote your blog and attract an audience?
I used blog commenting, forum posting and even invited some other bloggers to read my blog and many of them did that! The way that worked the best for me to attract visitors was blog commenting. Though its power isnât that high as of today, but the good news is that it still works and will help you get your initial blog visitors.
Blog commentating -> Find 10 ânewâ blogs belonging to your blog niche -> Comment on their blog posts regularly and even follow back to their replies -> Socialize further via social networks
What was the most powerful traffic-getting method in your opinion and why?
The method that worked for me then was blog commentating. But as I said above, blog commentating is not that powerful as of today. Guest blogging is the method that works like a charm today.
Guest blogging on popular blogs not only helps you attract their audience to your blog but also helps you get useful backlinks which help you rank better in search engines and get more organic traffic. So guest blogging exposes you to two traffic sources â direct traffic from blog where you guest blog and organic traffic from search engines which you get due to increased search engine rankings.
So in order to build traffic the method I will recommend is to guest blog and keep on doing the same!
How often do you publish content on your blog nowadays?
Last month I published at least one post every day. This month I am following a different strategy. This month I am going to publish posts on alternate days so that each post gets proper exposure. Letâs see how it goes!
How do you attract traffic to your blog nowadays?
A.)Â Guest blogging
B.)Â SEO
These methods are working like a charm for me these days and will work for you too.
Letâs talk about SEO, my favorite topic and the method of smart bloggers around the globe.
Why is optimization important to you and how do you optimize your blog for the search engines? What are you doing special that maybe others are missing?
Optimization is very important and helps us in bring in visitors indeed easily. Optimization has two parts â on-page and off-page optimization. On-page optimization is one in which you optimize your blog internally. This includes using proper titles, descriptions, adding META keywords, ensuring easy navigation, building internal links, etc. Off-page optimization includes link building from external sources like guest blogging, blog commentating, forums posting, guest blogging, etc. On-page SEO is the first step of ranking higher and next comes Off-page SEO.
People these days arenât keeping up to the trends. Itâs time to move on with search engines. There was a time when directory submissions worked, but they hardly matter anymore. But still if you see, people are buying directory submissions, but itâs of no use. Instead guest blogging works these days and hopefully it will work in future too.
As I am writing this, www.BloggingJunction.com shows a Google page rank 4 and an Alexa ranking under 25k. Could you give us a step-by-step walkthrough on what new bloggers should do in order to achieve similar results as you did?
To get a high page rank you just have to build links from good blogs or websites. Try taking the full benefit of commentluv links, dofollow forums to build links and in no time you will have a good PR as mine.
As far as Alexa rank is concerned, it hardly matters in my opinion. Alexa rank depends on your luck I say. If the visitors visiting your blog use the Alexa toolbar or if you have Alexa widget placed in your blog, your blog will have a good Alexa rank and if the visitors donât use the Alexa toolbar, your blog will find it difficult to rank higher. Donât focus much on Alexa rank I will say.
How did Google Panda update affect your rankings and what do you suggest bloggers who are worried about their rankings: what should they focus on, and more importantly, what should they avoid?
Google Panda update increased my traffic by more than 60%. If Google Panda update has had a negative impact on your blog, make sure you remove or edit all the duplicate content present in your blog. Also try to reduce the outgoing links from your blog. This doesnât mean you no-follow all the links, but instead just reduce the number of external links (affiliate links mainly). You can read the following article on my blog, 7 SEO Tips That Might Be Relevant After The Google Panda Update
What else can you mention to help fellow bloggers turn into SEO masters without tricking the search engines or deceiving their visitors?
âWrite for your readers, optimize for search enginesâ is what I will suggest.
Write in a way and language that your readers like and optimize the blog post for search engines by building links and using proper meta details.