An Interview with Santanu Debnath — Founder of BloggingJoy.com

Welcome to another edition of the BloggeRoundup Interview Series where I feature Inspirational stories and blogging advice from successful bloggers and marketers.

For this interview, I had the privilege of inviting Santanu Debnath, Founder of BloggingJoy.com.

I’d like to thank Santanu for taking the time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions.

Let’s now dive into the depth of interview with Santanu Debnath and find out what he has to say. Are you ready?

Let’s get started!

Interview with Santanu Debnath From BloggingJoy

Here is the Inspirational & Insightful conversation with Santanu Debnath. I hope you would take some motivation from him to start an amazing blog.

An Interview with Santanu Debnath — Founder of BloggingJoy.com Click To Tweet

Q.1) Please introduce yourself to BloggeRoundup readers?

Thanks a lot, Ashfaq for giving me this opportunity to share my experience in your blogger Interview series. It’s a huge honor for me.

Friends, this is Santanu Debnath. A common man of this country with a common aspiration, to live a happy, healthy & purposeful life. I am an IT engineer by profession and a passionate blogger by choice.

I find myself free and expressive on my blog, as I can share everything without any fear through an article or a blog post. You can read my blog about Blogging & WordPress @ BloggingJOY.com.

Q.2) What inspired you most to start blogging?

Back in 2007, I was looking for an extra income source . At that time, I heard that people can make money online. As an individual, I always try to utilize my free time to do something meaningful.

When my friends were roaming here & there while enjoying their initial days of the job, I was looking to find some other way to generate extra income. I mostly spend time on my computer, trying to explore different options like paid to click emails, data entry jobs, etc. This type of jobs was very popular those days.

But, I ended up finding nothing. Most of them proved to be scams. I had spent some money also. However, I will not say I have wasted, as after trying them only I came to know that there is nothing like get rich quick scheme they were promising.

Anyway, finally, I discovered that people are making money from Google AdSense. And that’s what opened the door for me to get into the world of Blogging.

My biggest inspiration was ShoutMeLoud, which was on its growing age at that time. And I was one of the regular visitors of that website and started learning many things gradually.

Q.3) What are the major challenges you experienced while building BloggingJoy?

BloggingJOY.com came very late in my blogging journey. You can say that I did many experiments, failed with many blogs and after spending 10+ years as a blogger I have started BloggingJOY.

I am actually not at all facing any problem after taking this decision to make BloggingJOY a worthy place for bloggers. Although I have started this website 2 years back, but I consider the new beginning from 18 th December 2018. The day I have decided to start my Facebook Group to explore a totally different blogging journey that I have never experienced.

And frankly speaking, I didn’t expect that it will surprise me with even more. I have been interacting with many awesome persons, making good friends and now understand the importance of being consistent in blogging.

BloggingJOY is building at its own pace with time, effort and lots of support from many people. I am in no hurry, as I started loving this journey and want to be a part of this forever.

But I would definitely like to point out a few key mistakes, which were stopping me to grow further. I know many people are doing the same and have never been able to cross that line.

• Just making money is not everything in blogging. I was not comfortable to come in front as my income was good as a side income. I read many people shared about their 6 figure blogging income etc. But trust me, Blogging is not about six-figure income. If you have skills, then you must float that to help someone who is seeking. Money will definitely flow your way if you are able to contribute something worthy for your friends or fellow bloggers.
• Like every beginner, I was never focused on a single niche. Whatever niche I liked, I have created blogs on that. Personally, I love to create & experiment, but if you have a successful blog then you can definitely do those things. You have to prove yourself in one domain first and then only you should experiment. But right now I am totally focused and trying to consolidate everything.
• Networking is the key to get success in blogging. I have never tried to connect with any fellow blogger either way. Means I have never asked for any help or helped someone. As I was blogging part-time, I never took blogging that seriously. So, I was doing the same from the last 10 years before starting this FB group . Networking is a crucial component of success. You have to learn how to help others and make friends.

Q.4) What strategies/sources do you use to monetize your blog?

I have tried a couple of ways to monetize my blogs. Google AdSense, Paid Posts, Affiliate Marketing, etc. I have tried Indian Amazon affiliate as well as an experiment, and that website has given me Rs 1500–2000 per month last year. I will plan to revive that website soon.

I have a finance blog where I get sponsored posts and also generate some income from Google AdSense. But right now they are doing their best as I am not able to give enough time to that blog. But, if you have a finance blog then you will get a good amount of paid post opportunity for sure.

Affiliate marketing is the best way to make money. Right now I am trying to build BloggingJOY to target affiliate products. I am sharing the useful blogging tools that I use on my blog through reviews, deal pages & comparison with their competitors.

To get good conversion from affiliate marketing, organic traffic plays the key role. So, the best strategy is to rank articles around the buyer keywords for that product. Even if the search volume is low, the conversion will be very good if you can rank your article #1 for those keywords.

Q.5) What is the best way to get success in affiliate marketing?

As I already mentioned in the previous question, SEO plays a big role in affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is all about selling that product. So, if you know what terms people are searching before buying any product, then you can simply rank your article for those keywords.

Definitely, your article has to be conversion optimized enough, so that user can get accurate information on that page itself.

And the On-page SEO has to be 10/10 so that you can stay in ranking for quite some time. You can use any WordPress SEO plugin like Yoast SEO or RankMath to optimize your articles.

Finally, backlink matters the most. You have to build quality backlinks to your money site. If you want to experiment a short term website for a few affiliate products, then you can build any kind of links to rank that website.

I did the same and got good success last year. I was able to generate more than $5000 from that website by building only comment backlinks. I know $5000 is not a big deal, but it’s my side income :).

However, currently that website is not performing well and I don’t have enough time to grow that. It was one of my experimental websites from which I learned a lot.

So, getting success in affiliate marketing may not be that difficult. But remember, if you don’t work properly or targeting long term value you will fail quickly for sure. Many affiliate websites vanish from ranking even after giving good results, just because of bad link building, low authority and low-quality content.

Try to build a website for the long term, create your authority as an expert. E.g. ShoutMeLoud is the best example of an authority affiliate website. It took Harsh years to build this website and get authority. But right now it is making millions every single month.

But for learning, I will definitely encourage you to build at least one micro niche site or niche website and try every type of link building techniques. This will clear many of your doubts. I believe you can learn the best by experimenting yourself, there is no better way.

Even if you read Backlinko’s articles 100 times a day, until you try those methods you will never realize how exactly they work.

Q.6) Which are the 5 blogging tools you can’t live without and why?

Frankly speaking, I am not that much tool dependent. I love blogging because I love writing. I already said that, I have created many blogs on different niches and the biggest reason behind that was my hunger for writing in every niche.

But, to build a quality website and run a blog perfectly we must use professional tools. After all, it is a business and you have to keep a track of your competitors to keep your blog alive.

Personally, I use below tools to make my blogs 100% functional

• Thrive Architect plugin to design landing pages
• Thrive Leads plugin to build an email list
• SEMrush & Ahrefs for competitor analysis
• For everyday keyword research, I use Keyword everywhere extension, Ubersuggest, KWFinder free trial, etc.
• I use many free tools like SmallSEOTools, SERanking, Grammarly extension, Screen capture Extension, Hunter, etc.

Q.7) How is your daily schedule? how many hours you work on your blog?

I am a workaholic person. Everyday I am sitting almost 15+ hours in front of the Desktop & Laptop. In weekdays, majority of my time goes for office work. I can hardly give time to blogging on regular days. But still, I am able to manage 1–2 hours daily.

But on the weekends, I make sure to give enough time and plan everything for next week. However, I don’t compromise all of my priorities & responsibilities. I have a very supportive family and I am thankful to the almighty for that.

Q.8) What is your goal for 2019?

My goal for 2019 is to work on my weaknesses and win over them. I am trying to interact with as many people as I can. I want to learn more to improve my knowledge. I understand the importance of authority and consistency. And that is what my top priority is.

Besides that, I want to make my Facebook group as one of the most popular groups among bloggers. This will also help to grow my blog. As soon as I am able to scale my activities for my main blog & Facebook group I will also focus on my other blogs.

Q.9) What are your favorite blogs and books?

Frankly speaking, I am not good at reading books. In fact, I am not able to follow any course as well. In my lifetime I just read 2 books beside my academics. They are Byomkesh Bakshi and Rich Dad & Poor Dad.

But that doesn’t mean, I don’t read. I read a lot of blogs and I mean it. If I have to mention a few of them, then it would be very difficult for me. But still, I would love to mention a few of my favorite SEO blogs like BloggersPassion, Backlinko, GotchSEO, Robbie Richards, etc.

You may find it funny, but I prefer to watch cartoons or read comics with my kid. I really like the power of imagination for generating content for the kids. And I don’t know why it gives me huge positive energy to think more and write more.

Q.10) What are the tips you have for new bloggers?

Well, there are a lot of things every newbie is doing that I can easily relate with myself. However, these things will not help them to grow and learn blogging.

• Most of the newbie bloggers try to copy the bloggers they are following. But, this domain expects your own voice or creativity even though the topic is the same. We all are writing or sharing similar things but our style is different.
• Investment in blogging is a must. I found many bloggers that they are not ready to invest and looking for free staffs only. And their excuse is they will invest as soon as they will earn money. But they never realize that, users are smart enough and competition is really very high.
• Building a relationship in blogging is the most important thing. I know many people think this is all for just getting a backlink. Yes, backlink is important and you can’t get it if you don’t have a good relationship. But this is not the sole purpose. It’s all about making friends.

E.g. I made many good friends online who are interviewing me, recommending me, etc. But that is not what the purpose of this relationship. We are connected as good friends, and in every possible way, we will support each other from both sides. It can be a backlink, social shoutout, personal level support, whatever way it is.

Ultimately, I want to say that blogging is not always about just ranking a website and make money from affiliate marketing. Blogging is even more than that. If I can realize that after spending 10+ years, you will also realize the same in coming days.

Make good friends, read as much as you can and help people whenever & wherever possible. You will find an awesome motive to blog forever.

Q.11) What do you think is the best service a blogger can provide to his readers?

A blogger can provide various services through his/her blog. But for that, you really should have that skill. What I want to say is that these days due to outsourcing one can easily start a blog without any skill. Yes, you can write content with content writers, hire someone to create a website, do on-page SEO, etc.

But if you have some skills, then definitely you can offer different services like content writing, SEO services, Link building services, etc.

If you ask me, I would love to offer content writing service, blog set up & blog consultation service through my blog. I love to talk to people and I can help them to make a decision through counseling.

Q.12) How BloggeRoundup readers can stay in touch with you and any message for the blogging community here?

You can always find my on my Facebook group or write an email through my blog contact me page . In weekdays I may take some time, but you will surely get a response on the same day itself.

Q.13) What are your final words to our readers?

You are an awesome person Ashfaq and you have an amazing blog. To all your readers, I just want to say that make more friends and connect with more people. This will help you to learn more. I know there is a term called Expert, but I believe every Expert is also trying to learn something daily.

Happy Blogging!
Cheers,
Santanu Debnath
Founder of BloggingJoy.com

Did you like the interview with Santanu Debnath? Do you have any questions for Santanu? Do let us know in the comments.

Originally published at https://www.bloggeroundup.com on April 21, 2019.