Ivan from Noobpreneur.com Shares His Secrets to Creating a Successful Blog

Ivan Widjaya is a is a 31-year old blogger from Indonesia. He is a self-proclaimed newbie.  By positioning himself as a newbie, he learns a great deal, including how to make money online.  Suppressing one’s ego has certain perks, such as a willingness to learn new things, regardless of one’s current achievements. Ivan Widjaya has a loving wife, and two children, a boy and a girl.  He loves basketball, soccer and design.

Ivan runs a business blog – focusing on small and online businesses because his passion runs to entrepreneurship. Noobpreneur.com is not his only project. He runs MyWebEstate.com, a website/blog development service business, and also invests in dozens of web properties.

Deepak: How do you define the success of a blog? Is it traffic, readership, revenue, brand image or anything else?

Ivan: To me, a successful blog is measured by its worth in helping, influencing and enhancing others, while being profitable on its own.  Brand image, in my opinion, is above anything else, as it commands the others.

Deepak: When did you decide that you finally reached success with your blog?

Ivan: Never.  I treat a blog as any other business (not as personal diary or something like that). A business does not reach a point of success; a business can only reach milestones.  However, I do consider my blog to be successful when I receive a testimonial that states that it has changed someone’s life and/or fortune.  And then of course, in financial terms, I consider a blog to be successful when it evolves into a multi-author blog that allows me to earn income passively and write articles only occasionally.

Deepak: How long does it take to become a successful blogger?

Ivan: You can definitely be a successful blogger in less than 30 days! I know bloggers whose blogs received a great deal of attention within the first few days of blogging.  The key is the right mindset, the right opportunity, and the right niche at the right time.  The question is, are you ready to get out of your comfort zone and learn as much as you can from trusted sources, fast?

Deepak: In your opinion, who are the most successful bloggers on the Internet today?

Ivan: I favor Yaro Starak and Darren Rowse.  Of course there are some other big names, such as John Chow and Jeremy Schoemaker, but I like the down-to-earth approach of Yaro and the expertise of Darren.

Deepak: What are the three blogs which you most often read?

Ivan: I visit Yaro Starak’s blog quite often – Entrepreneurs-Journey.com — and, of course, Darren Rowse’s Problogger.net.  The other one is Vera Raposo’s SmallBusinessBranding.com (it was a web property of Yaro Starak, acquired by Vera Raposo.)

Deepak: If you saw that your close friend had the potential to be a successful blogger, what would you say to him to motivate him to start a blog?

Ivan: Start blogging in your spare time, and then get out of your job as soon as you can.  And, oh, don’t forget to monetize your blog the right way! It’s amazing that there are so many great blogs out there that are having difficulty making money online; some even don’t try at all!

Deepak: What is your advice for new bloggers who are just getting started to help them build a successful blog?

Ivan: It’s a bit cliché, but here goes: Don’t give up – blogging can be frustrating at times … no income, low traffic, lots of work … But soon enough, if you are consistent and resilient, you will see results.

Deepak: What is your advice with regard to the length of the blog articles and the frequency of posting?

Ivan: That depends entirely on the niche you are targeting, and the type of blog you have.  Is your blog a news or magazine-style blog? If so, you might want to post a couple of times a day. In my case, I try (hard) to post once a day, since I have proven that posting frequencies do affect your traffic, especially in early stages of your blog’s life.  I think a blog post every two or three days is acceptable to most readers.

Regarding blog article length, I think that from 400-500 words is the optimal article length.  But again, that depends on your blog’s style.  I recently saw some people do some micro blogging, just like Twitter.  They post in 140 characters or so. I also saw some people who wrote long, enticing articles, such as StevePavlina.com.

Deepak:What has been your most effective marketing method so far for bringing new readers to your blog?

Ivan: Social bookmarking and blog commenting.  Period.  Getting your article on the first page of Digg or StumbleUpon will bring humongous traffic, the targeted kind.  I also enjoyed Reddit, although the members can be harsh sometimes (i.e., I often get comments like “Useless post,” or “This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about!”)

Regarding blog commenting, never mind that the so-called experts say that you should comment on do-follow blogs.  That’s simply BS (oops…). Comment on blogs that you feel add value to yourself, and have your say in that blogs with something that can be useful for others.  Posting “Hi, great post!” won’t do much in terms of blog marketing.

Deepak: In your opinion, what are the most common mistakes that new bloggers make?

Ivan: Trying to make money from their blogs too quickly.  Here’s the logic: what would people visiting your blog think if all they saw were two or three blog posts with Google Adsense and 125×125 banner ads all over the place? Give value, and when the time comes (you’ll know it!) you can start monetizing your blog.

Deepak: If you had ever said to yourself ‘I wish I had done that when I started my blog’ what would it have been?

Ivan: I should have started some ten years ago when blogging was not as common as it is today – that way I could have reaped the benefits of being the “first entry” in the market.

Deepak: What turns you off from other blogs (such as lack of quality content, blatant advertising, etc.)?

Ivan: Rants, whines and angry comments. People don’t need that stuff – people need useful content that can help them live a better life.

Deepak: How much money do you make from your blog per month (approximately), and which has been your best monetization strategy?

Ivan: These days, Noobpreneur.com earns about $300-400 a month.  I try to limit paid reviews and text links as they are flagged red by Google. (Noobpreneur.com was a PR5, now a PR3).  Noobpreneur.com saw better days about six months ago, when I made as much as $700-800 a month.

The best monetization strategy is actually paid reviews! Advertisers can see whether your blog is visited regularly and well-read by visitors, and they are willing to splash out some money to get their website, product or services to the front of your blog’s audience.  Of course, I don’t take every incoming advertising request – I wouldn’t give junk to my readers, would I?

Deepak: What is your most interesting story related to your blog and blogging experience?

Ivan: It’s actually a challenge writing 40 reviews a month (that was six months ago) – your blog gets filled with “colourful” topics, and even I lost a reader or two thinking that my blog was becoming a “review junk” blog!  Since that time, I have limited paid reviews and charge a higher price for a review.

Deepak: What is the biggest opportunity that came your way because of your blog?

Ivan: I was a victim of recession – I lost two franchise units – all thanks to the recession. My blogging and web investing has allowed me to live through my entrepreneurial passion (instead of getting back into office work to make ends meet).  So yes, I live and support my family 100% from making money online!

Deepak: Any other comments that you would like to share?

Ivan: Umm… that’s it for now. Oh, just one more thing I would like to remind you of, however. Don’t give up.  Never.  Ever.  You don’t know what giving up will cost you! (In my case, giving up would cost me personal bankruptcy.) Cheers!