Hello Friends! Here is our fourth interview with a devoted blogger and a Professional Blogging Enthusiast. With me today is Nirmala Santhakumar from Chennai, India. Nirmala is the founder of My Magic Fundas, a fascinating blog all about blogging, online money making and technology. In this Interview, Nirmala will share some of her valuable blogging experience and knowledge with us.

So, here we go….

1) Although you don’t need an Introduction, yet as a part of the formality, can you please introduce yourself and your blog to our readers?

First I would like to thank you for giving me an opportunity to share my blogging experience with your readers. Yeah, sure!

Hi All… This is Nirmala. I am a devoted blogger and founder of the blog My Magic Fundas.I am based out of Chennai, India. I started blogging in 2009 and now for the past 1 year it has become a passion. Initially I blogged in blogspot blogs and now with the help of my self-hosted domain I have started blogging aggressively. All this was possible due to the motivation of many pro-bloggers.

2) How do you step into this blogging world? What was the major inspiration behind it?

I am an Engineering graduate. After my studies were completed, I got married immediately. Due to personal and family level constraints I refused some offers from the IT industry that came my way. Then, I decided to make use of my academics and searched for some genuine money making areas using internet. I tried online surveys, earning with Fiverr, Mturk etc… but the returns were not up to the mark. As I had interest in writing, I joined as a writer in iWriter.com. I wrote more than 300 articles for various clients and this helped me shape my writing approach. I got practiced to write with the touch of SEO based on the specifications provided by them.

There was no major inspirational factor during my early blogging days. I started out with beauty, health and online money making to share my knowledge and experience with the people. Later, I applied to Google AdSense with the guidance of an internet marketer. My request was immediately approved. Thus I started earning a decent amount with the help of blogging in the years of 2010 and 2011. But after Google Panda and Penguin updates, my blogs were greatly affected as there were no social cues. I had to struggle a lot to focus the attention of search engines towards my blogs. I also realized that I had missed out some essential blogging activities. So, I joined in the Facebook groups dedicated to blogging where I was able to learn much imperative stuff. It was with the help of one such group I got the chance to meet Mr. Atish Ranjan, founder of Techtricksworld.com. I would say that he is my inspiration behind blogging. It was his constant guidance, support and motivation, that helped me to host a domain in WordPress-“MyMagicFundas”.

3) As majority of popular blogs are carried out by men, so you being a female blogger, how do you make your blog stand out from the crowd? What major strategies do you follow? Kindly share with us.

I don’t think that a female blogger would have difficulty in creating a unique brand in the blogosphere. I would go to the extent of saying that there are many women who are more matured and skilled in this area. Apologies if my opinion hurt anyone.

Coming back to the question. Some of the key strategies I follow to make my blog standout from the crowd are:

• Having good blog design which is easy to navigate.
• Following unique style in writing and generating quality blog posts with basics for my readers.
• Performing guest blogging, blog commenting, SEO, social participation to improve my online presence.
• Sharing worthy blog posts for my followers and non-stop mentioning of influential bloggers.

Hope these are the points that has helped me create a place of my own in the world of blogs

4) Although it is believed that SEO and Content Marketing are the two sides of the same coin, do you believe in this concept? How these two strategies are inter-related and important for blogging. Kindly share your personal experiences with us.

Yes, I strongly believe in that concept. I would also say that SEO and content marketing are the heart and brain of blogging. Without them, blogging is fruitless and there would be no readers for your content. Bloggers should equip themselves to create and curate relevant content into the post to attract new readers. Also, if you are going to deliver relevant content with a poor SEO, then it would be hard to drive organic traffic towards your blog.

Hence it is the job of the blogger to focus on both Content Marketing and SEO to thrive in blogging.

5) What are the blogs do you suggest to follow? Who is your role model as a blogger and why?

There are many blogs in that list. Some of them are TechTricksWorld.com, BasicBlogTips.com, ShoutMeLoud.com, ProbBloggingSuccess.com, FamousBloggers.net, Bivori.com. These are some of the blogs that I make a point to visit daily. Whenever you find time, try to visit QuickSprout.com, SocialMediaToday.com, SearchEngineLand.com to keep yourself updated with trendy social and SEO updates.

As I had mentioned in one of my earlier answers, Atish Ranjan from TechTricksWorld.com is my role model. He is such a talented, smart working person in the blogosphere. He inspired me a lot and I got a chance to learn basic SEO stuffs, writing and crucial blogging materials from him. Even now I look for his support whenever I feel the need to enhance my blogging and he always comes up with multiple solutions and examples for my queries. His immense blogging knowledge, helping attitude, high energy levels and hard cum smart work has impressed me and I consider him as my role model.

6) Since Google is getting picky on showing authorship for website or blog, so what are the major strategies being followed by you to make your blog more authoritative in the eyes of Google.

Yes, it is getting tough to be more authoritative in the eyes of Google these days as they have been coming up with exceptional algorithmic techniques to throw out of Spammers. I believe that Google is obsessed with genuineness and intellectuality. So I do not follow the BlackHat SEO methods, buying followers and other such stuffs. My aim is to remain in the good books of Google. Hence I work logically with good quality content, focusing to build valuable backlinks and staying active in Social networking sites.

7) How do you generate innovative ideas in writing unique and quality posts? Kindly share with us.

Ya… the answer to this question is very simple. I am an active participant in many blogging communities and social bookmarking websites like Blog Engage, Biz Sugar, Dos Splash, Blokube, Pinterest, Stumble upon and I try to be active in Tiberr and some content curator sites. I visit more than 10 beneficial posts daily to expand my knowledge. This repetitive search for knowledge has helped me create innovative blog posts for my beloved readers and has saved me from sufferings due to Writers block till now. While reading earnest blog posts, I understand what they try to communicate and I write what I extracted from the content. Then I do some research on the same and get relevant points and publish the blog posts for my visitors. I always save some ideas in draft to give life to them at a later point.

8) What are the future plans for your Blog-My Magic Fundas?

As of now, I do not have any major plans for my blog. But I have been pondering over the idea of diving into Affiliate Marketing seriously and have just started to learn its basics. Hope it would work out. Other than this, I am concentrating on offering latest social and technology updates for my readers. As my blog is just 11 months old, I have been covering on some basic information for my readers. For monetary benefits sake, I have been aiming to improve my PR and Alexa which would get me more good offers from Advertisers and Sponsored posts.

9) Can you share some memorable moments of your blogging journey with our readers?

I have faced both hurdles and achievements in my blogging journey. Talking about achievements, I have got a good supporting community for my blog, reached PageRank 2 and Alexa of around 50K. I have been getting mails and messages from pro bloggers and newbies to share some traffic improvable and Alexa tips and I make it a point to reply to their mails and messages. I am also excited by the response I got when I shared my real blogging stories.

I also faced a major roadblock last Christmas. Google disabled its Ads due to scrapped content in the blog. I was really dejected and with guidance of my blogging friends I posted the mail in AdSense forum. Over there I received a response from an expert saying that I have used copyrighted image for that particular post. I realized my mistake and deleted that post and went back to Google. Within a couple of days, Google re-enabled its ads serving on my blog. That was really a memorable moment for me.

10) With the arrival of this New Year, do you want to give some of your expert advice on blogging and SEO to our readers?

Yeah, Sure!

If a person starts blogging to make money with it, he / she needs to have that passion, writing skill with an intellectual touch and an open mindset to learn latest techniques. Also, he/she should select their area of interest and fascination. This would help them keep the blog updates consistent without much difficulty. This would also create authority in the blog space.

My mantra is “the more effort you invest in early days, the more money you could make with your blog later”

Every person is talented and there should be some stimulating point to take it out. So, if you have group of encouraging people around you to give suggestions/ideas, you could easily and effortlessly succeed in your path. So, form a community for your blog to support you forever.

Nirmala, Thank you once again for giving us your valuable time and sharing your awesome experience with us! On behalf of all our readers, we wish you all the best of your blogging future! Happy Blogging! 🙂

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