Bloggers Face-Off: Tina Su vs. Henrik Edberg
People love personal development and productivity blogs right? I read quite a few myself, and today we have two bloggers that shine in that space (interesting to notice, again, that bloggers from the same niche tend to think on the same way…).
Tina Su is the woman behind Think Simple Now, a blog focused on creativity, clarity and happiness. She managed to attract a loyal audience in a short time span, but if you check her content you will know why.
Henrik Edberg is our second blogger, and author of the popular Positivity Blog. With over 7,000 RSS readers, the blog covers a wide range of topics, from career to productivity and life hacks.
On a side note, the poll is back. On the last face-off we did not have one, but some readers asked for it. If you are wondering, the poll is just for fun. You can vote on who you think gave the best answers, the funniest ones, or simply who you think is the coolest blogger!
 Tina Su |
 Henrik Edberg |
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|---|---|---|
| 1. How long have you been blogging? | 5 months | Since September 2006 |
| 2. Has it been worth it so far? | Absolutely | Absolutely. It’s been lots of fun and a good learning experience |
| 3. How many page views does your blog generate daily? | 2,000 to 5,000 on average | About 8000 |
| 4. Do you make money with it? | Yes | Yeah, a bit |
| Full posts or excerpts on the homepage? | Excerpts | Excerpts |
| 6. What is the biggest mistake you did along the way? | I can’t think of any. Even the smallest mistakes helped me learn and have contributed to my growth | Not providing value consistently. Some posts weren’t as as useful as they could have been |
| 7. What is the best way to gain RSS subscribers? | Valuable content. Obsess over content. I’ve written an article over at problogger detailing my experiences | Write valuable and useful content. Then people will want to come back |
| 8. Is it important to have a unique design? | Yes, I believe so | I think it’s helpful to differentiate yourself from other blogs and stand out |
| 9. Do you care for Pagerank or Alexa? | No | Not much |
| 10. How many RSS feeds do you track daily? | Zero. I occasionally will visit Zenhabits.net, but that’s about it. I don’t really read blogs. | None. I visit a few blogs maybe once a week |
| 11. What is the funniest blog on the web? | I’m not sure as I don’t follow many blogs regularly | My fellow Swede Martin Kellerman’s blog. Kellerman is a successful cartoonist and possibly the funniest guy in Sweden |
| 12. What is the secret of your success, expressed in one word? | Persistence | Value |
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Bloggers Face-Off: Zac Johnson vs. Tyler Cruz
Time to get some online entrepreneurs on the Bloggers Face-Off.
Zac Johnson has been making money online since he was a teenager, and now he has a small empire. Some time ago he received a lot of attention after revealing that one of his websites was making over $200,000 monthly in profits….
Tyler Cruz also makes money from building websites and selling advertising on them. On top of that he also flips sites and domains, and he is already making five figures monthly.
Those two guys know what they are they are talking about, so check out their websites and bookmark it. You will notice that some of their answers were surprisingly similar, I guess it’s the web entrepreneur lifestyle!
 Zac Johnson |
 Tyler Cruz |
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|---|---|---|
| 1. How long have you been blogging? | Coming up on one year. My blog went live on March 17th 2007 | My first post was made on October 21, 2005, so 2 years and 2 months. Has it been that long already? |
| 2. How many hours do you dedicate to it daily? | Without doubt. I’ve made so many great contacts, and it’s been good for business too | On average I’d estimate around 2 hours, a lot more if I’m running a competition or writing reviews |
| 3. How many page views does your blog generate daily? | Currently around 1,200 uniques per day | Surprisingly only 1,000… although it’s important to note I have over 1,100 RSS readers which affects this |
| 4. Do you make money with it? | The site is on an upward trend since and now generating over $3,000 a month. Revenue sources are private advertising and affiliate programs | Yes. Last month my blog brought in $1,100 - a number which I’m aggresively trying to increase |
| 5. What is the biggest mistake you did along the way? | Everyone learns from their mistakes and decisions they made over time, so I have no regrets. If there was something I might have changed, it may have been to start blogging earlier than I did | Writing multiple topics within one blog post. In 2006, I would contain many different topics and ideas within each post instead of creating a separate post for each idea. This was a very bad idea for many reasons including SEO, reader interest, and categorization |
| 6. How long should a blogger wait before monetizing his blog? | I did not monetize my blog until it was live for 10 months and had over 1,000 rss subscribers. I would focus on content and subscribers first, revenue will come later | Once they have enough traffic to where they’d make enough income through monetization where it justifies the intrusion of ads - this will depend on the blogger’s situation and circumstances ($50 is a worth lot more to a 13-year-old or person living in India than it is a 25-year-old New York resident), but it should be understood that your blog or site will often grow much faster the longer you hold off monetizing it |
| 7. What will be the biggest social bookmarking site at the end of 2008? | I’m not a big user of social bookmarking, but StumbleUpon looks like they are doing a great job. I’d like to see them continue to succeed, and provide quality traffic to quality sites | Oh no… I know very little about social bookmarking sites (I almost answered with “YouTube”), but I’m going to throw out StumbleUpon for my answer, as I’ve heard bad things about Digg lately and StumbleUpon gives me a fair bit of traffic |
| 8. What is the best way to gain RSS subscribers? | While most sites run contest or promotions to increase rss subscribers, I think producing quality content is the best method | Offer RSS e-mail notification. For visitors who are not familiar with RSS or RSS aggregators, offering notification by e-mail is language they can understand |
| 9. If you could give one advice to a novice, what would it be? | Write on what you are passionate about… otherwise it’s just work | Only do things that interest you. You will succeed far greater in doing things you love than if you are doing it purely for profit |
| 10. How many RSS feeds do you track daily? | I prefer to visit the actual blogs, than subscribe to rss feeds. I bounce around a few blogs each day and see what’s new | I do not subscribe to any RSS feeds, and instead just visit a few select blogs daily. I do this partly because I’m always very interested in viewing physical changes on websites such as plugins, design features, and advertisements - all things you miss when viewing RSS feeds |
| 11. If you could read only one blog, which one would you pick? | That’s a tough one… maybe TechCrunch, just because of how it covers a vast area of the internet space | Why, DailyBlogTips.com of course! Let’s see if Zac answers this one correctly…  |
| 12. What is the secret of your success, expressed in one word? | Passion | Passion |
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Bloggers Face-Off: David Airey vs. Patrick Altoft
Let’s run another Bloggers Face-Off, shall we?
On this edition we have two very successful bloggers who also run parallel businesses. As you probably know a blog can work as an efficient tool to promote and generate leads to your company, and these guys illustrate the case.
David Airey is one of the best logo designers on the web, and he shares his tips related to graphic design and online marketing on his blog. Patrick Altoft, on the other hand, is the director of an SEO consulting firm. BlogStorm is the place where you can find his articles on several SEO related topics.
Don’t forget to bookmark their websites, and now to the interview!
 David Airey |
 Patrick Altoft |
|
|---|---|---|
| 1. How long have you been blogging? | I started in October 2006, and fumbled about in the dark for a few months until I realised what a blog was | Since early 2006. I started as a way to easily add content to my affiliate sites |
| 2. Has it been worth it so far? | Without doubt. I’ve made so many great contacts, and it’s been good for business too | Totally. Having blog content on affiliate sites makes them much more legitimate in the eyes of Google. Running Blogstorm has allowed me to become quite a well known SEO consultant in a relatively short time |
| 3. How many page views does your blog generate daily? | Around 20,000 hits, and 3,500 visits | Blogstorm generates a couple of thousand per day on average at present but the traffic varies a lot. In the first 6 months I was on Digg 5 or 6 times and the blog received a lot more traffic |
| 4. Do you make money with it? | Yes, but not through the standard advertising route you find on a lot of blogs. I use my site to attract new design clients, so it’s best to keep it clean | I don’t make any money directly with Blogstorm, in fact we don’t even accept advertising. The blog is purely to promote our SEO services |
| 5. Full posts or excerpts on the homepage? | Fishing for a compliment, Daniel? On both my blogs I use your excellent ‘homepage excerpts‘ plugin. I show the most recent article in full, with four others as excerpts | Definitely excerpts in a magazine style. Real users are used to arriving at corporate or newspaper style sites so if you want to convert these users into readers you can’t have a long scrolling blog page |
| 6. What is the biggest mistake you did along the way? | Tough one, because all my mistakes have turned into positives. I’m a firm believer that the fastest way to learn is by getting something wrong. Still, if I was to choose one thing that had the biggest impact, it would definitely be having my domain name stolen whilst on holiday | I had one blog that made a huge amount of money for 12 months and then stopped totally. If the site had been sold at it’s peak it would have made 6 figures easily |
| 7. What is the best way to gain RSS subscribers? | Write content that people want to read | At present I’m using a home grown technique that customizes a message to search visitors. If somebody searches for “seo sins” and clicks on my site they see an advert saying “We are planning a post about seo sins next week so subscribe to the RSS feed” |
| 8. Is it important to have a unique design? | Yes. If you can’t afford to hire a designer, or if you like a certain theme that’s available, jump in and customise it yourself. It can be fun, and will definitely help set you apart | Totally. Blogs are so easy to set up that you need a unique design to establish your brand and make your site appear legitimate. Even creating a logo can make all the difference |
| 9. Do you care for Pagerank or Alexa? | Not as much as I used to. There are articles on my blog about such things, written when I had more time on my hands. Ultimately, if you spend time on your content, your search rankings will fall into place. Chasing after stats will only take up time you can spend researching a great blog post | I am pleased when a site has a PR increase but that’s about it. Alexa is good for comparing similar sites but Compete is much better |
| 10. How many RSS feeds do you track daily? | About 100, although I don’t always track them daily. Sometimes I browse my feed reader every few days | About 200 at the moment, all related to SEO, tech news or internet marketing in some way |
| 11. What is the funniest blog on the web? | No idea, although maybe I’d be better at telling jokes if I subscribed to one | I don’t really read comedy blogs |
| 12. What is the secret of your success, expressed in one word? | Positivity | Practice |
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