Without further ado, let’s move to the interview and I’m glad to have Caroline Middlebrook here with us in the blog.

Ram: Hi Caroline, Firstly can you give a short introduction about yourself
and how you came into the blogging field?

Caroline: My background is in software development and until September 2007 I was employed as a programmer in a broadcasting company. However, employment is not for me and I longed to be self employed again. I also knew it was possible to make money online so I quit my job with a dream of becoming an entrepreneur and started the blog as a way of documenting the journey.

Ram: It is good to hear that many people are moving from the 9-5 day job to online work. You have been famous for your blog at Caroline Middlebrook. Did you expect the quick success?

Caroline: At the very beginning I picked up around 100 initial subscribers from the Thirty Day Challenge that I took part in and I did expect this as I timed the launch of the blog for maximum exposure from the 30DC. However, I didn’t expect the growth that followed – I think the biggest surprise was being featured on posts by Yaro Starak and Darren Rowse within the same week. This really got me started and its been a lot easier from that point on so now I expect the growth to continue as its much easier once you’ve got to the stage that I’m at now.

Ram: It is not easy to get a back link from those blogging experts and you would have been really happy to have achieved that. Great going! Your feed reader shows 1518 now. Surely there would have been a lot of hard work. Other than that who would you point out to as the main reason for this increase?

Caroline: There have been several key factors. Firstly the two things I mentioned above, secondly I launched my Twitter Guide with quite a bang and this got featured on Lifehacker and the Delicious home page which both brought in a lot of traffic. I’ve had immense success with StumbleUpon and the recent release of my ebook has also brought in a lot of publicity, especially when big guys like Shoemoney blogged about it.

Ram: Wow! You have got links from many big blogs which surely is something not all bloggers get. Let’s move over to blog commenting. You are really know for the blog commenting and you have had success with that too. Can you please tell more on that?

Caroline: Well its a strategy that I just grew gradually – it wasn’t planned in any way. After my first month online I realised I was spending a ton of time reading so I had to find a way to streamline it. I had so many blogs in my feed reader that I just coudn’t keep up so I started trying to find ways to optimise it and I just blogged about the process. I had no idea what that post would do for me!

Ram: It indeed was a unique method to get traffic. But not many people looked upon that as a source for traffic. It would be great if you can offer few tips to follow when commenting on blogs.
Caroline: The most important factor is to be absolutely genuine when you post a comment. If you can’t think of anything to say then don’t comment or you end up as other one of those “great post!” people. I actually delete those comments from my own blog. There are other tips that I go onto in the post such as trying to be early to comment, looking out for blogs that use the Top Commentator plugin and so on but the most important factor is the quality of the comment itself. It has to be interesting or people won’t click through. You have to compell other readers to ask “who is this Caroline person who has written that comment?”. If you don’t do that, the whole exercise is a waste of time.

Ram: Very strong point, Caroline. I have to agree on that. A comment has to urge the readers to give a click. Before ending this interview, let me ask you one more question. What would be your one best tip to become a successful blogger and earn a living online? Please share it with our readers.
Caroline: Be genuine – offer value, don’t bullshit people, have your own voice, be yourself. I see people trying to force themselves to blog and that just won’t work because it comes through in the writing as forced and it turns people off. The only way people will respond to you by subscribing and commenting is for you to resonate with your readers in the words you write. Your spelling doesn’t matter, your blog design doesn’t matter – what really matters is that you have something to say and you just get out there and say it!

Solid advice there, Caroline. Thanks for spending your time in answering my questions. I really appreciate it. I wish you success in your life and I hope you will achieve more in blogging.

Hope you all liked the interview. Please make sure to post a comment and share your view on the interview.

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.

Today was spent on setting questions, having talks with the blogger in the IM and reading other blogs. Also I’m an ardent fan of StumbleUpon. I stumbled many articles. If you also like StumbleUpon, then you can add me here. I like to add new friends.

Now let me tell a few things about the blogger who will be interviewed tomorrow.

• A good blogger, in fact a great blogger
• Writes about Blogging and few related stuff
• Has a very good reader base
• Always links to best articles in his blog from bloggers who needs lift

I guess this is enough. So why not wait till tomorrow? You can read some of my posts and also subscribe to my blog. I offer Full feeds. So I will see you all with an interview tomorrow in this blog.