Random Thoughts

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Today I am interviewing Bill, from TheBlogEntrepreneur.com.  He’s a relatively new, yet fairly successful blogger with an beautifully designed blog…Check it out today!

1. Do you have a fulltime job or are you a fulltime blogger?

I have a full time job. I am a Sales Manager for a Fortune 400 company and I am one of the few that are blessed enough to love what I do. I love it mainly because of the people that I work with. I have a great team of guys working under me and I would hate to lose that aspect of the job. I would like to continue to grow my online empire to the point where I would have the option to enjoy the freedom that it gives. I have a ways to go before that becomes an option as my job carries a lot of benefits and perks with it that I am not prepared to give up at this point.

2. How long have you been blogging and did you have any other internet experience prior to starting TBE?

I have only been what I would call a blogger since about December 1st of 2007, just about 4 months. Prior to that I screwed around a little bit with a blogger blog here and there but probably didn’t have even a half a dozen posts on all of them so I don’t really even count them.

I have been dabbling online now for a few years and have been on the internet since childhood.  I have a varied background and can usually talk intelligently about most aspects of the online world.

3. Although you have only been blogging less than six months, it appears that you have been quite successful. What steps have you taken to achieve this success?

I simply made the choice to become successful at it. I know that sounds kind of simple but it really is. Most people fail because they choose to fail, they aren’t willing to invest the time, effort or energy to make themselves successful.

I started out by reading blog after blog after blog. I remember the first one I ever read was Yaro Starak at Entrepreneurs-Journey and I loved it. Yaro is an awesome blogger and I found myself really engaged in what he had to say. After kind of getting the lay of the land I dove in and worked at it. I spend as many as 4 to 5 hours a day working on my blog and that’s after working a 12 hour workday.

I don’t often put that much time in now but I did at first when I was learning how and what to do. There’s far more to being successful than just being a good writer. You need an attractive blog and you need to market your content like a madman. It’s tough starting out and it’s still tough 4 months later. I am still a newb and have a long ways to go compared to some blogs.  I will say this…it’s been FUN! I love it and I look forward to spending time researching and writing articles. If you’re in a niche that you don’t look forward to being engaged in then you won’t last.

4. Have you made an mistakes in getting started that if you could, you would go back and do differently?

Yes a LOT of them. Actually, no I don’t think so because everything I screwed up has taught me something. I would have preferred to have a custom theme designed for me right from the start but all the tweaking and playing I have done with mine has taught me a ton about Wordpress.

I think I was fortunate that I found a niche that I love, even though it’s absolutely saturated. If I could give advice to someone else I would say that you should pick a blog topic that you love and that you can be passionate about.

This will allow you to be a much better blogger than if you are writing to try and make some money. That will wear you out and it will show in your writing. I think the ONLY thing I would do over again, is start earlier. I’ve been considering a blog for years but never prioritized it right. My wife has been blogging for a while and loved it but I found it much later than she did.

5. What are your thoughts on affiliate marketing? Do you do any affiliate marketing and if so, what are your favorite programs?

My thoughts are affiliate marketing is a great way to earn income. It sounds like it’s easy and most of the affiliate programs make it sound easy, but it’s very hard.

The Internet marketers all make it sound like they are making thousands a week and that if you aren’t then you’re doing something wrong. Reality is very, very few people make a sustainable income from AM. It’s very possible, but most people aren’t willing to invest the time to get good at it because they think it’s going to be easy. When they find it isn’t they end up quitting.

My favorite programs have been Ebay and then smaller affilate programs like phpbay and BANS. I am getting working on developing another site that is going to be centered around blogging and blogging tools, themes, plugins that kind of thing that is going to be primarily an affiliate site.

6. Looking into the future, do you have any quantifiable goals that you would like to accomplish in 2008? (traffic numbers, rss, alexa etc)

Yes of course. If you don’t set goals then you are treading water. I will be very disappointed if I am not looking at 20k visitors per month, 1000 + RSS subscribers and an Alexa that is sub 50k. I would also like to have a PR4 or higher and be generating about 5k a month by the end of 2008.

If I had the luxury of being able to work online full time then I don’t think this would be too terribly hard as I have some neat niche sites and some good ideas, I just lack the time to get it all done.