Blogger Interview: Daniel Scocco Of Daily Blog Tips

Yesterday I told about the interview that I will be posting today and here it is. Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips was kind enough to answer my questions. Daniel is an expert blogger and he writes about blogging, and other related stuffs. I have always been a fan of his blog. I guess most of you read his blog since it is one of the best place where you can learn about blogging. I sent him a set of 10 questions yesterday and Daniel replied with great answers very soon. And here I present the interview of Daniel Scocco from Daily Blog Tips.

1. Hi Daniel. You are well-known from your Daily Blog Tips blog. Do you
have any other blog? Do they have the same popularity as Daily Blog Tips?

I have some small blogs that were created before DBT. Currently I just update them once in a while, and they provide a nice monthly revenue via Adsense and Text Links.

Apart from DBT my only “active” project is Daily Writing Tips. As a blogger and writer I am always looking for tips and methods to improve my writing, and I felt that it would be cool to share that information. DWT has around 2,500 subscribers and it is just over two months old, so I think other people are also interested in improving their writing skills!

2. 2500 subscribers in 2 months is great. You are a full time blogger. Do you earn more than what is needed to quit your day job? If you can tell us, how much do you earn from blogging?

I earn around $2,500 from blogging related activities, which include revenues from my blogs, consulting and side projects.

When I quit my job one year ago, however, I was not making any money at all, it was a huge bet. The good thing is that I did not have many bills to pay, so I went living out of reserves for the first months.

3. With your hard work, you won the bet. Your Daily Blog Tips blog has got over 5000 subscribers. How did you manage to get it? Surely Content is King. But is there any other way by which we can increase our subscribers?

There are many factors that come into play, but as you said, content is the corner stone. Notice I am not only talking about “quality” content, your content got to be unique, original, appealing, insightful.

Once you have that, then do some promotion.

4. You said it right. Uniqueness really matters. Your blog gets a lot of traffic. Which Social networking site sends you the most traffic? Is it Digg or StumbleUpon or Del.icio.us?

Digg has the huge spikes, but only once in a while you get featured on its front page. For long term traffic I will need to go with Stumble Upon. They consistently deliver 10,000 visitors or so to DBT every month.

5. Indeed StumbleUpon is really good for long term traffic. Let me ask few questions about your blog. I see that out of the 15 Most Popular articles listed on the sidebar(Daily Blog Tips blog), 12 are list posts. Do list posts work really well for you? Should new bloggers start creating list posts?

List posts work well on the Internet. Not necessarily because they are “lists,” but because they make the content scannable and easy to digest. You need to keep this in mind when writing for the Internet. The web is no big book!

6. Well said. In your blog, I have never seen Adsense which is one of the best
money maker for bloggers. Why is that you don’t have them?

I do use Adsense on other sites, and I think it is a good method to monetize a website. If you are trying to build an “authority” site, however, I feel that you should go light with the Adsense units.

In the future I do plan to integrate Adsense into the blog, but in some way that is not intrusive. TechCrunch is a good example of how you can use Adsense without affecting the user experience.

7. I think you should use the Shylock plugin that you wrote about few days ago. In the past few days, people have been talking about Paid links. What is your views on them?

Good question. I feel that Google is willing to push their “paid link revolt” further, and given its power we sure need to pay attention.

Personally I don’t think that paid links are a bad thing, the market regulates itself in the long run.

For the time being, however, I will put the buy and sell of paid links on hold until I have a better picture of what Google is going to do with them.

8. I’m all ears to know what they are going to decide about it. Now let’s talk about Guest Bloggers and Guest blogging. Do you support Guest blogging and if so, do they get as much traffic to your blog as the posts that you write gets?

I support guest blogging, it is a great way to promote yourself, to put fresh air on your blog and to interact with fellow bloggers.

You just need to balance your efforts.

9. You allow guest posts in your blog. What is the minimum requirement to write a guest post in your blog? And do you approve posts from less experienced bloggers if the post is really good?

Whenever someone submit a guest post for DBT, I will read it without even considering who wrote it. If the post is outstanding, I will publish it, no matter if you are a famous blogger or not.

Most of the times I a very strict though. John Wesley, a friend of mine, once said that a bad post is worse than no post. I agree 100%!

10. Don’t blame me if you get mails flooded in your inbox tomorrow. Ok, jokes aside! You have been answering all the questions very well. One last question. What is your advice for new bloggers who enter the blogosphere?

Focus on providing value. Teach me something, share your experiences, give me advice. If you can help me some way or another I will read your blog. If you can’t, sorry.

Daniel,Your answers were really helpful for me and I guess others feel the same. Hope to see more on your blog. Thanks for spending your precious time and answering my questions. I never knew your income and other blogs you have.

There you go readers! You have read the good questions(I assume) and much better answers(this is truth). Now you can tell what you feel about the interview and ask questions in the comments. If Daniel is free, he would answer it(He is a busy blogger with many blogs to manage). Else let’s take part II of this interview with your questions.