Interviewing Alex + Janith: Our answers to the list of 50 questions to ask yourself as a blogger

Just over a week ago, Alex pub­lished a post with a series of ques­tions enti­tled “50 Self-Reflecting Ques­tions To Ask Your­self As A Blog­ger”. They were unbe­liev­ably thought out ques­tions and really makes you think about your sta­tus and habits as a blogger.

Any­one who can answer all 50 ques­tions, hon­estly, can def­i­nitely bring out some things they may not have known about them­selves as a blog­ger. It’s a great way to really self reflect on your blog­ging habits — both the good and the bad.

Want to answer them yourself?

At the end of this post, I have included all the sup­plies you need on your blog to answer these. A down­load of the ques­tions in HTML for­mat, and a cool lit­tle image you can include in your post. Try to link back to this post if you choose to answer them on your blog!

Jump down to the downloads.

What a cou­ple great peo­ple said

In the com­ments sec­tion of the post, we’ve had mul­ti­ple peo­ple share their answers to the ques­tions, and we really learned some cool things about our great community.

Some answers taken directly from the com­ments here at Blo­gus­sion. See more in the com­ments sec­tion.

Hon­estly:
13. NO | 14. YES | 43. NO

I would like to see more and more peo­ple, espe­cially the young ones, on web, real­iz­ing the true way, the life is to be lived.

Aravind Jose T.

#3: If I mea­sured suc­cess of my blog by money then I’d have to say it is a grand and glo­ri­ous fail­ure. So it’s good that I don’t! A bit more income would always be nice though!

#10: Well I always reply to com­ments. I don’t think I’m very unusual in that I always check back when I’ve com­mented to see the author’s reply and I read the com­ments and replies of oth­ers (well, not very sin­gle one, but a lot). I guess if I do these things then some other peo­ple do too. And I like the way the com­ments add to the post, and my think­ing devel­ops along with it.

#31: Oh yes!

#34: A lot of me goes into my blog. I keep some things back, but what I write about is very much from the heart.

#43: Not at all. I wish every­one who puts their time, energy and soul into their blogs great suc­cess. For exam­ple, I’m def­i­nitely old enough to be your father but that has no bear­ing at all on how I see your blog and your work. Matu­rity is not really about age!

Ian Peatey

We answered these ques­tions for 3 reasons:

1. It’s a great way for Alex and I to get a lit­tle more per­sonal with our readers.
2. We got inspired by Stu­art Conover, who answered the ques­tions on his blog.
3. It will hope­fully inspire you to answer these ques­tions your­self on your blog and share your blog­ging habits with your read­ers. It’s not as hard as it looks to answer in writ­ing, really!

Don’t worry if you missed the ques­tion post itself because below we have included the ques­tions fol­lowed by our answers unedited.

100 Answers to 50 Questions

1. Is it okay to be hyp­o­crit­i­cal in your articles?

Alex: If it’s for the best, then yes. I occa­sion­ally give out advice that I don’t fol­low on my own blogs, how­ever I keep a fine line between dish­ing out infor­ma­tion I don’t fol­low and infor­ma­tion I don’t agree with.

Janith: To a cer­tain extent; Yes. I’m a strong believer of “prac­tice what you preach” but some­times that’s not the case. On sev­eral occa­sions, I’ve shared my opin­ion on things that I haven’t imple­mented myself, but I was sure of it’s results and benefits.

2. Do you think you owe some­one for com­ment­ing on your blog?

Alex: While I think all com­ments deserve a reply, I don’t think I owe any­thing to my com­men­ta­tors except to pub­lish another arti­cle the next day for them to come back to and com­ment. They com­ment on their own free will, and besides — they get a back­link to their site any­ways since we’re a dofol­low blog!

Janith: Not nec­es­sar­ily, owe some­thing but I am dearly thank­ful. I appre­ci­ate them drop­ping by and leav­ing a com­ment. That’s not to say com­men­ta­tors go unre­warded; we have the Top Com­men­ta­tors and Com­mentLuv enabled for a rea­son

3. Do you define your blog as a suc­cess if you make a lot of money from it and get a lot of com­ments per post?

Alex: My def­i­n­i­tion of a suc­cess­ful blog is hav­ing a blog that you are happy with. For exam­ple, I find Blo­gus­sion suc­cess­ful because I am happy with its progress. There are plenty of dis­cus­sions in the com­ments that get the com­mu­nity going, there is decent traf­fic com­ing our way, and I am run­ning a blog with some­one who I think is cool and trust. I could go on and on, but as long as you are happy with your blog, then I’d say it’s a success.

Janith: To-date; I’ve never blogged for money. Most of my pre­vi­ous sites were launched with mon­e­ti­za­tion a dis­tant dream… but main­te­nance costs soon caught up with them. Mak­ing money off your blog is a wel­comed ben­e­fit by any blog­ger, but I wouldn’t clas­sify its suc­cesses on it. If your happy with how your blog’s pro­gress­ing, and it’s evolv­ing as a com­mu­nity; then it’s suc­cess­ful — on any scale.

4. Are you a con­formist, or an independent?

Alex: I’m not going to lie, I got a lot of ideas for this blog from other blogs! I try to stay as unique as I can, but there have been some things I have done that were not solely my ideas.

Janith: Def­i­nitely Inde­pen­dent. I respect other people’s opin­ions and what­ever makes sense, will inevitably influ­ence my train of thought as well but that’s not to say that my 2cents on a sub­ject is my opin­ion.

5. Is any­thing you write truly a great piece of writ­ing with­out some lies or a lit­tle over exaggeration?

Alex: Def­i­nitely not. With exag­ger­a­tions come opin­ions. A com­pletely fac­tual blog post is kind of lame and bor­ing, and you have to add your opin­ions to make it a good post any­ways. Now, remem­ber the key­word in that ques­tion: “lit­tle”. I try not to go too far when I exaggerate!

Janith: No way, and they are far from a “truly great piece”. I set myself stan­dards and expec­ta­tions on a per arti­cle basis and also on a wider writ­ing scale. They help me pro­duce “wor­thy” con­tent to our beloved read­ers here at Blo­gus­sion, but just like Alex said above ~ opin­ions are usu­ally accom­pa­nied with exag­ger­a­tion. In rel­a­tively small doses, it can really help bring out the true writer in you!

6. Is it bet­ter to get facts from some­one else, or con­duct your own exper­i­ments for results?

Alex: It’s bet­ter to con­duct your exper­i­ments, but I often find myself with­out the time to actu­ally do my own lit­tle exper­i­ments. Some­times I will go on Twit­ter and ask a ques­tion and get a few responses. That’s about it though, I usu­ally get my facts from other sites.

Janith: If you have the time, effort and equip­ment; then con­duct­ing your own exper­i­ments is the best way to go. This way you have a pri­mary source of infor­ma­tion, and don’t need to be depen­dent on some­what biased “facts”. How­ever, at times — we just won’t have the resources to per­form those exper­i­ments. Then I talk to other peo­ple and take in account their exper­i­men­tal results.

7. Is every­thing a “guru” says always the right solu­tion for you?

Alex: Never. You can take their advice, but remem­ber one thing: What­ever they tell you worked for them. It won’t nec­es­sar­ily work for you too. That’s why I think you should take their advice to a cer­tain degree and build off of it for your own solution.

Janith: No-one’s per­fect, no mat­ter how expe­ri­enced, edu­cated and tal­ented you are. Their advice can be very good and heavy-on-purpose, but I’ve real­ized what a guru says is just another opin­ion. Inevitably, they carry a bit more weight than per­haps com­pared to a random.

8. Do you truly think PageR­ank is worthless?

Alex: Nope. I love hav­ing PR on my blog. I just see PR as a lit­tle vir­tual tro­phy that’s telling me I’m doing a good job get­ting back­links. It’s just a sense of accom­plish­ment too. I have never had any­thing higher than a PR3 site, so I don’t see PR as worth­less — but as a moti­va­tion to do bet­ter than PR3.

Janith: No way, it’s one of the most sat­is­fy­ing things to work on as a web­mas­ter. This just goes to show how dom­i­nant Google is, that their sim­ple visual rep can mean so much, to so many. See­ing that green-bar go up a notch; can make my day! It’s more of a self-accomplishment feel­ing than any­thing else, know­ing you are been right­fully rewarded for your hard work.

9. How would you hon­estly feel with a PR0 blog?

Alex: Well, if I went from hav­ing some PR to no PR, I wouldn’t feel good. But if I just started out on the domain, obvi­ously I would have a PR0 blog and would be fine with it. Like I said above, it’s just a com­pe­ti­tion with myself when I think about PageRank.

Janith: Being an opti­mistic, at least have to say it’s bet­ter than PR n/a and that Google has at least noticed you. Not the best feel­ing in the world being assigned an null value, but at least your going in the right direction.

10. Is it worth reply­ing to com­ments on your blog know­ing that most of your replies will never be responded to or even read again?

Alex: Absolutely. It’s all about the com­mu­nity. You have to take the chance any­ways, because by reply­ing to them they could actu­ally come back and see it and want to com­ment again.

Janith: Per­son­ally any­one who replies “YES” to this ques­tion, shouldn’t be a blog­ger. There’s a dif­fer­ence in not reply­ing to com­ments as a whole and not reply­ing to com­ments because “you think, they aren’t going to reply.” That’s one of the stu­pid­est assump­tions an indi­vid­ual can make; in my opinion.

11. Do you think your blog will still exist next month? 2 months? 3?

Alex: Oh, absolutely.

Janith: You can replace the word “months” with “decades” and I would still say; YES!

12. Have you dis­cov­ered that writ­ing your post first will help you write a bet­ter post title?

Alex: Yes, but some­times I have the idea for the title in my head before I write the post. Usu­ally I will mod­ify the title a lit­tle bit as I go through the post though, because I may have writ­ten a key­word some­where in my arti­cle I want to include in my title.

Janith: Never tried it, but doesn’t seem too orga­nized. I like to have a plan and a rough draft, even before I start writ­ing a pur­pose­ful arti­cle. So, with that in mind — this method wouldn’t really work out for me.

13. Are the links you include in your blog posts really meant to help other peo­ple, or are you just try­ing to sell an affil­i­ate prod­uct or drive traf­fic to another website?

Alex: I’m not much of an affil­i­ate mar­keter, but if the link I am includ­ing in my post has value, I will look for an affil­i­ate link and put it in my post. Doesn’t hurt to try and make money while offer­ing advice.

Janith: I wouldn’t link to some­thing, I wouldn’t want to read as a reader (whether or not I wrote it). If the website/web-page is really use­ful, then I wouldn’t be double-minded about link­ing to it.

14. Are you really blog­ging to help oth­ers, or just to make profit?

Alex: I have never made any real money from blog­ging, but I do keep the goal in mind “to cre­ate an awe­some blog” by keep­ing another thought in mind “deliver con­tent that will help my readers”.

Janith: You tell me. Alex and I have worked day in and day out on this blog, try­ing to share our advice, opin­ion and expe­ri­ence with our read­ers. We haven’t even made a cumal­tive triple fig­ure income yet. Despite that, we can hon­estly say that we are extremely happy with how our blog is grow­ing

15. Have you ever thought of not approv­ing a com­ment because it is neg­a­tive know­ing nobody will find out?

Alex: On an old blog way back in 2007, I did that when I got a neg­a­tive com­ment. I started blog­ging in 2007, hon­estly had no clue what I was doing and took offense to it. I don’t do that any­more though.

Janith: Never have I done this, in fact most of my pre­vi­ous blogs had non-moderated com­ments — so, you could say any­thing and it would be auto­mat­i­cally vis­i­ble to the public-eye. How­ever, these days SPAM is just a pain in the @$$!

16. Is it wrong to com­ment on your blog under a dif­fer­ent name?

Alex: No, absolutely not. It can spark dis­cus­sion. Not just between your­self, but with other peo­ple. It’s like what peo­ple do on forums: reg­is­ter another account and post on it then reply to it as an admin or another fake mem­ber. Makes you look busy, and busy can be more appeal­ing to some people.

Janith: I don’t really see the point of that, but if cir­cum­stances raises you to do that; I don’t see what’s wrong with it either. I mean if really talk­ing to your­self is required from you; as the web­mas­ter — go for it! It’s “Do or Die” in the blo­gosh­pere, so what­ever it takes (within rea­son­able boundaries)!

17. Do you plan for the future, or for the present in regards to your blog design?

Alex: I was a bit inex­pe­ri­enced when I first made the design for Blo­gus­sion, and didn’t exactly plan ahead. How­ever, I am work­ing to mod­ify it so it will work for eas­ier cus­tomiza­tion in the future. Def­i­nitely learned my les­son though: code for the future!

Janith: I never plan for the designs! Sim­ply because I’m not a design per­son. Usu­ally, I would just slap an appro­pri­ate theme onto my blogs, but ever since I started work­ing with Alex — he’s been our design-dude! I’m more than happy to let him han­dle all that, because he’s doing an awe­some job!

18. Is it worth email­ing larger blog­gers know­ing they prob­a­bly won’t get back to you or even read your mes­sage because it doesn’t “meet their stan­dards of being replied to”?

Alex: Yes, because I think if I make my email inter­est­ing and valu­able enough then I believe they will get back to me. While the stan­dards for what is “inter­est­ing” are dif­fer­ent between the both of us, I just have to hope that I get some­thing back.

Janith: Absolutely. You will never know if they will reply or not. Quite supris­ingly, I was in doubt the first I emailed a pop­u­lar blog­ger (Dar­ren Rowse from ProBlog­ger) but to my sur­prise, he got back to me with quite an exten­sively detailed reply!

19. Are you ever will­ing to edit an image you use in your blog post to make it look more appeal­ing and eye catching?

Alex: I try to edit every sin­gle image I use. Whether it be adding text, or a bor­der around the image, I will always edit it. It’s the lit­tle details that mat­ter, right?

Janith: I always try to edit my images. I defi­nately am not the most gifted photo-editor in the world, but I try to pro­duce some­thing decent when­ever I can.

20. Are the images you use in your blog posts have a lit­eral or metaphor­i­cal mean­ing that relates to your article?

Alex: I try to do both, I often find myself using images that are more straight­for­ward then they are metaphor­i­cal. The one thing I try to stay away from are those cliche stock pho­tos from sites like iStock­Photo. I can’t stand them! I’d rather sit for 30 min­utes mak­ing my own image than sit­ting there for 5 min­utes get­ting crap for images.

Janith: I’m more of a lit­eral guy, so what­ever images you see me use; prob­a­bly has some­thing directly related to the post’s content.

21. Do you think peo­ple who com­ment on your blog with key­words in their name are worth being replied to, or even acknowl­edged in your blog?

Alex: Like I said, every com­ment is worth being replied to. I can totally relate to peo­ple want­ing to get their sites name out in the open. I’m a small blog­ger myself, I get it. As long as your com­ment has value, I’m alright with your username.

Janith: I don’t really like when vis­i­tors leave a com­ment using key­words, never did. It makes me feel that the whole pur­pose of their com­ment was to attain the free do-follow link. Then again, just like Alex said; if your com­ment has value — I’d be more than happy to award you that link and as well as respect your opinion.

22. Are you a “thinker” and “plan­ner” instead of a “doer”?

Alex: I have been mean­ing to redesign the side­bar for ages, but I have been putting it off for rea­sons I don’t even know. I try to equal the bal­ance of think­ing and doing though (with the excep­tion of the side­bar, haha).

Janith: Look before you leap, right? I like to plan before I set myself to do some­thing. Makes it a lot eas­ier, and I won’t for­get some­thing half way through the process.

23. Have you real­ized from expe­ri­ence, or by see­ing that list posts are not as hard to make as they seem to be?

Alex: They’re not hard to do at all, just time con­sum­ing in some cases. But they are soooooo worth it. The most pop­u­lar and suc­cess­ful posts on Blo­gus­sion are list posts. We found that lists with at least 40+ items in it do best.

Janith: I thought it was easy, till I saw Alex’s 100 lists! I doubt I could’ve made that if I had a 100 years to spare on my hands :O

24. Do you think it is ben­e­fi­cial to make a change to your blog that your read­ers will like, but you may not be fond of?

Alex: This is a tricky one, but I’d have to say it is. I’m a freak with my designs, and I have to approve of every­thing. It will bother me a bit to see some­thing I don’t like — but if it’s for the best of my blog I will find a way to accept it and like it.

Janith: No, I dis­agree with this point. As we all know, it’s impos­si­ble to please every­one. So, a change in your blog will sat­isfy a few peo­ple or per­haps the major­ity, but why should the minor­ity be neglected? Since, we can’t please every­one; I’ve learned to make changes as you want it and con­sider your read­ers’ input.

25. Is there some­thing you have been want­ing to change/add/remove from your blog, but haven’t got­ten around to it?

Alex: Yes, I have been want­ing to redesign the side­bar for a long time. Haven’t done it, but it is all planned into a major update we are going to have here at Blo­gus­sion soon.

Janith: Com­plete our Blog­ging Guide. I’m wait­ing till the school hol­i­days (In 3 weeks) to com­pletely revamp it. How­ever, that’s after Alex and I per­form a major update to Blogussion.com that’s just around the cor­ner

26. Do you value every com­ment you get on your blog the same, regard­less of the con­tent of the comment?

Alex: Yes. I love when peo­ple take the time to com­ment. Even if it’s just a sim­ple “Thank you, nice post”. That’s show­ing appre­ci­a­tion and a com­pli­ment in just 4 words. Def­i­nitely have to appre­ci­ate that!

Janith: x2 on Alex’s com­ment

27. Do you ever leave out infor­ma­tion in your posts and try to let your read­ers fill it in in the com­ments section?

Alex: On occa­sion. Might want to do it here, but I don’t think we get enough com­men­ta­tors to really make addi­tions to our posts like that. Once we get a larger reader base, I will surely do it more every once in a while.

Janith: I’ve tried this once.. didn’t work out too well — never done it ever since.

28. How many times do you think about your blog when you’re away from the computer?

Alex: I do think about it, always think­ing how I can improve it. I try to keep it as far as pos­si­ble from my mind in school, but hey, it pops into my mind every once in a while.

Janith: I’m always think­ing about it. I think i’m devel­op­ing a blogging-complusive-disorder as well

29. Do you avoid post­ing con­tro­versy on your blog because you have none to post, or you’re afraid some­one might dis­agree with you?

Alex: I don’t care if some­one dis­agrees with me because, well, it’s my blog! I don’t post con­tro­versy because I have none to really post. But Janith def­i­nitely did have some controversy.

Janith: I love raises con­tro­vosial top­ics! It really involves the read­ers, and quite frankly I haven’t been doing enough with Blo­gus­sion. I might just go back to my older post­ing habits of such in the forsee­able future…

30. Are you eas­ily discouraged?

Alex: I often will — espe­cially on Twit­ter. I tweet about blog posts, and don’t get retweeted. But oth­ers do, and I don’t like to see that. How­ever, I just have to look on the bright side always. Just as I men­tioned in the arti­cle linked to the question!

Janith: Not really, but every now and then I can’t but help feel dis­cour­aged. When­ever I do ~ I just review our blog’s sta­tis­tics (some­days this can just make the whole prob­lem worse), re-read some of the posts and many appraisals we have received — then I’m straight back on the ball!

31. Do you think that hard work now will pay off later, even after months of hard work and no results?

Alex: That’s what blog­ging is about: Hard work pay­ing off WAY later. If you don’t real­ize that, you are in for a big sur­prise in blogging.

Janith: What you put in is rel­a­tive to what you get out. So, that being my main focus on every­thing I do; it really helps me put in that extra effort with­out too much slugish think­ing. I con­stantly set small “mini-goals” and acheiv­ing them on nearly a weekly basis, helps keep the moti­va­tion going!

32. Do you avoid try­ing to cre­ate rela­tion­ships with other blog­gers because they have a larger blog, or are more well known than you are?

Alex: I used to feel a lit­tle intim­i­dated, but now I just see them as a per­son instead of a bet­ter off blog­ger than I am.

Janith: Nope, I talk to almost every blog­ger I come across and form direct rela­tion­ships. Some work out bet­ter than oth­ers but that has noth­ing to do with blog-popularity and the intim­i­da­tion that comes packed with it.

33. Are you mak­ing the best of your social network/media profiles?

Alex: Absolutely 100% not. I always tell myself I will work on my Digg pro­file, but I never do. How­ever, I am still con­sid­er­ing if Digg is actu­ally worth the trouble.

Janith: No way. I feel like I’m barely using it at all. Espe­cially Twit­ter and social book­mark­ing sites; I’m just out of it recently.

34. Do you ever add per­son­al­ity into your posts (ex: smi­ley faces, jokes, etc.)?

Alex: Yes, I show my per­son­al­ity in just about every post here. Makes things a lit­tle inter­est­ing, and I believe in this quote highly:

As long as it’s fun, no one will notice the con­tent it lacks.

…or some vari­a­tion of that.

Janith: I doubt I’ve ever posted an arti­cle with­out some sort of per­son­al­ity to it. Whether it be a sim­ple smi­ley face or a hum­ble “Thank You” — it has always been apart of my writ­ing style

35. Do you add “friends” on social network/media sites because you want them to read you blog, or because you actu­ally want to become friends with them?

Alex: I try to add peo­ple I at least know or have heard of. I will usu­ally do the whole “you add me I add you back” thing though.

Janith: I try to add them to form rela­tion­ships and build net­works, but it can be quite over­whelm­ing to have to talk to every sin­gle per­son you net­work with. Espe­cially on pro­gram such as Digg — instead we fol­low a sim­ple and “unspo­ken bond” of “you do this for me, I’ll do this for you.” How­ever, pro­grams such as Twit­ter are more socially-orientated and I can con­nect to each per­son individually.

36. Would you feel more accom­plished if you got 20 com­ments from “reg­u­lar” blog­gers, or just 1 com­ment from a highly respected “famous” blogger?

Alex: Def­i­nitely would want 20 com­ments. Hav­ing a celebrity blog­ger come to your site is fan­tas­tic, but you have to remem­ber that they will most likely not come back as often as those 20 other peo­ple would. It’s kind of like that ques­tion you get asked all the time in high school “Would you rather have 1 really close friend, or 20 acquain­tances?”. It goes some­thing like that, but it has the same value nonetheless.

Janith: x2 on the 20 com­ments for pretty much exactly the same rea­son as Alex. Couldn’t have explained it bet­ter myself!

37. Are you being as per­sonal as you can with your read­ers (pic­ture of your­self, small bio, etc.)?

Alex: Yeah, check out About page at Blo­gus­sion. It’s got my ugly mug up there.

Janith: Have you not see our beau­ti­ful faces on our About page? You haven’t?! We are so close to get­ting fea­tured on Perez Hilton’s blog — check it out here.

38. Do you believe com­ments on your blog with more writ­ing should be val­ued and rewarded higher than com­ments with less writing?

Alex: I think all com­ments are equal (except spam, I hope spam­mers die). I don’t exactly believe in reward­ing my com­men­ta­tors except with a new arti­cle posted the next day and a reply to their com­ment however.

Janith: Nope, all com­ments should be treated equally. A 10 word com­ment could be more pur­pose­ful than a whole page of gib­ber­ish. So, quan­tity of the com­ment isn’t reflec­tive upon its quality.

39. Are you more embar­rassed when some­one points out a spelling/grammar mis­take, cor­rects wrong infor­ma­tion, or when some­one strikes down your article?

Alex: Seri­ously, I’d love for some­one to do all 3 of those things in one com­ment. It hasn’t really hap­pened to me ever, and I know just one com­ment say­ing that I did a poor qual­ity job will get me into gear.

Janith: Absolutely not, it shows that they are actu­ally pay­ing atten­tion to what I write.

40. Do you think your posts should be con­cise, or filled with extra information?

Alex: Stay as con­cise as pos­si­ble, but not so much that you don’t get your point across the way you wanted to.

Janith: Con­sis­tency all the way! Another exam­ple of “Qual­ity over Quantity”.

41. Do you make the title of my posts clear so the reader under­stands what the arti­cle is about before jump­ing to the content?

Alex: At times, yes, I do. How­ever, I have been known to raise a few eye­brows with some of the post titles I come up with!

Janith: I wouldn’t have it any other way… I don’t see how you can have it any other way either? Sure you can change the words around a lit­tle bit, but end of the day your not going to write a title about Pet Cats when your con­tent is on Inter­net Marketing.

42. What do you think when a post you put less effort into gets a big­ger response than a post you put more effort into?

Alex: More power to me! if I can get rewarded for doing less work, then I am suc­ceed­ing in my goal for adult hood: Doing lit­tle, get­ting rewarded highly.

Janith: If I could have it my way; I would appre­ci­ate the response be higher for the post with the more work in. Sort of “reward the hard-work” type of solu­tion, but then again — rewarded for doing less work? Doesn’t sound the worst thing in the world

43. Does it bother you to see some­one younger than you have a more suc­cess­ful blog?

Alex: I’m 15, and if I see some­one younger than me doing bet­ter off than me, then I will just be happy as hell for them. I’m doing pretty good by my stan­dards as it is, so see­ing a 13 year old hav­ing more suc­cess is really inspi­ra­tional to me.

Janith: Alex and I both are pretty young in the blo­gos­phere, with myself being 16. I would actu­ally encour­age young blog­gers and try to help them any way I can. Since, I was in their shoes not so long ago (and still am) I know how daunt­ing it can be in the online world. To see some­one younger than me, being more suc­cess­ful than me (on any scale) would be noth­ing short of pure-inspiration.

44. Are you afraid to make an invest­ment in some­thing that could help your blog sub­stan­tially because you’re afraid it won’t work?

Alex: When my money is tight, I will be hes­i­tant. But, when I get more money and can spend some with­out feel­ing too wor­ries then I will absolutely make the investment.

Janith: There’s a dif­fer­ence between throw­ing money away and tak­ing cal­cu­lated risks. If I think I can make an accu­rate judg­ment and I have the resources to spend with­out too much of a worry; I’d sure go for it.

45. Do you add a fresh per­spec­tive to a sub­ject, or just regur­gi­tate it?

Alex: Not to appear as ego­tis­ti­cal here, but I hon­estly think that when I put my mind to it, I can pump out some really great stuff. Take a look at my author page and see if you agree with me.

Janith: I don’t know, but I’m not very fond of throw­ing up. If, after wring an arti­cle, it is even remotely sim­i­lar to a pre­vi­ous post — I would most likely scratch it. How­ever, I do like writ­ing up posts that reminds users of use­ful arti­cles and such.

46. Do you tend to cut out some infor­ma­tion that could be use­ful to some peo­ple because you don’t want your post to be “too long“?

Alex: My posts are usu­ally 800+ words, so absolutely not. Although I should aim to keep some of them shorter, I have to say every­thing on my mind or I will not be happy with my post.

Janith: Never, I rather cut it up into two arti­cles that just exclude information.

47. Look at your blog arti­cles. What is the ratio of pil­lar arti­cles to reg­u­lar articles?

Alex: Out of the 33 posts I have here at Blo­gus­sion, I’d say that I put the most effort into about 13 of them (those being my pil­lar arti­cles). Not too bad, 13 pil­lar arti­cles and 20 reg­u­lar. But I def­i­nitely need to (and have a few planned) make more pil­lar articles!

Janith: Clearly not enough. Out of the 49 arti­cles I’ve writ­ten here, I dou­ble my pil­lars are in excess of dou­ble dig­its! I need to start writ­ing some pil­lars ~ in fact I’m writ­ing up two posts on how to make it big on; Stum­ble­Upon and Digg. I think they will be epic pil­lars and you should look for­ward to

48. Have you kept up with post­ing con­sis­tently over the last month? If not, why?

Alex: At Blo­gus­sion, Janith and I take rota­tions. We always keep up with the rota­tion, and we always can cover for one another. The only days we don’t post are when we make really huge posts (like list posts) because we want them to sit on the top of the blog for a while. But rest assured, we write posts for later when those posts stay at the top of the blog.

Janith: Sta­tis­ti­cally speak­ing; we are actu­ally above a 1post/day ratio. We’ve nearly hit the 90 arti­cles mark with less than 3 months since launch (Febu­rary was not even a full month even). So, we are doing pretty well — but we couldn’t have done it with­out our much appraised guest posters either!

49. Are your blog posts full of infor­ma­tion that will remain rel­e­vant over a long period or time, or for a shorter period of time?

Alex: I try to write con­tent that won’t lose its value, but it’s not always easy (espe­cially when you have a post with a lot of links in it).

Janith: Depends on the topic. Some content/tips/tricks won’t last that long and should be taken advan­tage of imme­di­ately. Then again some posts would be valid in 10 years time; unless we see dras­tic changes across the board of that topic.

50. Are you afraid to ask ques­tions to your read­ers that you don’t know the answer to?

Alex: Nope. When­ever I write about SEO, I make sure to include I am not an expert, and if any­thing I say is wrong to please cor­rect me. It’s a blog where we learn together. Yes, the blog­ger can learn some­thing from the reader, it’s not just a one way kind of thing!

Janith: Absolutely not. Yet again; no-one’s per­fect and in a com­mu­nity of inquiry (such as Blo­gus­sion) we all learn from one another. There has been sev­eral occa­sions that I’ve learned some­thing from a guests’ com­ment and I’ve openly show my appre­ci­a­tion for their advice.

Answer the ques­tions on your blog!

Want to answer these ques­tions on your blog and really open up a lit­tle to your read­ers? You might need these two things:

1. The Questions!

Grab a copy of the 50 ques­tions in HTML for­mat. All you have to do is copy and paste them into your HTML Edi­tor, and add your answers below!

2. A Nice Image!

Let your read­ers know where the idea came from so they can answer them too! Use this neat lit­tle post image Alex cre­ated and add it some­where to your blog.

Down­load Ques­tions in HTML For­mat & Post Image

If down­load doesn’t work, or you’d rather not down­load it — you can copy + paste the ques­tions here, and just right click on the image above and click “Save As”.

Go to top