On the occasion of her birthday (8th June), here is an exclusive interview with Yogita Aggarwal Gupta. We are repurposing this article to bring it to all my new and old readers.
Brief about Yogita Aggarwal Gupta
Yogita Aggarwal Gupta is the first blogger to have a chat with me on mobile, the first blogger to offer me a guest post and I wrote a post on her LetUsPublish blog with a post named #LE PANGA WITH PRO KABADDI. She is the first motivation to me in terms of writing a post on a blog and today I feel proud to introduce her to you and happy to have her on our blog with this interview.
Gurunath: Hi Yogita, We are very happy to have you as our guest today on my interview series. Can you please introduce yourself in case some of my readers have no idea about you?
Yogita Aggarwal: Hello Gurunath, I am glad to be here at your blog. Thanks for inviting me here. Now I can interact with your readers as well.
Hello, I am Yogita, aka Tanya, a Delhi-based blogger and an online marketing professional. I have been blogging for a long time, but I have been a full-time blogger for the last few weeks. You can check out my well-performing blogs, DreamTechie.com & LetUsPublish.com to learn more about my work and me.
Gurunath: How did you first get into blogging?
Yogita Aggarwal: My first SEO job introduced me to blogging and it’s been five years and I am still into blogging with all the enthusiasm. Like most other bloggers, my first blog was on blogger.com and I explored a lot with BlogSpot blogs for 3 years.
And then in April 2013, I got my first self-hosted blog, DreamTechie.com, and now I have 2.
Gurunath: What do you find most challenging about blogging?
Yogita Aggarwal: Blogging for fun is easy, but blogging for some purpose is very tough. You have to give it lots of time and effort. You have to be very consistent. Blogging is not for those who just want to earn from it; blogging is for people who are passionate about it.
In blogging, the most challenging part is to get traffic and earnings, and if you are dedicated to your work, then these hurdles will not be able to stop you.
Gurunath: Can you tell us about a few people you met while working on your blog?
Yogita Aggarwal: Because of my blogging journey, I met many bloggers, marketers, and social influencers, and a few of them are now good friends. Blogging introduced me to the Indi blogger community, which I love. If you check my phone’s contact list, you will see that 70% of the contact numbers are of bloggers.
A few bloggers are now good friends: Anand Singh from Esoftload, Ankit Chugh, Ritu Pandit, and Indu Singh.
A few bloggers with whom I wanted to meet are, Malini Aggarwal (MissMalini.com), Shruti Arjun Anand (Beauty and Makeup Vlogger), & Shradha Sharma (YourStory.com).
Gurunath: Are you a full-time or part-time blogger? Is blogging worth enough to go full-time? If so, what steps are to be followed or taken care of?
Yogita Aggarwal: As I mentioned prior, yes, I have been a full-time blogger for the last month, and I am going to be like this for the next many years. Blogging is the perfect full-time career option, but only if you already have a name in the market or know how to market your blog to get business.
I would not recommend beginners go for full-time blogging unless they know how exactly blogging works.
If you are thinking of doing full-time blogging just because you can write, you are wrong. You must know how to market your blog by writing and publishing content.
One should be aware of how to represent content to readers for better impact.
‘Time is money’ so if you are into full-time blogging, then you have to utilize your time effectively. You might get distracted by many things, but you have to fight with those distractions like I am.
Gurunath: What type of networking do you do that you feel helps a blogging business?
Yogita Aggarwal: I attend blogger meets, seminars, conferences, and launches to interact with fellow bloggers, influencers, and like-minded people. Networking is really important for bloggers like us.
When you do networking, don’t be restricted to people who are in your niche. Talk to people who are from different backgrounds, you will learn a lot from them.
For a blogger, networking brings lots of ideas and opportunities, if done right.
Gurunath: How do you keep coming up with content for your blog? Many people struggle with coming up with different posts.
Yogita Aggarwal: For my tech blog, DreamTechie, sometimes I have to think, but for LetUsPublish, I always have topics in mind because of its versatile theme.
I always try to put content that offers some good value to my readers, and that too for a longer time. And in case I don’t have content ideas, I scroll to Twitter and news sites to know what’s in style.
Gurunath: Do you think Page Rank, Alexa Rank, and MOZ rank play a vital role in a blog’s life?
Yogita Aggarwal: Google page rank is gone now, I wonder if it will come back.
But yes, Alexa and Moz ranks are really important for blogs. Advertisers always consider these ranks as an important factor.
I met many bloggers who are still not aware of the terms, so for them, I want to introduce these terms:
Google Page Rank: PageRank was a way of measuring the importance of website pages. The last Pagerank update happened in 2013. Google PageRank used to be major in between 0 and 10. You will be surprised to know that but still, some people consider this term as an important factor before approaching any blog for advertisement opportunities.
Alexa (Actionable Analytics for the Web) is an online company managed by Amazon that refers to itself as a “Web Informational Company.”. The Alexa ranking of websites and blogs is decided by considering several crucial aspects. The interesting part of Alexa ranking is that it automatically gets updated daily. The lower the Alexa rank, the better exposure you have for your blog.
MozRank represents the link popularity score. It reflects the importance of any given web page on the Internet. Pages earn MozRank based on the number and quality of other pages that link to them. The higher the quality of the incoming links, the higher the MozRank.
Gurunath: What is your strategy for creating visibility for your blog?
Yogita Aggarwal: For a blog, visibility is very important, and in the very initial days, one has to work hard to get that visibility. When my blogs were new, I submitted them to all popular blogging communities so that people could notice them.
I use my blog name in my email signature on every social profile.
I use social media as a visibility tool. Sharing blog posts on social profiles helps a lot in improving blog visibility. Sometimes I spend on Facebook ads to get more visibility for my blogs and content.
Gurunath: What were the most challenging moments of your blog content development process, and why?
Yogita Aggarwal: For a content developer, the most difficult part is to maintain the same interest and interactiveness throughout the content.
The kind of challenge I mentioned does not come in writing short stories of 300–400 words, but when it comes to writing a blog post of more than 600 words, most people start losing interest in writing for the same.
This happened to me as well. To overcome this issue, I write those posts in 2-3 days so that I can get enough time to rethink and write with all my creativity.
Gurunath: What’s your opinion on sponsored reviews?
Yogita Aggarwal: I am pretty okay with sponsored reviews, but only if they are relevant to my readers. One thing that I would like to mention, one should not be biased toward sponsored reviews. Reviews should be what you experience so that your readers don’t get the wrong information just because of your monetary benefits.
Gurunath: If someone was interested in blogging, what would be a few things you would suggest?
Yogita Aggarwal: There are many people interested in blogging, and not everyone knows the right niche to blog in.
Blogging is all about personal interest, so blog for the niche that keeps your interest for a lifetime. Don’t start your blog just because you want to have one. Start your blog only when you know exactly what you are going to blog about.
Gurunath: What tools do you use to manage your social media presence?
Yogita Aggarwal: I use Hootsuite to update all the social profiles of my blog. Some other social tools I use are JustRetweet & Buffer.
Gurunath: Can we make a living by Blogging? If yes, how we can do that?
Yogita Aggarwal: Yes, one can surely make a living with blogging, but for that, one has to be very serious and passionate. Blogging is for people who want to express themselves to the world selflessly. Blogging has a lot more to offer to creative people. So if you have these factors inside you and you can work with lots of patience, then you can start it right away.
Gurunath: What are the Pros and Cons of “Guest Blogging”?
Yogita Aggarwal: Guest blogging is a nice way to get more branding as an author. I don’t think there is any harm in guest blogging but yes, one should be very careful about ‘Where you are contributing. What you are contributing?’, so that you can reap the maximum fruits from your contribution.
For bloggers who accept guest posts from others, make sure the content you are going to post on behalf of someone else has value for your readers. And the link included in the guest article should be relevant enough.
Gurunath: What are your must-have WordPress plugins?
Yogita Aggarwal: My list of must-have WordPress plugins is:
- Akismet
- Contact Us Form
- Simple Sitemap
- WP Smush.it
- WordPress Database Backup
- WordPress SEO by Yoast
- WP Super Cache
Gurunath: What are some of your favourite author blogs and why?
Yogita Aggarwal: I love to read Quick Sprout & SearchEngineJournal a lot. And for entertainment purposes, I read the MissMalini & Vogue blog.
Gurunath: What advice would you give to young readers of our blog who want to follow a similar career path as you?
Yogita Aggarwal: For youngsters, I would say never choose your career in a hurry. Take some time to understand yourself and your interests before making any final choice as a career option.
For bloggers who want to be more successful in their blogging journey, don’t try to copy someone. Keep your unique style alive to express yourself; people will automatically get attracted to your work.
Thanks to Yogita Aggarwal Gupta for this adorable interview and for sparing some time for us.
Here is the latest online video interview I had with Yogita Aggarwal Gupta on our YouTube channel.
If any of you have any queries, please do ask in the comments below!
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