Interview With Ankit Singla (Master Blogging) On Finding New Ways to Monetize Your Blogs

If you are looking for incredible ways to build a great blog that makes money, you need to learn from the experts who has already done it. That’s the purpose of the “Bloggers Interview Series” I’m doing here at BloggersPassion.com, to help you build successful blogs in less time.

Today, we are going to discuss few great things with Ankit Singla from MasterBlogging.com to build a better blog. Ankit is the emerging blogger from India and he has a lot to share with you. Are you ready? Let’s jump into the Ankit Singla’s interview.

Ankit Singla’s interview on building a profitable blog and more

1. Ankit, can you please introduce yourself to BloggersPassion readers?

Hello Anil, first of all; Thanks for having me here. It’s a great pleasure to share my Blogging journey and experience with BloggersPassion.com readers.

Hello guys, I’m Ankit, a full-time blogger from India. I’m the founder of MasterBlogging.com.

I have been blogging from past 7 years and got featured on many big sites and a National News channel NDTV Prime because of my blogging skills.

Take away: Successful blogging takes a lot of time. I’ve been running this blog for more than 12 years now. If you think, you can achieve blogging success within 3 months, you are doomed! Success takes a lot of time especially online.

2. What inspired you to start MasterBlogging.com?

I’m a self-taught blogger. With time, I gained plenty of experience in Blogging. To share my personal experience and to help newbie bloggers was the main aim of starting MasterBlogging.com.

Take away: Self teaching is the best learning. Even when I started out as a new blogger, I had no one to teach me SEO, making money online or increasing my traffic. I learned all by myself, made mistakes and continued to survive.

3. What are your 3 favorite blogs?

LifeHack, QuickSprout and Backlinko.

4. What’s your #1 tip to increase traffic to a new blog?

With time; what I learnt is, to increase traffic to a new blog the most important thing is highly valuable (or engaging) content.

Once you have that on your blog, leverage social media to get first few hundred visitors to your blog and try to convert those new visitors into regular readers by capturing their email addresses.

Use lead generation techniques like ‘Content Upgrades’ and offer Freebies to start building your email list from the initial stage of your blog.

Set-up autoresponder series and send email updates to these subscribers for consistent flow of traffic. Rinse and repeat.

Take away: Content is undoubtedly the king. If you are looking for ways to increase your traffic without having content that creates fans for you, you are wasting time. It all comes down to just one thing: create content that helps others. That’s the only way to make other people trust you and buy what you recommend. Another important thing is to focus on building an email list. If you are not building a list, you are losing a lot of money and traffic on the table.

5. Can you share 3 tips that help beginners to make money online?

Here are my 3 favorite ways to make money online:

• YouTube Videos: A newbie can easily make $100/month from YouTube just by making screencast videos like this.
• Freelancing: If you are good at something, you can easily make money out of it. Sign-up on some freelancing sites like oDesk, Fiverr etc., and offer your services. I know some newbies who are making a decent income online because of their content writing skills.
• Starting a blog: Although it takes some time to earn from a blog, but it is highly recommended way to make money online. Start a blog and build your own audience using Social Media, email marketing and ofcourse SEO. Use any of these blog monetization methods to generate revenue from your blog.

Take away: Freelancing and creating your own blog are two ways even I recommend to a beginner who wants to quickly make money online. Although making money from blogging takes some time but it is worth putting more time and efforts into it. Because once you have paying customers, you will never have to look back again. They will continue to get your services and pay you money. The best part is, you are working on your own conditions.

6. How do you manage your time?

I follow a proper schedule and work according to plan that allows me to make best use of my time.

I spend most of my time on these three activities:

• Blogging and other online works.
• Self-development which includes fitness, books reading, developing new skills etc.
• Third and the most important is Relaxing. Life is too fast. I give myself enough time for relaxing which helps me to think better and clear. I sleep well, talk to myself (I love doing it) and watch movies.

Take away: I can’t put more emphasis on reading more books and developing your skills. You see, all the great leaders are readers. They read a lot. Did you know that Warren Buffet reads at least one new book every single day even though he is a billionaire? If you want to be successful in any field, read more related to that industry. Make a list of all the best sellers, read them and after finishing them start reading the new releases that are popular.

7. What is your Biggest Blogging mistake? What have you learned from it?

Before starting BloggerTipsTricks, I was working in other profitable niches and making money only from Google Adsense.

I used Google Adsense on BloggerTipsTricks too; which was my biggest blogging mistake.

Since I wasn’t making good revenue from my blog, I did my research and acknowledged that affiliate marketing is the best way to make passive income from such blogs.

What I learned from this mistake is that, you must know which blog monetization method works best in your niche, only then one must start his/her blog.

Take away: Creating a monetization model is extremely important. All the top bloggers and marketers who make a lot of money have various ways to monetize their blogs. You simply can’t rely upon AdSense any more to make money from blogging. You need to find out the best ways to make passive income such as creating online courses, building list, affiliate marketing etc to make more money.

8. What are your Top 3 Income Sources and how you Make Money with them?

Google Adsense and Affiliate Marketing are the only ways I make most of the money online.

I make money from Google Adsense by uploading screencast videos on YouTube. You can see my YouTube channel here.

PS: I’m running several YouTube channels like this which are making decent recurring income for me.

Most of my online income comes from Affiliate marketing. I promote Hosting, WordPress themes, SEO Tools on MasterBlogging.com and Amazon products.

Take away: If done right, AdSense + YouTube is the best combination to make more from online. If not, you need to start a blog by yourself and focus on promoting the right affiliate products that can help you make more money by serving your audience. Go and check out his YouTube video channel and learn how he is monetizing the channel so you can also repeat the same.

9. What are your views on Indian blogs and bloggers?

There are so many popular Indian Bloggers like Amit Agrawal, Harsh Agrawal, Neil Patel and of course Anil Agarwal who are making our Indian Blogging community feel proud.

Though I do feel the new Indian bloggers are misguided with things like Event Blogging and Spamming that will definitely affect their blogging career if they continue doing.

However the one’s concentrating on Niche Blogging and Affiliate Marketing are doing wonders.

It won’t be long that Indian Bloggers too would be making majority of income in the coming years.

Take away: Indian blogging is mostly adopting the things from the west (US and UK). We have been following the trends that set by them. Over a decade ago, they usually made a lot of money using AdSense, since then, we’re also doing it. Now, they are using affiliate marketing as the main source so are we!

Final thoughts: what can you learn from Ankit Singla’s interview

Consistency is the key thing you can learn from Ankit Singla.

Blogging for 7 years is not a joke. It takes a lot of determination and great thinking to survive in blogosphere. If you want to build a profitable blog, focus on building loyal audience with your content.

The more you help your readers the more they show interest in buying from you be it your own products or affiliate products.

Don’t forget to keep up to date with yourself by reading the best blogs in your industry and gain knowledge by reading a lot of books. Successful blogging is all about learning more and learning from your own mistakes.

So what did you learn from Ankit Singla’s interview? Do you have any questions for Ankit Singla? Do let us know in the comments.