Featured Interviews: Harsh Agarwal from ShoutMeLoud.com
Dear readers, Today I am very excited to share Orangecopper’s Latest interview with the Harsh Agarwal – Founder & Blogger at ShoutMeLoud.com. He is popular for his high voltage notwork of blogs that helped him quit his Job and excel in his Internet Ventures. I recommend you all to check out his blog as there is loads of great information for new and seasoned bloggers. Thank you Harsh for spending time for our readers.
Please introduce yourself to our readers – Could you describe what are the main sources of your blogging income as a pro blogger?
Answer: Hi Josh first of all thanks for the interview and it’s a pleasure to write something for your awesome readers. Getting back to questions: I’m Harsh Agrawal, a 24 year old Pro blogger from India. I have been blogging professionally from last 2 years and from one blog now we have more than 6 blogs and 3 service portals. You can see my work at ShoutMeLoud, CallingallGeeks and ThesisCustomizationService.
My blogging income source are Google Adsense, BuySellAds, Affiliate marketing and various WordPress services. I make more than $8000/month from different sources via Blogging.
As a blogger, it’s difficult to keep yourself pumped up! What motivates you for Blogging?
Answer: I will call it writer’s block situation and specially I have a team of 5 people, so by the end of the day I get exhausted and hard to find write anything new. Though it;’s always the expectations which keeps me running and writing better. People write a blog for money, fame, and out of interest. For me it’s a combination of all three. I started blogging out of personal interest and later on money and fame followed.. And nothing could be better than if your full time job is something what you love
Tell us about your main project, ShoutmeLoud.com? And why the interesting name?
Answer: ShoutMeLoud is my first blog which I have created and this is the biggest blog which I have at this moment. While selecting the domain name foe my first blog, I wanted to go for something which I can brand easily and which people can remember. I have no idea how this name came into my mind, but one day while traveling, this name came up and now it’s a brand for me. :
Is there a possibility to start a blog today and find success? What would be your advice to a beginner?
Answer: Do your homework first.. Don’t fall for make money online gimmic. Blogging is not everyone job. You have to be a learner to become a blogger. If you are some one who wish to start a blog or who has started blogging, I would recommend to follow this cycle:
- Start writing (Improve and improve)
- Learn SEO ( Read and implement)
- Learn WordPress (Starts with WordPress.com)
- Start making money (Starts with Adsense)
- Learn about Blogging tools ( Started with Windows live writer)
- More over set a business plan for model. You have to be sure about your goal. Blog for yourself and after that Blog for people. Follow simple rule of KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid).
If you had to zero down to one good reason for your success, what would be it?
Answer: Sharing everything which I learn.
People often says most of pro blogger doesn’t share their secrets but I believe most of the pro blogger does. Though you have to follow them closely. From the day1 of my blogging journey, I shared each and everything I have learned. That includes how I make money and how I promote myself in social media sites.
If you wish to stand ahead of the crowd, you need to think beyond everyone. Share something which people would like to read, something which one can learn from his own experience.
That’s it and if you are a good writer ( I’m not one yet), people will certainly love your and your blog.
If you can go back and correct few mistakes from the day you started blogging, what would that be?
Answer: I wish if I can. There are many mistakes which I have done so far and possibly there is no way I can correct them now, but I can improve myself by learning from those mistakes. Some of them are:
- Never thought SEO is that important
- Copied pasted article ( I did it at initial days of blogging but learned I’m taking the shorcut way of distruction) . I also made an official aoplogy page for the same later on.
- My language ( English is not my first language and that’s why I made lot of mistakes in grammar which you can still see by browsing my old posts). Later on I worked on it and till now I’m learning something new every day.
- Social life: At one point of time I almost dumped my social life for my online life and I believe it was a disaster for me. Now I maintain a balance between social life and my work.
We see your blog is using thesis theme, could you kindly explain is the thesis theme hyped or does that really hit the right button in optimizing your blog for SEO, let us know your experience using thesis theme?
Answer: Ahh.. I would say this is my fav question reason being I have started using Thesis theme really late and I have seen the real benefit of Thesis when I started using it. Initially even I thought Thesis is overhyped WordPress theme but this theme deserves all the hype and promotion. Though Affiliate string is one of the reason for over promotion.
I started my WordPress journey with Arthemia theme as it was plug and play theme along with great support forum but seriusly it’s an outdated theme. Later on I keep changing theme and this was one big mistake. As most of the theme played with the way my site was indexed in Google and later on I started using Thesis. Within a month my boucne rate landed to 30% and my traffic doubled. Oh Yes, I migrated all my All in ONE settings to Thesis Theme SEO settings. And this theme is something which can be used by any newbie too. Though for customization you need to have basic knowledge of CSS. Later on all my blogs are using Thesis theme and you can see a list of all my blogs and client blogs which are on Thesis here.
We see you are one of the few big Indian names in the blogging scene who has really impressive stats! Ive seen even though many claim to be a ProBlogger not many really are. How does it feel living a Real ProBlogger’s life? (Referring to quitting your day job and living the internet life style)
Answer: I feel happy and sometime proud to be a problogger. Reason being it’s not something which is common in India. I hardly know two three pro bloggers from India and one of them which I admire the most is Amit agarwal from Labnol.org.
I love this life of problogger for many reasons:
I’m my own boss
I live an online life
I can work from any part of the world
And I have to ask most common question to every1 I met: What is blogging ? and how do I make money via Blogging.
Though it doesn’t mean this work is as easy as I put a smiley above. In blogging you have to be super active to be the first one to break the news, first one to bring a tutorials and so on. But by the end of the day, I feel happy for doing something which I really enjoy.
I can see you run seasonal contests on your blog, do they really do the magic, please share your opinion on them.
Answer: Contest are great way to promote your brand and blog. In December 2010 We have completed 2nd anniversary of ShoutMeloud and I run couple of contest to promote my Facebook fan pages for different blogs. Guess what, it worked like charm and more over I hardly spent anything for running such contest.
You can find a detailed overview of how I run contest worth $500 on my blog without spending anything.
Any future plans you would like to share to our readers?
Answer: My only dream so far is bringing blogging as full time profession in India and taking blogging to next level in this country. India is a country of opportunity and I have seen many people who have talent, dreams but could not start with anything because of lack of a platform. So now I’m planning to achieve my dream with my company which is current under registration.
Instead of working as an individual, soon I will be working under a brand name and as a company.
Thanks for your time to read this interview and I would love to connect with you on Twitter @denharsh.
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About Joshu Thomas
I enjoy blogging about webmaster related stuff and technology. Xtras - I Design, Develop, Blog and Support the Open Source. Passions: I Love Music, Photography, Design, Development, Cycling, Travelling.
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49 Responses to “Featured Interviews: Harsh Agarwal from ShoutMeLoud.com”
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+Joshu Thomas
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Founder of OrangeCopper Webmaster Networks, Writes for our latest Launch of 2011 - HippieMonk Tech & LifeStyle Blog!
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Founder of OrangeCopper Webmaster Networks, Writes for our latest Launch of 2011 - HippieMonk Tech & LifeStyle Blog!
Wow that’s a great interview. Again learned a lot from you Harsh. Thanks for telling about yourself
Thanks Vivek for your comment
Hi Harsh,
Nice to know more about your blog. This Interview has been really inspiring and informative too.
Thanks again
Stacey
Thanks Stacey….Will love to see your comments on my blog sometime
Amazing Interview! Good to know about ShoutMeLoud. I am also thinking of migrating to Thesis. It seems to be a nice frame work. Any idea if the license could be re-used on my other websites with the one i purchase?
Thx
Bob
Hey Bob
if you are panning to use Thesis on Multiple websites, I would suggest for for Developer license..
If you wish to use it on just 2 sites, you can buy single user license..
Regards
Harsh
Nice one Josh! cool interview.
Anil
Hey Harsh!
Wishing you all the success..8000 USD is like wow! hope your hardwork takes you to places!!
Aaron
Thanks Aaron
very happy to read this interview with harsh. all the best to sml
Thanks Anish
Harsh is definitely one of the top blogger of India. I know people always talk about SML but I have to admit that his CAG blog is doing really good.
His technology blog is something you should look forward in 2011.
Thanks Ricky and yes CAG has seen lots of improvement in last couple of months..
From mere 30K, we have reached to 2 lack Pv in 5 months…which is an achievement for us..
hey awesome interview Harsh.Keep it up.
Awesome interview, I love the answering and explaination style of Harsh Aggarwal. Great Job
Nice interview mate
Choosing blogging as a career objective is not so easy but Harsh did that and become an ICON for upcoming pro blogger 
Great Interview Harsh..
Good Going Ahead, keep doing good job Harsh.
Hello Josh,
This is unique interview which I have ever seen. Most of the interviews are having same questions, but here it’s really unique.
BTW, Best of luck, Harsh.
Wish me back bro
Thanks
Thanks Sharat and Best of luck to you for your venture
i thnk dis the 3rd interview of urs i hav read..u r very transparent..hav to learn many things from u..and ur dream is really ultimate..hope in near future ur dream wil be fulfilled..
nice interview, given good tips,
seems given detailed ans
Hey! amazing one. Harsh, A fully dedicated blogger, that made him unique.
Thanks Josh for sharing us such a nice interview.
Jimmy & Others,
Thanks for the Kind words. I back you on your opinion on Harsh! Glad all loved the interview.
Thx again
Cheers, Josh
A very Good interview, Harsh is a model blogger and his success story is always inspirational.I have been following for last one year.
Great Interview mate. i wish that all the Dream of Harsh come true one day.
Wow…
Each interview of yours gets me to know more and more about you. It inspires me to work harder.
May you achieve lot more success and become the inspiration and ideal for many others.
Another awesome and inspiring interview Harsh…
You have always been the inspiration of so many newbies
I have read many interviews of harsh agarwal. This one of the best one from him.
Great! Thanks for the kind words!
cheers
Josh
he is heck of an inspiration…i read his blog daily
Harsh good one, no matter you are working hard i know that.
Very much inspired! Great interview..
Oh, an Indian interviewing an Indian, of course. How did I miss that. I wish you were interviewed by an American. We would have laughed our asses off! Big time.
Okay Harsh whatever, I read your article on about Tata Sky or some crap, and trust me I have read better. You have no talent with writing, so I don’t think you can call yourself a writer. The ability to write well is an essential part of writing up articles. If you’ve got knowledge about the field but do not know how to put it through, I recommend you to hire writers and get the job done, because you clearly have no talent for writing. It’s just not your cup of tea mate, maybe you could be a manager. And looking at the type of articles you write, it is very likely that your target audience are Indians. So for most of them, you’re the best they’ve seen. But for me you’re not. I hail from Tasmania, Australia. And even though English is the language we speak, there is a certain level of understanding that one needs to have about the language in order to succeed or excel. If not you’re just one of the millions and millions of people who write just for the sake of making money. And to be honest that seems to be the case to me.
I’ve worked with Darren Rowse by the way. Good Day. Hope you take these words seriously.
Hey Michael,
I would not go ahead and delete your comment simply because, it is your personal opinion and I respect everyone’s view point.
Just a thought: Imagine yourself in the shoes of a webmaster who has his blog broken, code messed up and losing huge amount of potential traffic to his website (and money).
Would you look for a Grammar and Punctuation or simply someone who can help you to get the website back up and running? As long as the information on his blog is helping thousands of people learn and earn, I personally don’t feel its a very big deal!
PS: I acknowledge the fact that good writing is one of the key factors to successful blogging, but I would appreciate if you give a thought about framing your opinions in a better way.
Thanks and regards
Josh
Interview of one of the best Indian Blogger, Harsh. Keep It Simple Stupid. Awesome interview, i lik’d this part “If you can go back and correct few mistakes from the day you started blogging, what would that be?”
Good job Joshu
Thanks Vishnu. Am glad you liked the interview.
Please correct the spelling mistake. “I also made an official ‘aoplogy’ page for the same later on”. Harsh, thanks for sharing your experience. I could be Subscribe to OC Blog! if this mistake not done….ohh! what i said.
Harsh is the best blogger from India and great and inspiring interview.
Harsh, Good luck on your future plans
Nice! Article and this would be helpful for newbies bloggers to learn how they can turn their blogging in to a profitable venture?
Simply great, nice thinking harsh. I too facing lot of problems with my language but hope i will learn,
You are one hell of a guy Harsh
Those were some really honest answers. I hope they can inspire other Indians like me.
People need to come out of the taboo that a blogging is a real profession.
Well the success that Harsh enjoys today is purely because of the amount of hard work he has put in into his blogs. Working 14-16 hours a day and not slacking off in between is surely a difficult thing to do.
Nice! Article Great interview..
Nice. I am a new blogger and making same mistakes as you did. Rectifying slowly. Learnt a lot from u. Thx Harsh.
Harsh is really an inspiration to all noobs including me. Great going man. you rocks.
Great personality………!!