MBIS 03: An Interview with Santanu Debnath From Blogging Joy

Once again a very warm welcome to Mastery Blogging readers.

This is our third interview of our bloggers’ interview series and today we have Santanu Debnath with us from Blogging Joy, a passionate blogger from India.

We didn’t know each other but blogging made us good friends. He is a rising face in the blogging field.

In this interview, he shared some tips for new bloggers in simple language.

Here is his story to motivate and ignite your passion for blogging.

Let’s Start this Interview!

Please tell us about yourself and your educational background. 

Thank you, Sanu, for inviting me to your blog. This is an honour for me to share my experiences with your audience.

Hey friends, I’m Santanu Debnath, a software engineer by profession & a part-time blogger by passion. I finished my B.tech in chemical engineering from NIT Durgapur.

Besides working full-time, I found a huge interest in writing content and that’s how I got into blogging. 

Currently, I am running Bloggingjoy.com where I share useful articles about WordPress, Social media, Blogging, SEO, and Web Hosting. Besides that, I have started working on a new website HostingBrowse.com, where I will share more about web hosting basics & reviews.

I have been blogging for more than 10 years now and have learned a lot through various experiments and failures.

With the help of the Bluehost Black Friday Sale, you can start your own blog just at $2.65/month.

That’s why my focus is to share everything that I learned over these years in one place so that I can help a beginner avoid those mistakes and save time. 

Blogging is a wonderful way to generate passive income besides your full-time job and on my blog Bloggingjoy.com, I try to help people to be better bloggers.

Who inspired you the most to start a blog and which were the blogs you read in the starting days?

Back in 2008-2009, when I first discovered that we can make money on the internet, I was looking for various ways to earn money online.

In those days MLM schemes, get-paid-to-click, online surveys, data entry, etc were very popular.

I also tried many of them and failed miserably. But finally, I came to know about the Google Adsense program through some research.

Then I & my wife Manidipa started a recipe blog on Blogger.com. That blog didn’t work for us so we shifted to a multi-niche blog and tried to build another blog.

At that time, I came to know about ShoutmeLoud and started exploring the world of WordPress.

But I was not confident enough to move to WordPress, as WordPress needs web hosting and different knowledge.

But finally, in 2012 we shifted to a new domain MyDailyLifeTips.com and moved our website to WordPress.

From that day to date, I have created multiple websites on WordPress in different niches.

So far in my journey, I followed popular bloggers from India like Harsh Agarwal, Ankit Singla, Kulwant Nagi, Anil Agarwal, and more.

I am following them for years and have seen their growth path which has helped me a lot to learn.

How do you collect the idea to write on your blog?

In my blog Bloggingjoy.com, I mostly write articles keeping beginners in mind. As a beginner, it is not easy to start a blog on WordPress. There are many things to learn.

I mostly look for Facebook groups, and different forums to find out what problems people are facing and accordingly try to pick my blog topics.

Besides that, I also share product-related articles that I use to run my blogs. I have invested heavily in my blog on quality web hosting, premium themes (I recommend GeneratePress, they’re also running Black Friday Deal in the month of Nov), premium plugins like Thrive Architect, Thrive leads, WP Rocket, Social Snap, etc.

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And I also share their pros and cons, product reviews, comparison, etc so that a beginner can find it useful and take quick decisions.

How much effort are you giving to your blog to make it more SEO friendly?

Well, SEO is a continuous process. Without proper SEO implementation, one can’t get better results in the long run. I follow almost every single best SEO practice to make my articles SEO-friendly.

I also wrote an eBook on this topic, in which I explained everything about best SEO practices in 13 chapters. You can download my Safe-SEO guide eBook for free.

What are your favourite books and motivational videos?

I have not read many books throughout my life. In fact, I always prefer to read blog posts to educate myself and read a lot of them on a daily basis.

I generally read based on a topic and try to read as many articles as possible from different blogs so that I can understand the different angles of every author.

And for motivation, I love to read quotes & watch videos of Sandeep Maheshwari, and Vivek Bindra.

How much time did you use to spend on your blog in the starting days, and how much time are you spending now?

In my free time besides my job and family responsibilities, I mostly stick with my laptop. In my early days of blogging, I used to spend quite some time reading different blogs, learning the tactics and strategies others are following.

But in the last few years, as I seriously started working on a few blogs, I spend some significant time on each of them.

On a daily basis, I spend more than 4-5 hours on my blogs. On weekends, I try to spend as much time as I can because I need to utilize the weekend properly and prepare every single piece of content and other things for the following week.

Which SEO tools are you using for your blogs?

I don’t rely much on tools these days. Although I have used SEMrush, and Ahrefs earlier to create a blogging plan for my blogs. But on a daily basis, I don’t spend much time with these tools.

As a part-time blogger, I have limited time to write quality articles, update old blog posts and be active on social platforms. Especially on my Facebook group The Bloggers’ Team.

That’s why I occasionally use FREE SEO tools like Ubersuggest, SmallSEOTools, etc. For writing SEO-optimized articles, I have installed Rank Math SEO Plugin for all my blogs.

Further Reading

• Semrush Promo Code
• Grab Semrush 14 Days Free Trial
• Semrush Black Friday Deals

What is your daily routine and what do you do to become more productive?

Due to my full-time job, I am not able to keep a fixed routine, but still, I try to follow as below:

• Wake up by 5:30-6 in the morning and go for a walk/run (not regular though)
• Once I come back, I generally check my emails, and FB Group & help my kid to get ready for school
• After that, I finish my breakfast and start working on my blogs.
• I generally give 2-3 hours max in the morning (not fixed every day) and leave for the office
• After coming back from the office, I manage to spend max 1 hour to check everything.

This is a typical routine on weekdays. During the weekend I get more time to blog.

Would you like to give some suggestions for my blog? 

I really like your blog design and content. Although you have just started, I am sure you will be able to keep the same intent and continue sharing quality articles on your blog regularly.

There are a couple of improvements required, that I am sure you will learn gradually. 

The more you love your passion and your blog, the more you will find ways to make it the best place for the readers.

Spend quality time, share ideas and knowledge from your heart, and be consistent. I am sure you can build a better blog in the coming days.

Message for Mastery blogging readers.

I always try to convey the same message that blogging is not a get-rich-quick scheme. If you understand that Engineering needs 4 years to finish a degree, then consider blogging also on the same level.

You have to spend enough time to learn, understand & grow your blog.

If you want a shortcut, then you will definitely fail in the first 6 months of blogging. Only people who spend their years in blogging are successful now.

Just read the story of any successful blogger, and you will find how much hard work they have put in to build a solid blog that is earning enough for them now.

There is no shortcut to hard work.

Final Words !!

This was the interview with Santanu Debnath from Blogging Joy. I hope you must have learned very good things after reading this interview.

All the very best Mastery Blogging readers!

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