Blogging Guru

Today, with me is an another exciting person is to be discovered about. Well, he might not need an introduction, because of his lofty fame, but as a formality, I will initiate this interview, with little introduction about him.

So mister, how would you like to introduce yourself to our readers?

Hi, this is Shanker Bakshi, an online entrepreneur, Affiliate & Internet Marketer, a blogger and founder of Shanker Bakshi Media –a Web Portfolio Management enterprise. I am a kind-hearted, fun-loving guy. (and off course dot Com Guru).

His passion and enthusiasm, truly shows.

The questions always intrigue me, when I came across your name. How did you got yourself bulged into blogging, was it a passion or all of sudden?

It was all of sudden that I come across to this pretty amazing thing called blogging. Almost four years back, one fine day I was searching on Google about some convenient ways to receive money from overseas, fortunately I landed up on John Chow’s blog (I really don’t know how). Well this guy is awesome, I immediately fall in love to John’s impressive writing skills, read his best 50 posts and decided right away that this is where I will stake my claim. So that’s how it triggered my passion to do something creative on the top of commercial success too.

So, in your sight what is the best platform for blogging and CMS (Content Management System)?

If you ask me to name three best blogging and Content Management system, my answer would be WordPress, WordPress and WordPress. It’s a luxury that any blogger could ask for. I had chance to meet Mr. Matt Mullenweg –Founder of WordPress, in New Delhi, I told him that this is the best piece of software ever coded by human. The absolute beauty of this CMS is that a guy like me from finance and commerce background, who haven’t at all learned any web development language is now running a full fledged business of Web portfolio development. Isn’t it amazing?

Mentioning it as WordPress, I would like to know from dozens of themes, in particular, which theme would you suggest to our readers?

My favorites are Elegant Themes; I mean just see the mixture of simplicity and professionalism with a dose of modest elegance. If you were to ask me to suggest one theme, I would suggest you to try their fantastically designed WordPress theme named “Magnificent”.

What is the reason for opting it?

It’s a very impressive efficient and organized magazine style theme. You will love when you will first see it. I bet you will.

Going straight to WordPress Plugins, which Plugins in your sight are necessary to make your site robust?

Once I wrote a post about top 10 Plugins that help you make money online, at present I am using 30 different Plugins to charge-up my blog. The best and necessary plugins to make a site resourceful and increase its performance are WP Super Cache, Akismet, Google XML Sitemaps, Insights (a Plugin that allows you to quickly search and insert links of previous relevant posts, images, videos, maps, news into your blog posts.), SEO Smart Links and YD Recent Posts with thumbnails plugin.

Well, so how is your project “Shanker Bakshi” a.k.a. “Net Profit Mantra” has been up till now? Can you briefly tell us some glances of your experiences and success?

Receiving award from Matt Mullenweg at World Camp New Delhi

So far so good and I am loving it, (Sound like someone just finished a McDonald Pizza), well this journey of four years is full of excellent and cherished moments. Once John Chow, my blogging Idol and guru linked and mentioned in an article about one of my post, I remember my site was about to bump into with the loads of traffic coming in from John’s blog on that day, luckily Donncha O Caoimh The man who discovered WP –cache Plugin himself came out as god sent messenger and life saver to handle the massive traffic and then this lady here referred me in an article as the next John Chow. (God bless her)

Meeting Matt Mullenweg in Delhi was super cool, we shared some talk on WP and he liked my idea to integrate BuddyPress with WordPress and awarded me with a prize for that.  Today we see BuddyPress as an integral part of WordPress and not a separate social Networking development platform. During this time I took interview of some great bloggers and web developers. Writing eBook Make Money Online is one of the valued achievements.

Seems interesting…. I would say I am quite jealous of you, how did you maintained up your market, I mean what is your marketing strategy, which have kept your readers loyal up till now?

I think they like the person in me, I always share more or less everything that I learned over the time. I try to help my readers, answer their problem, aspire to provide valuable content and that’s what a reader/visitor likes to see in a blog. Blogging is not a rocket science anymore, any blogger who’ll strive to be true to himself, connect with his/her readers and make them realize that he/she is just like one among them will steal the show. No hanky-panky at all.

Well, recently you have opted for NetProfitMantra.Com, leaving ShankerBakshi.Com for your personal stuff. Is there any specific reason behind or just randomly?

I started my blog ShankerBakshi.com in 2007, taking inspiration from my blogging guru John Chow. But believe me; it’s really very hard when you try establishing yourself as a brand, the reason is simple, proclaiming yourself as the face of your venture means that you are the sole creator or the creative person. But when you try to achieve something with the help of a group or a team your task becomes easier.  Stuff like John Chow occurs as an exceptional case. So to proceed towards a common goal, and to achieve which is in the interest of everyone involve one should opt for a pro domain rather then starting it with an individual identity.

Turning Shanker Bakshi dot Com into NetProfitMantra was very tough decision, as during the process I lost my facebook fans, feedburner subscribers, Alexa rank, PageRank and traffic (By not giving it the required 301 redirection as I keep SBDC a separate identity for rambling posts). But sometime you sacrifice to make certain things good.

The upcoming question is the one, you can’t tackle by any means. How is your inspiration in this blogosphere? (Though I know it is John Chow, allow the public to acknowledge.)

Yes, as you mentioned John Chow is the person responsible for all that I have today. I owe this man a lot, learned a lot from him and can’t pay off his contribution in my life. He is the man.

What sort of reverence do you have for content & design and layout?

How about 100% wholesome, rock solid, valuable, appealing content in a badly shaped, scrappy looking blog? Design, I guess is the only thing which you can recall about a blog. The content must be presented in a very smart and professionally designed web site. That’s the “Mool Mantra”.

Well, speaking of content, what sort of believe do you have regarding it?

It should be accurate, up to the mark, relevant to your blog niche, original and most importantly should be helpful to your readers. That’s why we see so many “how to” articles top the SERP index, the only reason is that they contains an accommodating solution to a present problem. As simple as that.

I shouldn’t be asking the upcoming question, though you have generated a good “Alexa” rank for your sites overnight, but still do you think you are worth of it? I don’t meant to derogate you, or certainly doubt on your integrity, but there are always rumors that Alexa ranking is quite inaccurate and so on…

Love it or hate it, but you can not ignore it. This is the first thing your advertiser verifies before giving you the necessary go ahead. Yes, you can mange it (by doing hard work). People don’t know it, but a lot of it is depending on how frequent you post fresh content on your site. You start posting 3 articles everyday on your blog for next 3 months and you will be see your blog kissing the 20K ranking mark on it. I bet. But If you say some of my sites don’t deserve the kind of ranking they presently have then I will say “Alexa is very kind towards me, they love me (for a reason, let the reason be love)”.

Seems that everyday many of the bloggers up-rise with an enthusiasm and spirit, which are certainly faded due to lack of credence. In this many of them opt for plagiarism, what is your opinion or suggestion for them?

This could be the worse thing they do with themselves. The best thing is that a “Plagiarismist” can not make a living out of it. They don’t know that they are killing the awesome creative creature living within.

Talking of the new rising bloggers, and their need of SEO. In particular, do you have any advice for them?

There is no shortcuts to success, work hard, don’t do it for money, don’t do it if you are not passionate about it. SEO is vital and important factor; learn it as soon as possible so that you can blog better and reach out to your audience quickly. Become a winner. Shine like a rock star. Take the world by storm. Show them that you are here (to stay). This world belongs to you.

In your sight, how blogs can secure their readers, or make them loyal? I am desperately waiting for your suggestion.

Connect with them, make them believe that you are talking to them, and listening to what they are saying. Be a part of their existence. Bring in their devotion by showing that you care about them. (Also write valuable content)

Can you tell me, what are you up to with your “NetProfitMantra”, literally where do you want to see it?

I want to make NerProfitMantra (NPM) a multi author blog. I want various bloggers to discuss ways and tools of making money online and discuss about blogging resource, social networking and WordPress hacks.

In your opinion, the new inspiring bloggers should opt for social media interactivity, or wait until they make something populated?

There is no harm in being active on social media from the day one. In fact they should be doing it before staring their first blog. This is the only place where they can rub shoulder with big boys of blogging, make good community around their blog niche and learn a lot from leading bloggers.

On this independence day, what message would you like to give?

Yes, I feel proud to be a part of this great nation. Lets not treat this as another independence day celebration, lets be more free and independent in our expression of thoughts, views, in our acts and performances. Let walk towards something which is called freedom to speech, right to information and independence of belief.

I wish my all brothers and sisters out there a very happy Independence Day and wish them all good luck, health and fortune in coming year.

What opinion do you have about Bloggerine?

This is a great blog you have here, the team consist young guns, you guys are awesome, zeal to learn new things and ready to rock. All the best.

Would like to give any suggestions to Bloggerine?

Nothing actually, you guys are already doing great, stick to your niche and try to look more techy be more frequent, because that’s the key.

Thanks very much for having me here.