Interviews With Top Bloggers: BlogSessive Alex Cristache
What a blogging obsessive could teach you about blogging?
You could answer: everything! Almost… I had the privilege to interview fellow Romanian blogger, Alex Cristache, and find out some secrets from his blogging experience.
He’s a motorcycles and hip-hop music fan, if you get to have similar passions, you could make a new friend today
Click here to download the PDF version of this interview, or read the text version below:
1. Would you mind sharing a few things about
yourself and your background for our readers?
I’ve landed on planet Earth about 28 years ago and disguised myself as a web savvy dude for the last 9 years. Seriously? Ok, I suppose I could call myself a web designer, even though I’ve done quite a lot of other things in my past, from web design to development, corporate identity, web copywriting, SEO, it’s hard to remember everything. I love motorcycles and hip-hop music, as long as it’s not about “money, hoes and pimps”.
2. When did you start blogging, and why?
About 3 years ago, out of pure curiosity and willing to share some of my thoughts and experience.
3. What’s the biggest mistake you
made getting started with this?
Not keeping a schedule, or having a schedule but ignoring it. Chaos seems fun, but in the end, it manages to break everything that you’ve built. Luckily, I became aware fast enough.
4. How did you come up with the
idea of launching your blog?
Blogging is pretty much related to all my past online activities, and since I thought that my experience could be helpful for some people out there, plus the fact that I love WordPress and it’s flexibility, www.Blogsessive.com was the next logical step to take.
5. How often do you publish and
how do you get content ideas?
Usually I publish about four posts a week, but only because I also need to dedicate time to my freelancing activities. Otherwise, I’d publish at least two posts per day.
Content ideas? From my own experiences, from things I read, from music I listen, from movies I watch. Basically, everything can become a source of inspiration, that’s why I like to keep an open mind.
6. How do you mainly receive (or generate)
traffic to your blog?
My main traffic sources would be social bookmarking websites and Google searches. Lately, I’ve been focusing on attracting more search engine traffic, since it has much more benefits than those traffic spikes in stats.
7. What is your most closely-guarded
secret about blogging for money?
There’s no secret. Well, maybe for the lazy people. Money don’t fall out of the sky. You need to work, to invest, to sacrifice. Sure, ads on a blog could bring some cash, maybe even a decent amount, but I’ve always placed my bet on “additional services”.
Becoming an authority in your niche gets many opportunity doors opened. I’m not yet what you’d call an authority in blogging, but I’m working my way to that. Even so, people come to me for consulting services on blogs, WordPress themes design and development, basically, all things blogging and design related.
8. What differentiates your blog among
all the others in your niche field?
Good question. I’ll let my readers judge the quality of my posts, but they seem to enjoy them. Two things that could make Blogsessive stand out are the design and my once-in-a-while-creative-posts. If you look for my posts that relate bloggers to Hollywood actors (http://blogsessive.com/blogging-tips/are-bloggers-hollywoods-next-big-shots/), or blogging tips collection out of song titles (http://blogsessive.com/blogging-tips/10-blogging-tips-from-the-top-100-songs-of-2007/), you’ll see what I’m talking about.
9. If you had to get a boost in comments
from your blog readers, how would you do it?
Ask for them. Start an open discussion. If you’re thinking about paying for comments, forget it. The best way to do it is to train your conversational skill. Also, answering comments will most likely encourage further conversations.
A good way to attract comments is to startle your community with sensitive topics, provocative thoughts. Find out what they find interesting, and then, look for weak points. It’s a dangerous game, but readers will want to share their views, some positive, some negative, but still a good deal of reactions.
I’ve done this with a post called 20 Reasons Why Your Make Money Online Blog Will Fail (http://blogsessive.com/blogging-tips/20-reasons-why-your-make-money-online-blog-will-fail/). I’ve been getting a good reaction on that one.
10. Which are the blogs you visit frequently and why?
and www.WordsOfaBrokenMirror.com. Why? Because I always enjoy their content, with no exception! With the last two I even formed an “alliance” called WiseVox Network, but we’re still working on the concept.
11. Which are your favorite bloggers and why?
Darren Rowse for the example he has become. By the way, look for “blogging” in Google and see what website comes amongst the first results. Amazing right? Brian Clark, Sonia Simone, Chris Garrett, Chris Brogan.
Why?
100% quality content!
12. Which plugins you can’t live without and why?
Akismet does the job stopping most spam comments. All In One SEO Pack has proved to be a faithful companion in my SEO strategies, just as Google XML Sitemaps did. Finally, Bookmark Me made it a lot easier for my community to save favorite posts with their preferred bookmarking services.
13. What is the most important thing you learned about blogging that you could share with your best friend?
Be yourself, and don’t talk about things you’re not good at. The community will let it go once, twice, but in the end, they’ll smell it. Fake it till you make it is only a myth.
Luckily, I’ve never been there, but I’ve seen examples. Don’t ask me who, it’s not nice to point fingers.
14. What plans do you have for
the future with your blog?
I’m still investing time and creative energy in it and will continue to do so. I have no plans to sell on “retire”. I enjoy the rush too much.
Cheers!
We wish Alex success in the future and thank you very much for sharing your BLOGGING tips, tricks & secrets with us all!
If you want to get further into blogging, check out these resources:
WordPress Profit Maximizer – The BEST WordPress Plugins sent to you weekly via e-mail!
Lazy Blogging dot Com – Everything I learned about blogging!
Thank you,
Codrut Turcanu.
