In this blogger interview Marko Saric talks about how he got 200,000 visitors to his blog in its first year.
Tell us a little bit about your blog.
I blog about blogging at HowToMakeMyBlog.com. I started the blog back in 2008. The blog features all the best tips and advice that I have learned in my career of marketing on the internet.
How long have you been blogging for? What made you want to start blogging?
I have been blogging for some 4 years now, started sometimes in 2006. I have been creating websites since late 1990′s where I had a fan page for my favourite band Metallica. I converted that static HTML site into a WordPress blog sometimes in 2006 and that slowly got me into blogs and social media and I ended up deciding to write a blog on blogging.
What were some of your biggest challenges when you first started blogging?
One of the biggest challenges is always to create content that people love and to spread the word about it. It takes a lot of consistent work to be able to do that and it is important to keep yourself motivated while you are building the initial momentum.
How did you overcome these challenges?
Nothing else to do other than continue working. Continue writing best blog posts that you can and continue spreading the word about it in forums, in social media, on others related sites and so on. The momentum really starts going after a while and then everything falls into its place and you see the fruits of your hard work.
What is a recent milestone that you have accomplished with your blog? How were you able to achieve this milestone?
One of the recent accomplishments was that I reached more than 200,000 visitors to my blog in its first year. That is the best accomplishment in terms of traffic in the first year I have been able to achieve yet. Lots of work was needed. I think I wrote some 150 blog posts and I don’t even know how much time I’ve spent on StumbleUpon, on Twitter and on commenting on other blogs.
With so much of your time spent on social media do you have any tips or strategies to share on how to efficiently leverage social networks for blog promotion?
There must be a balance between personal stuff and professional stuff. I tend to try and cut out as much as possible of the personal stuff and be focused on the business aspects of connecting to target customers and other relevant bloggers and people. So that would be my advice if you want to be more productive in social media. If you have a profile for your blog, be focused on what you blog about, restrict the irrelevant personal stuff and you will win a bit of time to work on the next blog post instead.
You were recently featured on Problogger as one of 30 bloggers to watch in 2010. What impact has that had on your blog so far?
I tend to look at numbers first. That post has sent me 250+ unique visitors until now so that is good. They spent more than 4 minutes on the site on average so that is great. So my site gets introduced to new targetted people, but also I get a link or two from a very authoritive site, plus it is good to be recognized in a list like that. It raises the profile of my blog in eye of some people.
What is your next goal that you want to achieve with your blog?
I am never too focused on selling and monetizing. That is one of my weak sides. So I hope that I can start releasing some products of my own and start earning money that way. That is one of the hopes I wish to achieve in the new year.
What is your best tip for other people out there who might be new or struggling with their blogging?
Keep working on it. First of all optimize the blog itself, then write the best content that you can, and third go out into social media or whatever else your target audience hangs out, and drag them all back to your blog one by one. After a while of doing this everyday, you will slowly start seeing the results and you will start building an audience of fans that will then help you spread the word even further.
Thanks again Marko for taking the time to do this interview.
Marko Saric blogs about all things blogging at HowToMakeMyBlog.com, and is also the author of the Twitter Marketing e-Book. Follow @howtomakemyblog on Twitter.
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Markco is definitely a blogger that I look up too! 200,000 visitors in his first year is an amazing result – but his content deserves it. Great interview.
Love his blog! Found many easy to use tips there already. About Wordpress and how to set things up. And because of his video about Thesis with the fantastic colors :-)
He was able to show there how to could manage that yourself. That was what I was looking for. And video instructions always help me a lot.
He has some kind of pragmatic approach that I can easy understand. So it does not surprise me that he has so many visitors.