Mudassir Ahmed Interview: Founder of BloggingExplained | 10 Tips to get Affiliate Sales | BRIS-7

Hey, Welcome to the 7th interview in BloggingRay Interview Series (BRIS).

Today, I am interviewing Mudassir Ahmed from BloggingExplained.

You can find some amazing blogging tips and strategies in this interview.

Mudassir also shared 10 tips to get the affiliate sales.

Interview of Mudassir Ahmed from BloggingExplained

Without any further delay let’s jump into the interview.

Q1. Hey Mudassir, Can you introduce yourself to my community?

Thanks for having me here, Venkat.

Hey everyone, my name is Mudassir. I run a blogging tips blog called Blogging Explained.

I share the little knowledge I have on blogging after running many trial and errors behind the scenes.

Q2. Can you share your educational background?

After Engineering, I turned to M.B.A, and gradually the world of business won me over.

Q3. Who inspired you to start blogging?

Harsh Agrawal of ShoutMeLoud.

Shraddha Sharma of YourStory.

And then many bloggers inspired me along the way!

Q4. What are the reasons behind the selection of Blogging Explained name?

I wanted my blog name to be memorable and informative, just like every blogger out there.

So I’d brainstorm the names affiliated with blogging, and then a good friend of mine, Folajomi Ballo, suggested Blogging Explained.

Without wasting a moment, I grabbed it since I felt the connection, and it implies to new visitors what my blog is about.

Q5.  What is your daily routine? Can you share some productivity tips?

I usually wake up around 8 A.M (I’m not a morning person), and I begin the day with a glass of water.

By 10 A.M, I will reach my work desk and tackle my to-do list for the day. The trait helps to be more accountable.

I have a small business online and invest in stocks along with my blog, so I typically manage all the gigs in-parallel.

I run through Twitter and engage with people. Check Ahrefs, SEMrush, and G.A to measure the results.

Drop one or two comments on others’ blogs and share them on Twitter.

I always carry a notepad to note down the ideas that strike my mind anytime. I pull the important one from my draft and start working or update old content.

My blogging schedule changes from time to time but, primarily I work on fixing fluff writing (I always find some when I revisit), tweaking on-page SEO elements for better rankings, finding link opportunities, and building connections.

The most productive time to write or take blog decisions is the night. However, I try to leave my laptop and mobile in another room when I’m at the dinner table or having family time.

Q6. Which hosting do you recommend for beginners?

Anything that does the job; The host that offers max resources possible for speed and performance, responds on time when you need help, and delights you with affordable plans.

A few names I’d take are Namecheap, Bluehost, A2 Hosting, GreenGeeks, HostPapa, and Godaddy.

Q7. What are your thoughts on Blogging vs. YouTube?

I’m not aware of YouTube’s algorithm.

But if I want to break it down, it comes down to understanding which one you are more passionate about and what’s best for you and your audience.

If you were good at writing or other skill and want to offer it as a service, then a blog is a great way to get started.

If you are a hairstylist or cosmetologist and want to demonstrate tutorials, you can prefer YouTube alongside or without a blog.

Q8. Why you rebranded your blog? What challenges did you face with the old domain?

My first domain URL was nettyfeed.com which is now being redirected to my current one, bloggingexplained.com.

After blogging on Nettyfeed for two years, I felt no connection with it; neither was it informative nor sounded great. So I rebranded.

Q9. Can you share some email marketing tips?

• Send short and educative emails.
• Segment your email list, be relevant and valuable. For example: Don’t send an “SEO – the beginners’ guide” email when the user signed up for “Advanced link building methods.”
• Nurture engagement by asking relevant questions or feedback.
• Set automation (new blog posts, welcome email, etc.)
• Don’t always shoot promotional stuff.
• Create a compelling subject for better results.
• Add one Image if necessary.
• Test and measure the results.
• Offer option to opt-out.

Q10. What are your Black Friday promotion strategies?

I’m still a beginner when it comes to creating content for Black Friday deals.

Till now, I’d make a bunch of articles related to Black Friday offers (obviously, about the products which I didn’t use), promote them and then wait for affiliate sales.

But it didn’t work for me.

So now I decided to focus on one or two Black Friday deals, create great content around them, build relevant backlinks, and promote them.

Q11. How to promote affiliate products on Facebook?

Target relevant audiences, create engaging and informative content for them.

One always can’t sell affiliate products on any social platform. The key is to make yourself valuable to your audience, which eventually drive affiliate sales.

The best way to get started is by creating a Facebook group.

Here’s an excellent addition to my point – 6 Facebook rules of Marketing for bloggers.

Q12. What are your thoughts on my blog Blogging Ray? Can you share some suggestions?

It’s a pleasure knowing you and connecting with you, and I like your blog name and how you share the strategies in easy-to-understand language.

For now, keep exploring and doing what you’re doing.

Q13. Can you share some tips to get affiliate sales?

• First off, create educative content (don’t stuff with affiliate banners and links).
• Identify your top-performing content using Google Analytics and find the spot to generate more sales (Testing is the key).
• More than 90% of people read product reviews before they purchase a product. So write honestly and accurately.
• If you’re a beginner, don’t randomly jump on a bunch of affiliate programs. Focus on one product and give your best. Just like I’m promoting Bluehost.
• Interlink your product review article from other posts.
• Build as many as quality backlinks to your product reviews.
• Cloak your affiliate links with a free plugin like Thirsty Affiliates.
• Leverage social media like Twitter, Facebook Groups, and Quora to promote your product reviews.
• Create your freebie like an eBook, course a cheat sheet to promote by adding your affiliate product to it.
• Create YouTube video tutorials to show people exactly how the product works.

Q14. Can you share some tips to network with other bloggers?

• Try to mention another blogger in a meaningful context whenever you write a new post and tell them you’ve linked to their post.
• Interview other bloggers who are doing great from your or different niches.
• Create expert roundups; it helps build long-term relationships.
• Allow comments on your blog.
• Leave comments on others’ blogs. It’s a great way to get noticed.
• Share others’ content on Twitter or Facebook and tag them.
• Collaborate in any way possible.

Q15. Google Adsense vs. Affiliate Marketing. What are your thoughts on it?

I’d prefer Affiliate marketing but, I don’t overlook the monetization power of Adsense.

To make decent money out of Adsense, your niche must have high CPC keywords, and you should be driving loads of organic traffic from them.

Besides, loading your website with too many Ads can slow it down if you don’t focus on speed optimization.

With Affiliate marketing, you don’t need thousands of visitors a day to make a good amount of money.

You just need to drive the relevant audience and convince them to click your affiliate link and buy. It’s not as easy as it sounds but all worth it.

So my vote goes to Affiliate marketing.

Q16. You are producing articles regularly. What are the tips for creating content like you?

You must know the needs of your audience well. What do they want?

You can quickly fill your content calendar and be consistent with publishing if you can figure out that.

Be on forums like Quora to understand what kind of questions your audiences have in their mind.

Leverage tools like SEMrush, AnswerThePublic, etc., to get some ideas that help your readers.

Explore your competitors and try to fill the gaps they’re missing.

Q17. Can you share some tips to get brand deals?

• Build your portfolio page with your blog stats, accomplishments, other brands you’ve worked with (if any), highlight your USP and the value you can bring to them.
• Craft a precise pitch and reach out to the brands from your niche. Start from small!
• Leverage social media strategy and increase your followers to have more reach and opportunities to get noticed by the brands.
• Over time, try to improve your blog stats such as traffic, engagement rate, D.A, P.A; so brands can develop trust and collaborate with you.
• Whether you’re a small creator or have less portfolio to present, you can show brands what value you can offer in a specific budget.

And finally, set rates but be ready to be negotiable!

Q18. How much time does it take you to make the first affiliate sale from your blog? What strategies did you follow to generate the first sale?

It took two years to make my first affiliate sale.

As a newcomer, I overlooked (or should I say I was unaware of?) fundamentals like narrowing down the niche, creating quality content, backlinks, SEO, and building community.

It took me a long time to realize my blogging mistakes and fix them.

To make your blog successful with consistent affiliate sales, you mainly need to focus on three critical areas along with offering value:

1. Technical SEO: Optimizing robots.txt for crawling and indexing, sitemap, site architecture, fixing thin content, SSL, website speed, mobile responsiveness, etc.
2. On-page: Insightful content with keywords, compelling SEO title, URL structure, headlines (h1, h2, h3), Image SEO, CTA’s.
3. Authority backlinks.

And finally, take full-action responsibility to position your content well for competitive and popular keyword searches.

Q19. Hey Mudassir Ahmed, Where to contact you?

My blog address is www.bloggingexplained.com.

My Twitter handle is ‘Mudassir9s.’ My email ID is bloggingexplained@gmail.com

Also Read

• Anthony Gaenzle Interview
• Ryan Biddulph Interview
• Bishnu Mahali Interview

Conclusion

I hope this interview of Mudassir Ahmed from BloggingExplained will help you.

If you have questions, let us know in the comments.

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Thank you.