Blogging can not only give you a stable career but also makes you a better person.
An interview with Dhiraj Das, the Indian Blogging Philosopher.
Finally, we got the opportunity to feature Dhiraj Das. The blogging philosopher.
This person has changed the blogging industry with his
mindset. A blogging idol for new bloggers.
Thank you, guys, for your overwhelming responses to our interview series. We have published many interviews in the last few days. And we have come up with another successful blogger.
Who is Dhiraj Das?
Founder of Sourcewp which is a Hubspot property now.
- Currently managing Begindot and HobPost.com
Seasoned Affiliate Marketer and Expert Content Creator.
Started his own business from the scratch.
Lets read the full interview and improve your blog.
1)Welcome to simplefactsonline.com. Tell us something about yourself?
Answer: My pleasure to be here. Thanks a lot for this opportunity to share my journey with your audience.
I am the founder of SourceWP, a popular blog around WordPress products, BeginDot, HobPost and a few other websites around different topics.
I have been actively blogging for 8-9 years (full-time). I would like to consider myself a serial online entrepreneur. I love to work on new projects and take it up from scratch and make it big in terms of traffic as well as revenue.
2)What was on your mind when you have started Sourcewp? Did you imagine that one day this blog will reach this level?
Answer: I was managing a site called Indexwp before starting SourceWP, Which was a news type of site to publish the updates around the WordPress community.
Because of the type of niche that was in, I had to be alert around the clock so that I could publish news articles immediately after any big
update comes up. That was a challenge in itself. So, I decided to move away from the news niche and focus on resource-based content.
I flipped IndexWP on Flippa for around $22k after managing it for 9 months and started SourceWP.
WordPress has always been a difficult niche to crack because there are so many big blogs writing about WordPress related resources already.
But I didn’t look at it as the competition but an opportunity to enter a niche that is already popular and I managed to make SourceWP an
authority in the niche with a year. Of course, it took a lot of effort and time to make that happen.
Again after managing SourceWP for more than two years, I wanted to get into an even bigger niche where I can publish other related
content along with WordPress, so I started looking for buyers who will continue to manage SourceWP.
I managed to get a deal well over $100k for SourceWP.
So, I’m not managing SourceWP anymore, it is a HubSpot property now. And needless to say, they will make much better use of the site.
3) Now let's talk about begindot.com. What was on your mind while setting up this blog?
Answer: As already mentioned, I wanted to get into a broad niche and BeginDot was the result of that. We create content around a variety of different topics like WordPress, SEO, social media, blogging, and all other related topics.
The site is doing well and most of our content started to rank the top pages. Hopefully, it will be even bigger in the time to come.
4) We know that you have a dedicated team. And you don't write much nowadays. My question to you is, what motivates you to write?
Answer: Yes, I do have a team for the last 5-6 years. I think it is really important to have a good team in place to make it big.
Our blogs are very active, we publish new content every single day, so it is not possible to manage such a blog by a single person.
As far as motivation is concerned. I’m doing something I love to do, so I don’t consider it as work but something that I love to do. I think
my passion is the biggest motivation. The process of creating a brand from scratch is extremely satisfying, I enjoy every single day of the process.
5)Your takes on the Digital India movement.
Answer: I really appreciate the government’s efforts towards improving the online infrastructure or the fact that we are even talking about the digital movement which is so relevant and important for today’s time.
However, there is a long way to go as far as empowering small and medium-size and medium-sized businesses are concerned.
Here is my personal experience to see the difference
So, I had this deal of $120k with a guy from the United States to purchase one of my websites. He got his business loan approved to buy a website in 2 hours. I’m sure that will not be possible in our country as of now.
I hope it will be easier to get funding for business as small as a blog in the time to come.
6) How reliable is WordPress for making a responsive website? When someone is not familiar with coding stuff?
Answer: All my sites are based on WordPress and I have been actively writing about WordPress resources for 6-7 years. So, I strongly believe that
WordPress is the most reliable, user-friendly and cost-effective option to start a website.
You don’t need to know coding to create a website using WordPress. Anyone can create a great looking website using a theme like the Divi Theme.
7) Name the 7 best free and paid WordPress plugin as per your choice.
Answer: Here are my choices
- Pretty Links (Free plugin for affiliate link management)
- Yoast SEO (SEO Plugin)
- User Role Editor (For multi-author blogs)
- WPForms Lite (Form Builder)
- Bloom or OptinMonster (Email Subscription)
- Insert Headers and Footers (Very handy plugin to add codes to header or footer quickly)
- W3 Total Cache
We are doing our research on Rank Math and it looks like one of the top and must-have plugins in the future.
8) Hobpost.com is also doing great. So what are your future plans? Maybe a youtube channel in the future?
Answer: HobPost is a relatively new blog that we started a couple of months ago and it is shaping up nicely. It already has mentioned from big sites like HubSpot and many others.
Many articles are already ranking on the first page as well as a featured snippet. So, we certainly had the initial success, let see how it continues to perform.
9) Digital Marketing business means multitasking. How do you stay focused after doing so much work?
Answer: As already mentioned above, I enjoy the process so much that I don’t need to do anything extra to stay focused.
As far as multitasking is concerned, Alexa keeps on reminding me throughout the day about the tasks I need to complete.
10) Adsense vs affiliate? If you are focusing on fixed recurring income.
Answer: When I was managing SourceWP affiliate was the main source of revenue and we never used AdSense on that site.
But currently, we are trying to mix both on BeginDot and other sites we are managing.
11) Your advice to our readers. Most of them are young. And desperately wanting to start their venture in Digital Marketing.
Answer: If you are planning to start your own venture, don’t wait for a special day because today is special, so just start it. You will learn along the process.
Also, it is important to start something that you are really interested in so that you can stay focused even when your business is not doing well.
And it is extremely important to give yourself time, don’t expect miracles to happen within a few months. (as it is popularly said, it takes years of hard work for the miracle to happen)
All the best to all the readers and thank you for the opportunity to share my experience with your audience.
If your purpose is right, you will reach your goal eventually — Dhiraj Das, in a perfect example of this. We had a prolonged chat before this interview, and he showed his intent from the very first conversation. You are creating values with every reply. Indeed a true blogging philosopher.
Do visit https://www.hobpost.com/ & https://www.begindot.com/ and get help with all your Digital Marketing Needs!
