Interview with Santanu Debnath – Making Thousands of Dollar As A Part-Time Blogger

Hello Bloggers!

Welcome to Our Bloggers Interview series, This is the first ever interview of the Blogging QnA Interview Series.

I am starting this series with a pro Blogger.

An Interview with Santanu Debnath, one of my favourite blogger, and founder of BloggingJoy.com.

On Bloggingjoy.com he shares how to start a blog, tips, and tricks, SEO, Keywords, themes & plugins, and making money online through blogging.

I am Glad to have him on my blog.

Are you excited to gather some blogging information from a pro blogger?

I know you are!

So, without wasting time, let’s dig into this awesome interview of Santanu.

NOTE – Benefits of reading this Interview

1. How to earn Passive Income From Blogging
2. Adsense Vs Affiliate Marketing. Which one is Better
3. Success Mantra of Blogging by a Pro Blogger
4. how to manage time for blogging
5. Success Mantra of Affiliate Marketing
6. How to Get Initial Traffic to New Site
7. Best Off-Page Seo Activities to Follow
 8. Future of Blogging and many more

So read this interview till the end to know all the blogging tips from a pro blogger.

Interview with Santanu Debnath – Founder of BloggingJoy.com

Q1. Hi Santanu, welcome to BloggingQnA, Can you please introduce yourself to our audience?

Thanks a lot, Mangesh for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts in front of your audience. It’s a huge honour for me.

Hello BloggingQnA readers, I am Santanu Debnath, a software engineer by profession, and a blogger by passion. Besides my full-time job, I have been pursuing blogging for the last 10+ years.

Initially, I got into blogging for some other purpose but gradually discovered my passion & love for it. And, that’s the main reason I have started my blog BloggingJOY.com to share all my knowledge, engage with other bloggers and grow as a community.

In fact, I have started a Facebook Group, The Bloggers’ Team where more than 20k+ Bloggers are connected with each other.

One thing I have realized after so many years in blogging, is that we can’t grow alone. So I believe in ‘Let’s Grow Together’ philosophy and hope you will also agree with me.

Besides this blog, I have a few other blogs in different niches.

One of them I want to mention here because that is the latest blog I have started after watching a series of videos shared on Mangesh’s BloggingQNA YouTube Channel.

It’s a Quote & Image website, MeaningfulQuotes.net. Thanks a lot, brother for educating people to do something better in blogging.


Q2. As you already told in your other interviews how you came into blogging? Now my question is what were your main obstacles in the beginning?

There were multiple challenges when I started blogging.

In fact, that time was totally different compared to now. At that time, blogging was simply a hobby. In fact, people didn’t know what is blogging.

But right now, people know that blogging is a good way to create an income source or even build a career.

But few of the common things that I can observe now also are:-

  • Not considering blogging seriously: Even though people know that the potential of blogging in 2021, they still think that things will change in a few days after starting a blog. 
  • Blogging takes time: There are multiple things to understand and learn before you get some success in blogging. Blogging is not just creating a website and start writing content. You have to be patient enough and invest a lot of time in learning.
  • Not investing in blogging: Well, investment doesn’t always mean you have to spend money. I have shared a detailed guide on this topic and explained the importance of investment in blogging.

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Note From Mangesh Kumar Bhardwaj

Investment is not all about investing money. It is also about the investment of your time and other things too. A must read post for every newbie and beginner in blogging…

Is Investing In Blogging Worth? (Cost of Running a Blog in 2020 + Types of Investments)

Loved this Post, Must read for Newbies 🙂 🙂

Also Check Out: – interview with Sumit Sao – Tips to be A successful Blogger


Q3. After how much time you get your first earning from blogging and what was the actual amount you received. if you don’t mind telling our readers?

When I discovered the internet back in 2005, I spent 100% time watching movies, downloading game walkthroughs, etc.

In 2007, I came to know about Make Money Online after getting an email about that. It was some paid-to-click jobs.

At that time, I started exploring all such possibilities and tried many such online money-making schemes.

But they all failed as the majority of them were scams. By 2009-10, I got into blogging and started our first blog on the recipe niche. At that time, I had a Google AdSense account, but I had no idea what to do with that, how to grow the blog, or how to get traffic.

Also Read:- Google Adsense Mistakes to Avoid to Make More Money

I think after 7-8 months time, I got my first AdSense payment of $100 from that blog.

I took blogging seriously from 2012 when I migrated my first blog MyDailyLifeTips.com to WordPress.

Must Read:- Blogger Vs WordPress. Which one is Better and Why?

At that time I spent a good amount of money on web hosting, premium WordPress themes & plugins.

But now, you don’t have to wait till that time. As you already know that blogging can generate good income. Just plan your blog as per the monetization technique (Google AdSense, Amazon Affiliate, Sponsored post, etc) and start growing your blog.

Yes, it’s that simple, however, it took me more than 5 years to realize & execute that plan.

Q4. As we all know that you are a part-time blogger so please tell our readers about your Job and how you manage to blog with the job?

Well, as I said I am a software engineer by profession and am quite happy with my job. Besides the job, I spend most of the time with my family & blog.

Personally, I am a quiet guy who generally loves to spend time at home.

Whatever free time I get after job & family responsibilities, I spend them on blogging and with my Facebook Group people.

Also Read: Digital Marketing Quotes For Bloggers

I don’t watch TV (except Amazon Prime, Netflix or HotStar occasionally) or go out with friends frequently. And that’s why I get a good amount of time to spend on blogging.

The biggest reason behind this is my family. I got my best friend as my life partner and she is a blogger too. Although she is not quite active now, she is continuously supporting me to run different blogs.

Recently I have shared our Black Friday Income report where we both made $7,200 in just 4 days. And we both share similar interests in almost everything, yes everything and that always helps us to live a content life.

I believe, if you are satisfied with your work & life, you will always get plenty of time to do a lot of things in life. Of course, you have to be lucky enough to get a life partner like me. 🙂


Q5. Have you ever thought about taking blogging full time? Please share your opinion.

Well, this is like an attraction that I want to do. But I don’t think it’s required actually. As I can manage my blogging besides my job it’s okay to do both.

In fact, I believe both actually complement each other and help me to manage both lives.

Sometimes, I feel very irritated and boring when I do non-stop blogging for 3-4 days during the holidays. And my 5 days a week job routine always encourages me to do blogging as I get a limited amount of time. And, that’s how I become more productive as well.

Another point is that your current stage in life is also a big factor. E.g. these days I can see many beginners leave their jobs after working for 3-4 years and taking up blogging as a full-time profession. It is good as after working 3-4 years, the money you will get as salary is almost nothing compared to blogging income.

But that is not the story of a person with a successful career with 14+ years of experience. I believe in doing both at the same time. And anyway, after a few years, my professional life will come to an end, and then I will be able to pursue blogging full-time till I die.

Until and unless I leave my JOB, I don’t think I will think about this topic.


Q6. I personally believe that hard work and Patience are the success path for blogging. What do you think about it and, What are your saying to newbies who are just struggling in Blogging?

Blogging is like any other profession or career only. And the mantra of getting success is the same in every field. You have to learn more, adapt to new changes, accept the failures, and have enough patience to reach the end.

There is no shortcut to success. Accidental success can happen, but you can not be on that list of successful people for long if you don’t show your hard work, dedication, passion, and love for your work.


Q7. What was the main motive behind starting BloggingJOY and what is its main revenue source?

As I have mentioned, my main intention of BloggingJOY is to create a blog where every blogger will find useful information with some real time experiences and stories.

There is a plenty of information available on the internet, but still, I am trying to create a place where everyone can find some simple yet effective articles, easy to guides.

Besides that, I am also helping people to take decisions on web hosting, premium themes, blogging tools to create a quality website.

The major revenue source is through affiliate marketing as I am promoting many good products.


Q8. Have You used Google Adsense in any of your blogs for Earning? If yes, please share what is the potential of Google Adsense in terms of Earning Money?

Yes, I made a good amount of money in the early days of blogging through Google AdSense only. I still remember it was around $500-$600/ month from my personal finance blog.

But after 2015, when I discovered the potential of affiliate marketing, I didn’t invest much in Google AdSense. The problem with AdSense is that it needs a good amount of traffic and that is from high CPC countries.

AdSense has a huge potential, but you have to build a website that can attract a good amount of traffic. My interest is rather more on affiliate marketing and that’s the reason I am not able to give time to work on AdSense focused websites.


Q9. Which is Best Google Adsense or Affiliate Marketing and Why?

As I said, there is nothing like that. Both are best if you know how they work and where your interest is.

Of course, with low traffic also you can earn good money with affiliate marketing, but that doesn’t mean that affiliate marketing is easy. It’s very tough as the majority of internet marketers are your competitors.

At the same time, for Google AdSense, you have to create a lot of content with a good reader base to bring a lot of traffic.

Just take an example of any news website you will understand how difficult it is to publish so much content every day. Again, if you find that easy then you can make good money with AdSense.


Q10. Please share some of your success mantra for Affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is not rocket science, but that doesn’t mean it’s very easy either. The major problem with affiliate marketing is that people don’t understand user intent.

It takes time to get into this and until you understand how the user behaves before they end up buying something, you can’t make money from affiliate marketing.

Although I didn’t get huge success in affiliate marketing yet, but I can say one thing that targeting the right keywords to educate and then help them to buy the product will definitely help you to grow in affiliate marketing.


Q11. This is the most asked question: – How we can get initial traffic to our brand new blog? Please share your views with our readers and newbies.

Getting traffic to a new blog means to let other people read your blog content.

Now think about that, why someone will read your article as they might have read that earlier or might be many times on other blogs?

So, if you can do something different while creating content then you will be able to attract people to read your blog post. Other than that, if you are an influencer then also people will follow your tips or content.

Anyway, besides that as a beginner, you can do the following things after publishing a new blog post on your blog. These are the best ways to get initial traffic to your blog:-

  • Share your article on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and make sure to tag some authority people in your niche. That means, while writing an article, make sure to refer to some quality relevant content of authority people in your niche. This is the best way to get noticed by those people and get good exposure. But make sure your article is good enough to get their attention.
  • Answer questions on Quora and refer to your article naturally. For that make sure to answer relevant questions in detail. This way you can get a good amount of traffic easily.
  • Share your blog post on different Facebook groups where people are asking for solutions. Make sure to help people and wherever possible share the link to your article.
  • Blog commenting is another good way to connect with other bloggers and get noticed by people. But for that, you have to write quality blog comments which will add value to the article or will create a discussion about that topic.

Related : 32 Proven Ways for Instant Website Traffic


Q12.  Apart from BloggingJOY what are your other blogs and please share what revenue models you use to monetize them?

I tried to create many blogs in different niches in the last few years. But most of them were not as successful as time is my biggest concern. But still, I am able to give my major time on BloggingJOY and besides that, I have a few other blogs.

I am able to generate income via affiliate marketing, Google Adsense, sponsored posts, etc though those blogs. Though they are not consistent enough, but are good to get a decent amount as a passive income.


Q13.  Do you still believe in profile creation, social bookmarking, blog commenting, and all? What are your favourite off-page activities?

Frankly speaking, I don’t care about the link building myths. In fact, these are my favorite link building techniques and they worked great for me in 2019 as well. But everything depends upon how good is your content and how much competitive are the keywords you are targeting.

However, if you know how to get backlinks from authority websites, then they are always the best ways to do link building.


Q14.  Who inspired you for blogging? Name a few favorite blogs that you follow?

When I started my blogging journey at that time, I remember 2 bloggers who were gradually establishing their footprints for bigger steps. I am talking about Harsh Agarwal of ShoutMeLoud.com & Manish Chauhan of JagoInvestor.com.

I have followed them from the very beginning of their struggle and very happy to see them reach the heights of success in 2019. They inspired me a lot at that time and now also.


Q15.  What do you think is the right time to start a blog?

I think the day you realize you have an interest in blogging and you should share your knowledge in whatever niche, that’s the right time to start a blog. The demand for content will always be there, the format may change with time.

Full Guide: How to Start A blog From Scratch


Q16.  Is blogging dead? Nowadays people prefer video content over text-based content? What are your thoughts about it?

I would say, No. It is a fact that people are preferring to watch videos and watch time is increasing rapidly. That doesn’t mean that Blogging is dead.

You can say that the blogging field has become very competitive now. One has to produce good quality content that people actually love to read.

Content is available in a different format now. E.g. Text-based, Video,Audio, Visual, and more.

In whichever way you can create the best content, go for it.

The trend might suggest you create a video, but if you love to write about a topic then better to share your knowledge through a blog post. But you must learn to convert that into a video also to address the additional audience.


Q17.  What was your biggest mistake in the Blogging journey?

Well, I believe if you don’t do any mistakes you will not be able to learn in life. And the same thing applies to Blogging as well. I made many mistakes in SEO implementation, content writing, and one of my websites got penalized by Google as well.

Not only that, the entire website with 100+ articles got deindexed overnight. But the beauty is that after that I have realized many things that I was not able to realize even after reading many other SEO blogs.

Because whatever other people achieved that are experiences or knowledge that you can definitely learn from.

But whether those things will work exactly the same way for you is not guaranteed. And that’s what I have learned through such mistakes.


Q18.  What are your content promotional strategies?

I generally share content on my Facebook Group, Twitter, and other regular social media sites. As I always try to write content that actually addresses some issues, I get some good shares automatically as well and that’s what is actually beneficial.

Besides that, I also mention my articles while answering questions on Quora. I tried running Facebook Ads for a few, but that is not a regular practice till now. I need to learn a lot and, in the future, will utilize that platform as a key promotional strategy.


Q19.  How do you collect the idea to write on your blog?

Thanks for asking me this question as I have shared a detailed article on this topic. I have shared the typical ways I generally find content for writing my new blog post. I hope your audience would love to watch that video.


Q20.  How much time do you take from searching a blog topic to publishing it on your blog? Please share your complete procedure.

It generally takes a maximum of 1 week. Mostly I target weekends to write articles. After finding the topic, I always spend enough time to collect all the points that I want to cover on that article. All the necessary sources to refer to, pictures to add, etc.

This helps me to prepare the complete article structure and that is the key to write lengthy content covering everything.

After that, I just need to address every single topic and write about them.

Generally, I write articles with a min length of 2000-2500 words. And after publishing them, I also update them and increase the length of the articles by few words slowly.

Content updation is a good way to keep the freshness and get eligible for ranking high on Google search.


Q21.  What are your suggestions for all the newbies out there?

For all newbie bloggers, I just want to say 3 things. 

  • Find out your interest first. If you are coming into the blogging field to only make money, then you will definitely fail in the next 6-9 months. Only people with a deep interest in some topics can survive in blogging and there is no exception to that to date.
  • If you think you have enough passion for blogging or some topic, then you have to create a plan which will actually help other people through your blog. There are millions of blogs out there on the same topic, why people will read your blog? Think about it and create a solid plan keeping in mind that you may need 2-3 years to grow that blog. Yes, blogging needs time & patience and one can’t avoid that path to create a successful blog. If you are not able to create a reader base or followers, then you will not be able to create a successful blog that actually can generate income in the coming days.
  • Networking is the key. Make friends online with other bloggers without any intention. This will help to build a blogging mindset and you will be more focused & motivated to create a good blog gradually.

Q22.  What’s your suggestion for my blog? (If any)

You are doing amazing brother. As I said earlier also, I came to know about your blog after watching a series of videos on Image Website Creation Steps.

The way you are explaining things is so simple and transparent. And that’s how you should be always and deliver valuable content to the people and educate them.

Just keep doing that and feel free to let me know if I can help you in any way. Thanks a lot for giving me this opportunity to be a part of your amazing blog and sharing my thoughts & experiences with your audience.

Best of luck!

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Hi, I'm Mangesh Kumar Bhardwaj, founder of BloggingQnA. A blog that provides authentic information regarding blogging, SEO, affiliate marketing, and how to Earn Money Online with blogging.

24 thoughts on “Interview with Santanu Debnath – Making Thousands of Dollar As A Part-Time Blogger”

  1. Amazing interview mangesh bhai i learned a lot from this interview.
    Specially the answer of off page SEO. I had a lot of myth in my mind but now all are cleared.
    Thanks for providing such wonderful information to us.
    Keep sharing good content.
    Keep rocking brother.

    Reply
  2. Hey

    Amazing one bro.

    Even Santanu Debnath Sir is in my favorite blogger’s list too.

    I feel glad that you started your Interview series, even though I am also planning to start.

    Thanks for sharing

    Reply
  3. This interview is very helpful for me and clear my some doubt about growing my blog in 2020. Thanks for sharing awesome tips. ?

    Reply
  4. Hey Mangesh Kumar Bhardwaj,

    Your Blogging QnA Interview Series is really awesome.

    This article is full of valuable information.

    Thanks for sharing such a great Infos.

    Cheers,
    Keep writing articles like this.

    Reply
  5. Well written post, each and everything complied systematically i think i should learn a lot from this blog , when i start my blog till then i am visiting this website and i learn a lot ,Santanu Debnath is also mine fav in this industries .

    Reply
  6. Two of my favorite creators are in the same post. I loved the interview man. I have learned a lot from Technicaj Ripon and You and the learning process is still on. Keep Inspiring.
    i am your big Fan

    Reply
  7. As always neat and clean article, day by day your writing skills getting improve, which also help me to write some good article. No doubt you have structure all interview question and answer in proper manner. Thank you Mangesh Bhai for this Valuable content.

    Reply
  8. One of the amazing interviews, we gonna learn so much from you mangesh. Thanks for sharing such knowledgeable content

    Reply
  9. Thanks for this interview.
    Through this we know there earning and strategies.
    Thanks ?
    Keep this interview series.
    It’ awesome.

    Reply
  10. Hey Mangesh,
    That’s what we call an insightful interview full of information. I am writing it now but it’s quite significant all the time. As we know that Google is becoming tough day by day on quality content. But it seems your content sticks to the basics of what Google expects from publishers. I hope you are ready for the next Google core update [Core Web Vitals].
    Many wishes for your hard work towards the blogging community and beginners.
    Sandeep

    Reply

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