Ep. #119 - The Journey to Passive Income: How to Monetize Your Blog (w/ Anil Agarwal from Bloggers Passion)

Speaker A: Welcome to the Marketing Mantra Podcast brought to you by 99signals.com, a place to find top notch content on a wide range of marketing topics including SEO, uh, social media, marketing, content marketing, blogging and more. Take your blog to the next level and achieve massive traffic growth by learning top blogging strategies discussed in the Marketing Mantra podcast. And now, here is your host, Sandeep Mallya.

Speaker B: Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of Marketing Mantra. This is your host, Sandeep Mallya from 99signals.com. We have a very special guest with us today, Anil Agarwal, who's The founder of BloggersPassion.com BloggersPassion is a top digital marketing blog from India dedicated to blogging, SEO and affiliate marketing. Anil's blog has been featured in top publications and platforms such as forbes, Huffington Post, HubSpot, SEMrush, Kinstar, Lifehack, among many others. To give you some background on Anil, he started Bloggers Passion back in early 2010 and since then the blog has achieved remarkable success. Uh, to date, Bloggers Passion has generated over $1 million in revenue. Uh, the year 2022 was particularly impressive, with the blog earning an average of $18,000 per month and attracting over 2.6 million page views annually. So over the past five years, the blog has consistently generated more than $10,000 in monthly revenue. Uh, Anil's extensive experience in SEO, which dates back to 2005, has been instrumental in the success of Blogger's Passion. Uh, his expertise in keyword research, competitor analysis, site audit and other SEO strategies has given him a competitive edge, allowing him to elevate his blog to new heights. So join us for this interview as we dive deep into Anil's journey and uncover the secrets behind his success. Uh, you learn practical strategies for monetizing your own blog and achieving financial success. Anil, thank you so much for taking the time to be on our show today. Really, uh, appreciate it.

Speaker C: Yeah, thanks a lot for inviting me on your channel.

Speaker B: Awesome. Great to have you here. So for those of our listeners who, uh, haven't heard, uh, much about your work, can you tell us a bit about yourself and what really inspired you to start, uh, Bloggers Passion.

Speaker C: Yeah, so, uh, if you look at my journey, I started my career, uh, in the SEO domain after completing my mca. So I started, uh, into the SEO domain, uh, as a SEO trainee. I worked into the SEO domain for around 15 years. And uh, along with SEO, I started working on blogging as well. Because when I was doing job, so I was not getting much salary it was not enough to survive so I had to look at some other revenue sources as well. And when I was working on SEO process so we were using blogs to build backlinks uh around that time we were using just for the sake of building backlinks. But then I see there uh, is potential to drive traffic as well from blogs. So on the basis of my learning I start using uh free blogs like blogger.com or WordPress. Uh free blogs to start with. So from there I uh learned the basics of blogging and all. So uh, for the next few years, three to four years I was using these free blogging websites and I was creating contents uh, on uh, any topic like that interests me or maybe on the basis of uh, what was coming on my mind. So for the next two, three years I understand about blogging and how we can monetize our blogs. And then I start my first blog I think it was around, on 7 or so I started my first uh self hosted blog. So and then uh, in 29 or so I sold that blog because I need some revenue money uh for some uh, so I need some funds for that part. So that's why I sold that blog and around that time uh, because I was free from that blog and I don't have any other blog and there was lots of learning as well from my first blog I feel I made lots of mistakes which I can work on in my next blog. So then uh, in 2010 I started working on blogespecial.com so again the motive was to take things to the next level because I learned a lot from my first blog. I made lots of mistakes there. So the idea was to take uh, improve things and uh drive lots of traffic from Google search and um, get uh some revenue from there. So yeah so that's the basic uh idea behind starting bloggers passion. So that's the only thing I know like I was working on uh SEO domain and then blogging something which I was learning from my own pace. When I started Bloggers Passion for the first five years I was doing everything from my end like creating content, doing uh, uh any kind of changes. Like you can say I was not even using uh premium theme for the first five years I was just trying everything. I was, I was just learning like how to add different things uh from Internet and uh, uh doing those things and sometime I end up breaking the website as well. So I learned lots around that time. But after five years I think I, we start making something from our blog then I uh start investing everything, whatever I Was making, uh, from my blog and then I hired a content guy. Then I used to hire developers as well to get some premium themes done and then some customization done and to improve other things as well. So after five years I start taking help from other people, uh, to improve things.

Speaker B: And so for the first five years it was just you, and then after that, uh, you know, you started hiring different resources, different freelancers. How big is your team now? Uh, uh, at Bloggers Passion, uh, we

Speaker C: have five people now right now.

Speaker B: Five people. Okay, Full time or are they freelancers? No, full time, Full time at Bloggers Passion. Oh, awesome. Going by your answers, I mean there was a lot of trial and error, a lot of experimentation that you did for the first five years before, uh, deciding to launch Bloggers Passion, which turned out to be hugely successful, uh, in India in terms of traffic, in terms of the passive income that you're generating. So you must have seen the blogging landscape and the SEO landscape change over time, right? Since uh, uh, like when you first started doing SEO in 2005, like you said, you started building backlinks. Backlinks were everything, right? Backlinks, uh, as long as you gain backlinks, uh, you could rest assured that you would be able to rank your articles. But now with so many algorithm updates, the entire landscape has changed. What I would like to understand is, um, has your vision for the blog, uh, changed over a period of time or is it still the same? Is it still to educate, uh, new bloggers out there, basically helping them navigate the difficult landscape? When it comes to SEO blogging, is it still the same or has it evolved over a period of time? Has uh, the blog itself evolved over a period of time?

Speaker C: Uh, actually my vision has remains the same, uh, on um, all of these years. But I think the way we work, um, when we started, I feel maybe lots of spam things also work. Like when we start, uh, working long so we can create short contents as well. And when you're building backlinks, you can build backlinks of any time. You are not looking for the quality. Like when we, we create just one content, we, and then we end up publishing uh, the same content on multiple websites. But now it's not the case. It's more about quality. We uh, when we're creating content, so it used to be talk, not and we use that on one platform only. That could be on your own blog or that could be on other blogs. And I think, uh, we spend more time, I think on the content quality. But it was like you can just create average content and just go ahead with that path. But now I think the competition has increased and everyone is trying uh, to improve their quality.

Speaker B: Right, right.

Speaker C: So we have to go with that part. So we are focusing a lot on the content quality, like uh, the how our content is appearing, its formatting, the visuals. So we are paying lots of attention on these things. But earlier I think they were not of that much important. But now I think user experience and all of these things are way more important than anything. I think when we started it was more about just to make searches happy. We can go ahead with some keyword stuffing and all of these things as well. But now I think all of these things are gone. It's more about uh, how people are taking your content. So I think that's more important these days.

Speaker B: Very true. And uh, back then, back in your day there was no social media to be concerned with. Right. Uh, when you first started, uh, you still had Facebook, but uh, you didn't see the kind of competition that you see on Facebook. And it was, Facebook was never even considered as a traction channel in the beginning. Right. Uh, when it first became a social network, no one could even imagine that it would turn out to be such a huge giant. And then it ended up acquiring Instagram as well. So getting those social signals now is equally important. It's not just SEO. You need to experiment with different traction channels. That's where all the new bloggers who are thinking of starting their own blog and uh, you know, trying to look uh, at monetization, they have a whole lot of new challenges to face. Would you still recommend, let's say someone who's listening to this right now, who's working at a day job, who would want uh, to start a side hustle maybe, you know, just like both of us did. Would you still recommend them to start their own blog or um, do you think they should be looking at something else? Do you think they should be looking at uh, social media, try to be an influencer on Instagram or um, you know, the different channels that are coming up right now. Would you still consider blogging to be a lucrative, uh, avenue for passive income?

Speaker C: I think the way things are going now, it's going to take lots of time. Uh, there's one thing I would like to add here. Like when I start Blogger Special for the, uh, I would say for the next maybe few years, I was not on social media at all. I think when I left my full time job around 2018. After that I started using social media. Before that I was not using social media at all. I was just focusing on uh, organic search. So I was just focusing on that part only. And coming to the question, uh, I would just suggest going with one part only. If uh, you're good at YouTube, you can just go with YouTube and from YouTube only you can make good amount of revenue. So I think just one platform will be enough with your job because you don't have that much of time. And when you're creating on a, when you're working on a blog, you have to work on lots of things. But with Instagram or just YouTube or the spin test, you can just focus on one platform and get maximum out of that.

Speaker B: Uh, I think it's important to gain traction on one channel first. Like if your passion is making videos, then start with YouTube, see how you build traction on that platform before moving on to the rest. Even podcasting for that matter. I have a few friends who started podcasting and then the next step they took was to start a blog or start a YouTube channel. So experimenting with one channel in the beginning is more important. Uh, gaining traction, uh, understanding that platform fully and then moving on to the rest is what I would recommend as well. Coming back to uh, blogger's passion, There's a lot of competition out there, right, for digital marketing blogs. Not just in India, but the kind of keywords that you rank for. You also have a lot of global competitors. So what sets bloggers passion, uh, apart from the other digital marketing blogs out there? Because you face a lot of competition, like I said, not just from India, but from the rest of the world as well. And you generate a lot of global traffic to your blog. So what really sets it apart?

Speaker C: So, uh, one thing I would say it's the consistency part. We have been working on this blog for a long time and you know it's going to take lots of time if you are working on blogging. So you can't expect overnight success. It's going to take some time. And the kind of industry we are in, uh, there is uh, huge competition. Big companies are coming now and if you look at the last couple of years, media companies, everyone, they're not leaving any traffic, uh, fee. So, uh, news companies, all of these, they are creating content on any kind of keyword. They're not just news companies now. They are creating content on any topic, they are creating reviews. Like uh, if you look at news companies are creating uh, reviews of hosting SEO tools, which has nothing to do with their core business.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So the competition has increased. So uh, from our End uh, we have been very focused and we are just going with the category or the uh, category we are working on, we are not going out of that. And we always try to uh, improve the quality for the existing contents. We keep testing the things like if you are doing uh, review for any particular tool. So, so we analyzed that tool for uh some time like uh, when uh, if I tell you like when we start promoting Seamless as a tool. So we used it for first six months and then when we see some potential and when it was helpful for us because it was helping us with our SEO needs and we were able to fulfill most of our SEO needs with that single tool only then we start thinking of promoting it to our audience. Then we think of like what kind of contents we can create for that and we try to create a series, uh if we have to promote one particular product. So we uh used to create a sequence of series. Like we do reviews, we do comparisons, uh, we do how to guides. So we do all kind of contents around that product and then some generic contents as well. Like if I'm promoting a SEO tool so I'll do some generic contents as well. Like how to do keyword research, how to do website audits, how to build backlinks. So we will do all kind of uh, contents just to make sure we are able to capture maximum traffic around that uh particular uh brand or product and uh, and some general contents as well around that topic so that we can, we can cover uh, both kind of uh keywords. Like we can cover commercial contents, we can cover information kind of things as well. So we try to create a hub around those things. And I think lots uh, of people, they don't do that. They just create couple of content and then they feel uh, they'll be able to get rankings on the, that on the basis of that part. So we have to create I would say topical authority for that part to get uh, more out of our efforts. And lots of bloggers I think in India and maybe overseas as well, they put some efforts on their blog for some time and when they don't see success they just leave their blogs. So they are not, they are not uh, I would say they don't spend much time with their efforts. They don't have that kind of patience which is required with blogging.

Speaker B: So I think these things, yeah, what happens is um, uh, a lot of these bloggers out there pick blogging as a side hustle. Right. They don't even have a lot of time to invest in a tool like I Said, uh, judging by what you're saying, you don't just create uh, uh, you know, top of the funnel content, like the tofu content as it's called. You're creating middle of the funnel content and bottom of the funnel content as well. So you have a very holistic approach when it comes to uh, you know, writing about a tool. Let's take Semrush for an example, right? You have, you have an in depth review of Semrush on your blog. You have a lot of comparison articles, you have how to articles. Uh, you also include Semrush and Listicles, different SEO listicles that you have. So you've covered all bases when it comes to a particular tool. Um, and doing that is so important. And as they say, even in SEO there's an 80, uh, 20 rule. 20% of your content will get 80% of the results, right? If you just create one or two blog posts, posts, then mathematically you're going to lose out to other bloggers out there. So it's very important for anyone who's joining or thinking of affiliate marketing as uh, a monetization strategy to focus on one tool entirely, become an expert on that tool and then cover all bases when it comes to creating content and only then move on to the next tool that you're trying to promote. Uh, what I've seen a lot of uh, new bloggers do is they join multiple affiliate programs, right? And, and then they create uh, one or two pieces, one or two content pieces for each of them and then they see no results and probably that's, that's not the right strategy and you have to be very lucky if, if that works out for you. But even if it works out, it'll probably work out for a short term. With so many algorithm updates out there, I don't think you can always be on top of Google if you follow such a narrow minded uh, you know, approach to content creation. Let's segue to affiliate marketing. Now I'm sure you use a lot of monetization strategies on August fashion, but my assumption is that um, you know, affiliate marketing is something that's working for you, right? Uh, so can you share a few specific examples of uh, uh, how affiliate marketing has worked for you, how you started with affiliate marketing and uh, how did it start paying off? I mean, how much time did it take for you to start earning passive income from affiliate marketing?

Speaker C: Uh, okay, so we uh, start uh, making money from uh, affiliate marketing through, I would say uh, through hosting products. Start with. So when we start uh, bloggers presence. So then we start creating contents on hosting and I think hostgator was the first that we start promoting to our audience. So because we were hosted on bloggers pattern, if, if uh, I tell you, um, my blog, Bloggers person it was first hosted on bloggers patent, sorry on hostgator and for a long time it was hosted there. So we were, we were mostly promoting those things which we were using and it was doing well for us. And so then again we start creating content around these hosting topics like the reviews, uh and they are like different uh pricing plans. They have their coupon, uh, or all of these kind of uh, contents. And so we were able to rank for those things. And so we were getting affiliate sales as well. So hostgator was the first one that uh, we start promoting. Then we go on to other platforms. Like then we tried uh these SEO tools. As I told you we start promoting Semrus. But when we were doing, when uh, we were promoting something we were not going after too many products in one go. Like when we were promoting hosting we were just promoting one or two products only. And when we go for SEO tools we were just promoting one or two SEO tools only. And Semrush, uh was the first tool that we start promoting and for a long time we are promoting it mostly we were uh, promoting other tools in Listicles only like where we are covering multiple tools like best SEO tools for different purposes, like best SEO tools for SEO audit for best SEO tools for backlink purposes. So all of when we have Listicles kind of things we were promoting multiple products. But when it comes about one thing or you can say the best thing or the only tool that you need for these things we mostly promote just one tool that used to be seamless. So I would suggest uh, if you are starting out you should just focus on just one product uh, that you promote to your audience. If you give them too many options they will not go with any of them. So you should just go with. Yeah, yeah, so you just go with one product uh at a time. And the only condition, I think you should be sure about the quality of that product before promoting that to your audience. So I think that's the most important. So this is how we get into that affiliate marketing part. So uh, we are getting affiliate uh sales for hosting related things then SEO tool related things. And then I think we got into some WordPress related products as well like themes and plugins. So these are the things which we are working for us. And as uh, you also notice affiliate uh, marketing something which is working for us. So 90%, I think maybe more than that of revenue comes through affiliate product sales. M and rest. I would say we have created some ebooks. We get some sales from them from time to time. And then there are some advertisers who reach us directly as well. We don't, we are not putting any efforts from our end for advertisers. But still some advertisers will come to your website and they will, they will reach out to you for different kind of uh, advising options. Maybe they are interested in some listings or some reviews. So these things used to come to us. I think they, the way uh, it comes to us.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think we follow the same strategy when it comes to monetization. Affiliate marketing is like 90% of uh, the monetization. But sponsored listings or sponsored posts is another one. And uh, I think for new bloggers out there, what you need to understand is uh, once your domain authority picks up or your domain rating picks up, advertisers will automatically start reaching out to you. Right. When they see that you're ranking for certain search terms, they'll reach out to you. But then it's up to you to decide whether you want to include their link or not. Because it can also uh, damage your rankings in some way. It can also uh, undermine the efficacy of what you're doing is what I would say. So I think you should proceed with caution when it comes to sponsored uh, listings. And uh, like you said, uh, you shouldn't advertise it anywhere on your blog. Uh, advertisers will reach out to you. Different uh, companies with SaaS products will reach out to you. And uh, it's up to you to decide whether you want to take uh up the sponsorship deal or not. But that can be a good side income for you. But I think uh, the best strategy for you would be to you know, start experiment with affiliate marketing. And like uh, Anil said, start with one tool, learn everything you can about that tool, become an expert on that tool and create content around that tool and then move on to the next tool. And I think you have different brackets like you said Anil, uh, you have um, you know a hosting uh, service that you use, you use an SEO tool, you use different WordPress plugins. And once you have completely understood the benefits of each of them, that's when you move on and, and create content around them. So you mentioned Listicles. I was just curious to know, do Listicles really have the power to convert? Because I think it can be A great informative post. Right. When you are uh, probably targeting informational search intent, it can be great for you to have such content on your blog. But on its own, do you think listicles have that conversion value?

Speaker C: I think the conversion value will be less in case of the listicles as compared to I think the kind of contest like if you're creating a review for a product it will be, I think it will more conversion focused. Or if you are doing some uh, pricing like if you're writing about the pricing plans, which plan is best for you for a particular product so that will be more conversion focused. Or if you're creating a coupon for a particular product that will be more conversion focus as compared to any kind of listicle. Because in that case you are promoting too many things. Because when you are creating list, now we are not giving one option, we are giving multiple options. So then I think maybe we are confusing people as well to some extent. So uh, the conversion will be there but it won't be that much as compared to the content. These are like reviews, these uh, coupons or some pricing kind of pricing plans. Related keywords, correct?

Speaker B: Right. I think what has really worked for me from my experience has been comparison posts. Right. When you compare one tool with the other, because you're targeting commercial intent here because the person who comes on your post, I mean they are deciding whether to go with one tool or the other and in most cases they've made up their mind to go with one specific tool. They just want some sort of confirmation from your end that this is the best tool to go for. This is when you need to have long form content. Right. This is something that Google has completely thrown by the wayside because of uh, the March algorithm update. Uh, you very rightly mentioned that there are a lot of news publications right now. They don't have any right to target the kind of keywords that you uh, and I target. But they're doing it and they're ranking above us because they obviously have more traffic, uh, it's more mass media, uh, they get traffic in millions probably. Uh, and when they decide to do a uh, comparison article or when they decide to review a tool like Sembrush because of their domain authority, Google automatically ranks them above all the other digital marketing blogs. They that's something that uh, all these publications have an unfair advantage over us. And I don't know if Google will do something about it in the near future. Uh, hasn't happened yet in the last six, seven months. You still see Forbes, you still see uh entrepreneur.com writing all these articles and ranking above us in some cases, uh, I think they lose out on the rankings after a while. But if you look at the content that they have created, it's like just a 500 word post which doesn't reveal any information about the tool tool out there. Right. I mean it's just a skimmable post. You can just skim m through the article and probably get an idea of what kind of rating they're giving to the particular tool. But yeah, this is a new challenge that uh SEOs are facing right now. If you go to the SEO subreddit on uh, uh Reddit you'll know that lot of uh, bloggers, lot of publications are facing the same issue. In some cases they've gotten manual penalties uh and the reason is not very clear as to why they got manual penalties and the entire traffic has been wiped out. That's something that I wanted to ask you. Let's segue into that. So uh, from what I understand is SEO has been the main traction channel for you right now with all the algorithm updates that uh Google has released specifically this year. What are the traction channels? Are you using, are you using social media to promote your posts? Are you using YouTube? So when you talk about all these uh, in depth uh, how to guides, do you also do a YouTube tutorial for them or are you still completely relying on your blog and SEO?

Speaker C: So we have been working on our blog the way we are uh working but apart from that we are looking for other uh traffic sources as well now like we are trying to be active on LinkedIn. Like we are trying to create some content on LinkedIn so that now more people can reach out to us and we can uh, we can get more traffic from there. Then we are trying to be active on other platforms like uh, Pinterest. Like we have built some audience there. Like I think we are Getting more than 1 lakh uh views on our pins every month there. Then we are active on uh, insta, uh, on uh Quora where we reply uh to relevant questions. So I think we have few million uh views for our answers there already there. So we are trying to be on other platforms as well. We are not just focusing on Google now. Uh we are trying to get traffic from other sources wherever it can be.

Speaker B: But we are going to say LinkedIn. Sorry to interrupt. When you say LinkedIn, is it LinkedIn Pulse that you're using?

Speaker C: Yeah, we are using LinkedIn.

Speaker B: And uh, is it true that in Some cases the LinkedIn Pulse article is ranking above your original post?

Speaker C: Yeah, it's, that's also happening in some cases actually. Still. Yeah, uh, still I think we are not able to know why a particular uh, content from LinkedIn is ranking and why if your content is ranking right now, maybe some other content will take its position after some time. So it's very difficult to understand why certain uh, contents from LinkedIn are doing well. But for now, at least for the last few months, uh, LinkedIn is doing well for us. I think LinkedIn is more helpful maybe for commercial kind of contents. I feel if you do these. Yeah, I feel like for commercial kind of contents it's more beneficial.

Speaker B: And do you repurpose them entirely or um, are you creating native content for LinkedIn or is it uh, something that you repurpose? Like if you have a blog post on Bloggers Passion, do you copy the same thing and post it on LinkedIn Pulse? Or uh, do you also add some unique insights into the post that you're publishing?

Speaker C: Actually we create everything from scratch. We don't use any of our existing content. Maybe the content length could be less. Like uh, maybe for our blog we use 2000 words but for LinkedIn or so we may use thousand words because we are not sure about how long it's going to stay. So there are some doubts about uh, how long because we are putting efforts so you know, the investment is going on the content part as well and we are not using any kind of AI tool. Like lots of people are using AI tools to create content for these platforms. So whatever we are getting that's going to be original. So that's why we are a bit more cautious about like how much effort we are putting into these platforms. Uh as I think we are working on LinkedIn then we are trying to build an audience on Medium as well. Uh, so with Medium you have different kind of experience. So I think with Medium I think it's going to take some time. With LinkedIn we are able to rank for lots of uh, big terms as well. Maybe LinkedIn has more authority, more traffic as you're saying. Like so uh, it's more focused. Yeah, yeah, it's more focused.

Speaker B: More focused when it comes to. Yeah, that's great to know and, but the topics that you choose for LinkedIn are uh, probably the same that you use for your blog, right? Or are you writing new topics, Topics uh, on LinkedIn.

Speaker C: Uh, in lots of cases we are trying to uh, create more space for us in Google Search, like if something is doing well for us on Blogger specific. So it's, it's a great idea to have multiple listings for the same thing. Yeah, it coming from LinkedIn or it's coming from Medium or it may be a relevant core answer. So it's just about being everywhere. So we are trying to, uh, the

Speaker B: search real estate, I mean, being as much visible as possible on the search real estate. Got it. This is something that I was doing back in, uh, 2018, 2019. Uh, back then I used to have a pretty good presence on Medium and LinkedIn. It was not called LinkedIn Pulse. I think it was LinkedIn published back in those days. That's something that I was experimenting with. But I think I should get back on that now because, um, as you know, Google has completely transformed in the last six months. And uh, in some cases I'm, uh, still pretty active on Reddit. In some cases the posts that I have on Reddit for the same topic are ranking above my original post. Now the Reddit post has not been updated for five to six years. Right. But still it's ranking above my site, which has the original content. The Reddit post just has linked to my original content, but still Reddit is ranking above me. And uh, this is something that's happening across all industries right now. Reddit and Quora have got an insane boost when it comes to rankings, especially in the U.S. uh, anything that you type, Reddit and Quora are probably at number one and number two. Right. So there's a serious flaw in how Google, uh, works these days because I think since, uh, ChatGPT went mainstream, they've been panic stations all over. And the kind of algorithm updates they have released in recent months don't have the same complexity that their algorithm updates of the past used to have. Like your Penguin update or your Panda update. Yeah, there's a lot of criticism right now for what Google is doing. We need to see what steps Google takes in the next few months because it'll be very interesting. For the first time, they have a competitor in ChatGPT. It's not just Bing or Yahoo anymore. They have a real competitor. And I think because of that they're panicking and they're releasing these algorithm updates without really adding too much sophistication to it. So, uh, Anil, you have been published on a lot of top authority websites like Forbes, Huffington post and even HubSpot. So how did these features come about? Did they come about organically? And what impact have they had on your blog? I mean, do you get a lot of referral traffic from these websites since these um, uh, features, uh, most of

Speaker C: these uh, publications uh uh, they're picking our content organically so we are not pushing anything from our end. So we are getting most of these media mentions uh on the basis of the kind of content we are creating our content and maybe our contents are doing well on Google, sir. So they are searching something and they're finding our blogs. So then maybe they're linking to our content, uh, whatever they are writing about. So most of these mentions are coming uh, organically and then maybe with some partners like with whom we are working as an affiliate or so. So we are writing a lot about their brand. So maybe in some cases they are also mentioning us in some of their contents because they are reciprocation. Yeah, right. I think that it's coming automatically. We are not pushing uh, too much from and because it's ultimately their addition whether to include us or not. So uh, I would say lots of uh, these mentions coming on the basis of the kind of content we are creating and then maybe some are coming on the basis of a relationship with the web companies that you're working with.

Speaker B: Got it. Last couple of questions. I think the first thing that I would like to ask you is uh, for those of our listeners who are just starting out or who uh, have just started a new blog and taking the current SEO landscape into consideration, what are the top three pieces of advice you would give to them to monetize their own blog?

Speaker C: Okay, so I would say uh, for a new blog it's going to take lots uh of time to build traffic from uh, search engines, you know the kind of competition we have and the kind of uh, updates Google is coming these days. So uh, it's not going to be easy for I would say new websites if you look at the kind of uh, websites are coming. So mostly authority websites are dominating as you mentioned, uh, whatever you search you will see these four, these uh, Quora, LinkedIn and then Medium and all other media websites coming for most of the search queries. So I would say people should focus on other traffic sources like they can build an email list so they can start working on email list from the day one. So that could be one way from where they can start monetizing their uh, web blog so they can sell their own services or they can sell anything if they have an active email list. So that one thing they can focus on. And um, then they can look at other platforms as well. As we uh discussed they can uh, be active on uh, Instagram, um, or YouTube, whichever they are more interested in like if they are really good at videos, so they can start with YouTube and that's that. I think that one channel will be good enough to give lots of traffic from. If you are good at videos, you can make lots of money from YouTube and then you can send lots of traffic to your blog as well from there. So yeah, so for a new blog I think that could be a great way. And with YouTube I feel it's going to be much easy as per my understanding. It's going to be much easier to get success as compared to getting it from Google search right now.

Speaker B: Um, yeah, that's uh, yeah, uh, so my verdict is still out on that because YouTube is also owned by Google and it's equally tough for you to rank on YouTube. Uh, I've been experimenting with YouTube for uh, the past few years now and there are some keywords for which you can rank for pretty easily. I think it depends on the kind of keywords that you are choosing. Uh, also you need to be on top of Google trends, you need to be on top of YouTube trends in order to really cash in on the views that you get from YouTube. But uh, what you said in the beginning, I mean if you um, if you stick to one channel, uh, one platform, I think that's the, that's a really sound advice. Uh, and only after achieving some amount of success on that platform you can think of moving to the rest. And it's the same with blogging and SEO. Um, SEO is tough right now, but I think you can still do a decent job uh, ranking your blog. If you pick long tail keywords. If you focus on search intent when you're writing content, I think that's pretty important. Uh, my second question in the same category was um, what are some of the common mistakes um, you think new bloggers should avoid when they're trying to generate passive income?

Speaker C: Okay, so uh, if you're looking to generate passive income, I think it's going to take some time. You need some patience. Um, if you have a new blog, you know, to generate passive income you have to create your blog, then you have to generate some traffic, create content, then try to monetize it. So it's going to take some time. It's not going to happen overnight. So you have to uh, take some time and wait for some time before expecting anything in return from your blog. So that's one thing. Uh, with blogging you have to, you have that kind of patience. Uh, it's not going to happen overnight. So that's one thing I feel uh, for new bloggers. So they have to wait and keep working on their blogs and try to create high quality content for their blog. Then second, I would say uh, they should not focus on too many categories in the beginning. Like lots of people. What they do is like they create content on different topics. Like one day they will start, one day they will write about blogging, the next day they will write about posting. So I feel they should just focus on one category at a time and try to create m as much as they can create around that. So that could be anything. Like that could be just SEO tools or that could be just AI tools. So whatever category you're working on, so it makes sense to just go with that one thing so that you have relevant traffic coming for that thing and you can start making money as well. If you are trying your hands in different things, you are not going to get success with anything. So I would just go with one thing and try to cover as many as you can cover for that while sharing your own experience about those things. That's I think really important there. And when you have that relevant traffic you will be able to monetize that as well through affiliate marketing or through display ads or through selling your own products or so great advice.

Speaker B: And uh, uh, before we wrap things up, uh, Anil, where can our listeners find you online and how can they follow your work?

Speaker C: Uh they can follow uh me on my blog, blogispassion.com so that's where uh they can see my work, how I'm doing and then uh, they can connect me on LinkedIn. Uh I'm also active on uh Quora where I used to reply to lots of questions and uh, then uh, on Pinterest as well where I used to publish some high quality pins.

Speaker B: You also mentioned a few ebooks right that you're currently selling uh on your blog. Can uh my listeners also find your ebooks there? I mean a crash course on blogging or something like that.

Speaker C: They we have some premium ebooks so they can find on ebooks.blogispecial.com so we have all the premium ebooks there. And then uh, we have some free courses as well. They are email based courses so they can find on courses.blogispecial.com but they are email based course and free courses.

Speaker B: Awesome. You can find all the links in the show notes. Um, uh, thank you so much Anil for taking the time out and uh, for being a part of this show. Thank you and lots of great insights. Uh, so thank you so much for that.

Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you so much Sandeep for inviting me.

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