Interview: Pawan Agarwal – MaxBlogPress Owner

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Pawan Agarwal Owner of MaxBlogPress

This interview is with Pawan Agarwal, the owner of www.MaxBlogPress.com.

Whenever I build a new blog for myself or for clients I ALWAYS install several of Pawan’s free WordPress plugins including:

MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer – can save your wordpress blog from getting tagged as ping spammer

Max Banner Ads – easily rotates banners to overcome ‘screen blindness’

The business model that Pawan uses is that which all bloggers should use – give something away of value and they will come back and buy.

And that’s exactly what I did.

Pawan’s free plugins are simple to use and work so well, I went on and purchased his Ninja Affiliate Plugin (that’s a link to my video review of the plugin) and I got my investment back within weeks.

I also purchased his How to Attract 365,000 Red-Hot Visitors to Your Blog Like Bees to Honey (another review of mine) guide that has interviews with the top bloggers around and again I have benefited hugely.

Whenever Pawan launches a new product or service I’m always there to listen.

Why?

Because he always over delivers and that makes him different to the rest.

So, I wanted to get to know him more – here’s a short interview with Pawan where he shares his approach and techniques to making an income on-line.

Here’s the interview:

Andrew: Pawan, thanks for taking the time out to answer these questions.

Pawan: You are welcome.

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Andrew: So let’s start – can you tell us a little bit about what you do?

Pawan: I run a website called MaxBlogPress.com. We develop software for bloggers who want to get more exposure to their blog and earn money from it as well.
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Andrew: How long did it take you to get you to where you are now, and what would you say to our readers who are frustrated and overwhelmed with their blogs, on-line business?

Pawan: It has been two and half years since I started MaxBlogPress. For those who are frustrated with their blogs/business I suggest to them to check if they are really in the right business.

I believe you should blog about the things you are really passionate about.

Things don’t go smoothly all the time and there will always be some serious problem in the business no matter how good you are at handling such stuffs. That’s when the passion comes. That’s when you can push yourself further even on the bad days.

Another thing, the success doesn’t come easily. Usually when starting up, you won’t see much traction. It’s like pushing a car. When you push it first, it doesn’t move at all. But if you keep on applying the force, it starts to move a little. Then after a while if you continue on pushing, it starts rolling faster and faster. Later, you can apply little force and the car will keep on moving faster. I think that same theory applies to your business as well.

Don’t get frustrated if you are not seeing any result. Keep on pushing and make a habit of showing up for the blog/business each and everyday. Soon, you’ll see people will start noticing you and business will go better and better each day.

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Andrew: What advice would you give someone who’s brand-new to blogging and wanting to make some income?

Pawan: First of all 3 things:

i) Choose the topic which you are really passionate about

ii) Analyze if you can deliver better than average content for that topic

iii) The audience are willing to buy something related to the topic (earn via product selling) OR you can gather very, very huge number of such people (earn via accepting advertisement)

When starting, the best way is to start giving away great content for free and gather as big an audience as possible. Don’t try to sell anything or start pitching anything from the start. It doesn’t make sense to spend your time monetizing your blog when you don’t have any audience at all. Wait until you have a stable number of visitors coming to your blog daily and only then start monetizing your blog.

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Andrew: What are some pitfalls that our readers should be on the lookout for, and how can they be avoided?

Pawan:

i) Monetizing before good number of audience has been built: As, I said above the first thing is you shouldn’t waste your time in monetizing your blog when there’s no audience at all. Build audience first and then monetize your blog.

ii) Wasting too much time: The web is like a hungry mosquito which can suck up all your time without you even knowing. Be disciplined and have predefined time for each task. For example: the two most important tasks for a bloggers are: Content Writing and Marketing. Set aside time for each of these tasks and make sure to do it before you get involved in endless surfing.

iii) Not showing up daily: You must be disciplined to show up for building your blog each and every work day. Like I said above you must build momentum to make your blog a success. Even if you are planning to post only twice a week, make sure you spend your time in marketing your blog, learning more about marketing etc… This one habit will have a big impact on your blog success.

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Andrew: What would you say is the one more important thing you’ve learned?

Pawan: Watching this whole web marketing thing for some years, the one important thing I’ve learned is being persistent. The web evolves, marketing tactics keeps on changing and nothing remain same all the time. Being persistent and willing to change myself, willing to learn new things and upgrading myself has been what made me move forward.

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Andrew: Without traffic you blog might as well not exist. What is the one best tip you can give to someone who’d like to increase their traffic?

Pawan: “Be The News” that’s the best tip I can give. We are lucky that now we are in such a time where anyone can publish any thing. There’s millions of bloggers, millions of twitter users, millions of Facebook, MySpace users… They all are like mini-publishers.

If you can write great content like no one else has done or if you create something great then it’s like news. People like to share and blog about such things. That’s great word of mouth traffic and can bring lots of free traffic for years to come.

While starting I did the same. I created many great free plugins which lots of bloggers spread around. That’s like giving something to all those bloggers to write about and being the news.

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Andrew: What are some realistic long-term and short-term goals for generating traffic?

Pawan: For short-term goal, I suggest:

i) Comment posting to other blogs/forums

ii) Gathering audiences via twitter and Facebook

iii) Ask your targeted friends to visit your blog and spread the word around

iv) Write great content which can be the news.

For long-term goal, I suggest:

i) Make the sales/monetization process so strong that you can start buying the traffic

ii) Make your blog stand high in the search engines for the popular search term of your blog.

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Andrew: I know you’re a big believer in affiliate marketing, but can anyone do this, and if so how?

Pawan: The easiest way is to write a review about the product which you really believe in. That’s the easiest way for starting out. For long term, I suggest to build a strong email list to whom you can send content as well as promote the products periodically.

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Andrew: What tools/resources would you say are essential to making an income on-line or making us more effective on-line?

Pawan: There are many tools a user can use for this purpose. It would have been easier for me to answer if it was for some specific purpose. However some of the tools I use for being effective are:

Metapad – A great replacement for windows notepad

Xplorer2 - An excellent file manager

Achieve Planner – Keeping track of all the projects and tasks

ClipMate – Easily manage copy and paste.

Direct Access – For speedily typing frequently used phrases, paragraphs and canned emails.

Evernote – For storing all the notes in one easily accessible place.

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Andrew: What do you see as the next big trend in the on-line world?

Pawan: I think the “word of mouth” will be more and more strong in the coming days. Many people these days ask for recommendation in their Twitter / Facebook instead of searching on Google. People these days are using social media the way they used to use their cell phone in the past. Using social media and connecting people via those things will be second nature for most of the people and the number will keep on increasing in the coming months.

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Andrew: What freebies can you offer to our listeners today?

Pawan: MaxBlogPress Optin Form Adder

I see most bloggers don’t build email subscribers at all. I think it’s one of the important things a blogger must do. The “MaxBlogPress Optin Form Adder” will help a user to easily place an optin form in their wordpress blog.
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Andrew: What special offer can you make for our listeners?

Pawan: The readers of this blog post can get “MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate” at $30 discount.

Below is the special discount link:

http://www.mbpninjaaffiliate.com/discount.php?id=ZV22giV5tOuL

This discount will automatically expire on: 9th March 2010

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Andrew: Tell us a little about some of your products?

Pawan: I think instead of me telling about the products, it’s better to visit the products’ home page to learn about all the details of the products.

MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate – Links to the $30 off site

$365K Blog Traffic Formula – proven tactics to get more traffic

WordPress Wizard 2.0 – How to set up a profitable blog

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Andrew: What’s the first thing you recommend our readers do after reading this interview?

Pawan: Don’t go reading another blog post or surf around the internet. That won’t help you much. Take action! and I repeat… Take action. That’s what will make the difference.

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Andrew: Thanks again, Pawan for the interview. I really appreciate it.

Pawan: I hope some of your readers benefit from it.

What’s your view? Do you use Pawan’s approach of giving something away? Share your views in the comment below.

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