Diaryscroll on an initiative to launch talented Indian Bloggers is back again in the Friday Fever Series.
It is my very great privilege interview Mr. Atish Ranjan who is very well known not just as an expert Blogger and SEO specialist but also known for his helping and kind nature. And after I got a chance to interact him I realized that he is a valuable gem to Indian Blogosphere.
- Tell us a bit about yourself and your blog.
Thanks for having me here on your blog, Deepal. I am Atish Ranjan from Sitamarhi currently staying in New Delhi, India. I am a computer graduate. I have worked as SEO Analyst in a few Private firms for around 5 years. I started both blogging and day job simultaneously. There is about 1 month difference of starting blogging and Job.In the March 2015, I left the job for full-time entrepreneurship, and I am really enjoying it. I and my partner, Zainil Dedhia started the blog techtricksworld.blogspot.com in 2010, and after working about a year, we saw immense growth of the blog, we moved the blog to WordPress self-hosted with domain name www.techtricksworld.com, and our real blogging journey got started.
TechTricksWorld is a multi-niche blog that covers blogging, SEO, tech, online marketing related blog posts. Time to time, we run giveaways to give something valuable to our readers as well.
- What made you start your own blog? How has your journey been so far?
When I was studying BCA, one of my friends Bhaskar told me about his friend Durgesh who started a forum for tech geeks. I was interested in joining the forum and participating in that. I signed up to that, in those days Internet was pretty new thing to me, and I was tempted with that forum thing. I used to reply to queries and share my own tips and tricks in that forum. Later, Durgesh made me the moderator of that forum, and I started working on the forum with even more responsibilities. There I found Zainil asking some questions in the forum. I tried to solve his queries and all. We became friends, and he gave me an idea about a blog. As I was sharing mini posts in the forum, he said to publish such posts; blog is a better thing than a forum. I found that interesting, and I started a blog on Blogspot along with him keeping forum thing only for answering the queries though later Durgesh made that forum down for some reasons.That is how our blog techtricksworld.com was started initially at blogger platform, and later we migrated that to WordPress.
This was the start, and about my journey, it is a long story that I would like you to read this post where I have already shared everything. If I start writing story here there will be plagiarism issue on your blog. Better you read the story on the link I added above. - From text content to blogging through videos, which medium have you experienced most efficient and effective?
Both text and video are a good mediums, and it’s all about your expertise, interest, and comfort level while choosing the medium. I like both, but writing textual content is my first love, and I am continuing to do so. However, I will be creating videos gradually; I have created a few test how to videos that you can watch on our YouTube Channel.Videos are being more effective nowadays because people get bored sometimes by reading the text but watching videos with audio is always interesting.
So, I would say both are good and being a blogger you must focus on both of the medium to beat the competition. - How do you come out with a topic for your blog and what measures do you follow while planning its content?
I try to write something that somehow solves people’s queries. And, for this, I do keyword research mainly to find out what are the terms people are searching. Once I get the good keywords, I find out its competition by searching that term into Google.com and see which sites are ranking. If the sites which are on the first page have much authority, indicates that keyword is difficult to rank. Thus, I choose the term with that no big sites rank on the first page so that it becomes easier to rank on the Google. This is the manual way of finding keyword competition for organic search. Alternatively, Long Tail Pro Keyword tool can be used for it too. I have been using this tool for more than a year, and it is awesome.For getting more blog post ideas, I always read my older articles, comments, and various other blogs in my niches. I also read Q&A sites to see what people are asking. Sometimes such questions give good ideas of next blog posts. - What recommendations do you have for SEO Tools? Which tools do you use?
I would advise:
1. Long Tail Pro – For keyword research.2. SERanking – for keeping keywords ranking track and for various other SEO status.
3. Google Keyword Planner – Free keyword research tool.
4. Ahrefs, MajesticSEO, and Webmeup for backlink analysis. - How do you monetize your blog? What other methods you can suggest to our readers?
I use Google Adsense, Affiliate Marketing, Sponsored Reviews and posts, Banner ads for monetizing my blog(s).
I would advise these methods to everyone because these are proven ways to make money. Also, if you have millions of traffic every month, you can try out CPM ads that pay for impressions.
- Besides blogging, what do you do else? Share the unseen Atish Ranjan with us.
I am a very simple person, and I spend time with my family when I am not blogging. I watch TV, movies on my laptop, go for a walk in the evening, and that’s all. Once or twice in a year I visit my Home Town where my parents live. - For anyone who wants to start a blog, what tips would you advice?
I always advise everyone that don’t start a blog just by seeing someone’s earning reports and popularity. Start if you are really interested in it becauseblogging is something that may not earn any money if you really don’t like it but started just to make money.
Start a blog if you are passionate about it and if you can work hard consistently. Don’t think for earning money from the Day 1 as it takes time to build a good blog, and then the money starts flowing into your bank.
- What crucial aspects one has to cover in keyword research for his/her content?
I think, I have said about it already. However, when you do keyword research, find out the search volume first, if it is good, look out for competition because if you choose a very competitive keyword for your new blog, you may not rank for it. Thus, to start with choose low competition keywords. Once your blog starts becoming good in SERP, you can start targeting medium competition keywords.
For organic keyword competition, Long Tail Pro is the best tool, and if you cannot afford it, you can find out manually as I mentioned already in the answer to a question early in this post. - From SEO perspective, what are the trending 2016 tips?
From SEO Perspective, I would suggest optimizing your blog well for better On-Page SEO, and while building backlinks, keep things as natural as possible because Google hates when it finds someone trying to build links to manipulate the ranking algorithm. Focus more on your blog’s mobile friendliness as well as the loading speed because these are newly added ranking factors in Google. - At last, on which social platforms, do you promote your blog? Where can one get in touch with you?
I promote my blog on almost all popular social media sites such as Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. I also do email marketing that works pretty well.I can be reached at fb.com/atish1ranjan, Twitter.com/atishranjan
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