Interview With The Net Fool Jim

Interviews With Top Bloggers: The Net Fool Jim

What happens when a 19-year student, lead manager of $5 million mutual fund and online entrepreneur, starts blogging?

You might think he’s fooling around, right?

Why in the world would a millionaire want to blog for a few dollars… why he doesn’t enjoy his millions and let us wrestle with this blogging thing!

Before you scream out loud, let me tell you that I just got a brand new interview with the net Fool in person, Jim…

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?

Hey, my name is Jim and I am the author of www.theNetFool.com, a popular blog run through my conglomerate of online media, JRR Enterprises LLC.

I am a 19 year old student, a lead manager of a $5 million mutual fund and an online entrepreneur of sorts. I typically blog about how to make money online, so stop on by if you are interested in getting a second income through the internet.

2. When did you get started blogging, and why?

I got started blogging because I was looking for a resume booster. Sad but true, eh? Eventually this developed into an obsession with making money on the internet… so I shifted focus toward the entrepreneur aspect of things and started to help people make a living on their own.

3. What’s the biggest mistake you

made getting started with this?

Refusing to put money into the project! Seriously, I wasted about 4 months of writing day in and day out with no yield because I had a crappy design and an underfinanced marketing scheme. You don’t need much to get started, but I do recommend investing in a premium theme from the get-go. In terms of marketing, the beginning is always the most painful. Once you get off the ground, you can really sustain yourself off of traffic from referred users.

4. How did you come up with the

idea of launching your blog?

There are too many people that preach themselves as the “next best thing.”

So I though, hey, I’m just a fool like everyone else, eh? I can make money online… believe me. But the fact is that I’m not an expert, I’m just an average guy who works hard and will tell you what is right and what is wrong. Sometimes learning from your peers is a lot more effective that learning from one of the big guys.

5. How often do you publish and

how do you get content ideas?

I try to publish every day. Unfortunately, as of late I am trying to do too much and it’s really taking a toll on my sleep habits! As a full time student and fund manager, I have to be aware of the markets and my studies.

Blogging comes third, sorry guys. However, I do take the time to write effective content and won’t clog your inbox with garbage. I mostly get my content ideas just from being there. I do a lot of things that my readers are interested in mirroring… so I’m going to give you all the tools to do exactly as I do, no strings attached.

6. How do you mainly receive (or generate)

traffic to your blog?

They come to me. Seriously, it’s like magic!

Since I have ~700 RSS readers, these guys will show up if I write something on that day. I see about 2x the traffic when I write… so that’s definitely an encouragement to write. In addition, if I write something sleek I typically get featured on other blogs. In the initial phase, you should try out social media websites like StumbleUpon and Digg. However, you are going to have to be self-sustaining after awhile… so get your RSS readers interested and you’ll see traffic spike.

7. What is your most closely-guarded

secret about blogging for money?

That’s kind of an odd question isn’t it? If something is my most closely-guarded secret, I would probably be pretty weak-willed to let it go as soon as someone asks. On the other hand, if I tell you that I don’t have one… you’d probably suspect me of lying.

Hmm…

Let’s just say that you can pick up on everything I’m doing to make money by subscribing to my RSS feed. Yes, I’m going to make you read through my antics to find out the more profitable techniques.

8. What differentiates your blog among

all the others in your niche field?

Are you kidding me? I’m the Net Fool! You definitely can’t top that. The other jokers out there have smaller blogs… whereas I’m one of the few that has been able to creep up toward 1,000 readers without conforming to the standard tactics and repetition. Give me one reason X blogger is better than me and I will either offer up 2 rebuttals or resign from office.

9. If you had to get a boost in comments

from your blog readers, how would you do it?

That’s easy! Write something controversial. Many people think controversial means writing “Google is Bad” but that won’t cut it. I have found that you can either A. comprise a huge list where you link to 20+ other blogs to essentially beg for comments and traffic. Or you can B. take a successful blogger and cut him down a few notches in public. Don’t be rude, just be effective. We don’t want a lawsuit on our hands, and you can always go at someone without actually offending them on paper… think about that!

10. Which are the blogs you visit frequently and why?

I’d rather not list my entire RSS feed, because I like to spread the wealth around and don’t really focus in on one or two specific bloggers. I usually check in and support the smaller bloggers more than I read bigger blogs, basically because I like to see what the up and comers are thinking. www.IMWithJoe.com is one of my favorites in that category. Mid-cap blogs I like are www.JohnCow.com and www.TylerCruz.com. I like to frequent stock market blogs like Between the Hedges and Bullish Bankers as well for my daily market reads.

11. Which are your favorite bloggers and why?

My favorite bloggers are the cow himself, Jason Katzenback, the family man Gary Conn, ShoeMoney’s Jeremy Schoemaker, IMWithJoe’s Normal Joe, MoneyBites’s “madman” Max and The University Kid’s Jason Pereira. These guys are generally industry names, and great people to work with.

12. Which plugins you can’t live without and why?

My favorite plugin is All In One SEO because it makes WordPress a lot more viable as a Google-rankable product. If you are using standalone WordPress, you are in a world of hurt!

I’m also a big proponent of CommentLuv to get people some commenting motivation, OIO Publisher for advertising (best option by far) and Top Commentators for getting people talking.

One of my secret tools is the stock market plugin that I use to generate in-text stock quotes from companies that are updated in real time with the American markets. You can see an example of this in almost any post on BullishBankers.com

13. What is the most important thing you learned about blogging that you could share with your best friend?

“Blogging won’t make you any money, having a blog will.”

Yes, it sounds counter-intuitive… but I actually make next to nothing from my blog. This is pretty standard (unless you are ripping off your advertisers or are using your blog as a spam service), and I really believe that the true power of being a blogger is from your networking. If you can build a strong network of users to interact with you and play along with what you are trying to do, you can leverage this to build up big incomes every month. When you have people that follow what you do, this will usually lead you to great commissions from everyone working with you!

14. What plans do you have for

the future with your blog?

I’m definitely going to try to pass 1,000 subscribers before year end. I’ll probably at least get close, eh? There are certain plateaus to blogging I believe, and I am currently in one. I literally exploded from around 200 to 600 and am now sitting steady around 700 for awhile. This is totally natural and as long as I put out good content I will get the subscriber base before long.

To me, I really only care about increasing my influence on the Internet… the more people I can help out, the happier I am. I’m in the business of under-cutting the profits of the “big boys” out there… and I am going to continue serving the public until I feel like the blog has reached its tipping point. It’s really a lucrative business, and I believe strongly that I can keep building and growing for quite a while. J

Stay Bullish on the Net!

-The Net Fool

We wish Jim 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: