Hey folks! I am glad to have got the chance to talk to Mr. Santanu Debnath who is a well-known blogger, entrepreneur, and well-known name in the blogging domain. Santanu has been blogging and doing SEO for a number of websites for more than 10 years and is running multiple blogs around WordPress, web hosting and SEO.
Before heading further, please let us know a bit about you.
Thank you for inviting me and featuring my story on your blog. This is an honor for me.
Hello friends, I am Santanu Debnath, a software engineer by profession and a blogger by passion. I am into blogging from 2008, besides working full-time. I love to read a lot about finance, blogging, WordPress and such. Right now, I am sharing my knowledge and learnings about blogging & WordPress on BloggingJOY.com.
I also run a small YouTube channel where I post useful videos related to Blogging & WordPress. Besides that, I have started a new hosting related blog, HostingBrowse.com that I plan to grow gradually.
Just a quick flashback to your initial blogging days when you used to be a complete newbie, what was your motive to enter into Blogging? Please describe the starting phase of your career.
Honestly, I started by looking for some ways to make money online. Back in 2007, there were lots of money-making schemes or programs which were mostly fake. I tried a few of them and failed badly. Then somehow I came to know about the Google AdSense program and gradually explored how exactly one can earn money from a blog showing Google Ads.
But at that time it was just a hobby or my favorite time pass. So I didn’t give enough time or was not that serious about that. It was a very slow process, till I actually started making money from a blog through Google AdSense. I think it was in 2010-11 when I got my first $100 AdSense payment. I & my wife Manidipa started a recipe blog and enjoyed our initial days of blogging together.
From 2012 onward, we took things seriously and moved to WordPress. From that time I never looked back and enjoyed every single day working on different WordPress blogs. I tried to build many blogs, mostly failed. But I learned a lot from those experiments and finally decided to start BloggingJOY.com back in 2017 to share my knowledge & experiences in one place.
How did you enter into digital marketing and what do you think is the best thing ever happened in your professional/blogging career?
Honestly, I love the blogging part of Digital Marketing. I am not that good in the social media marketing or other marketing techniques. But I just enjoy the content writing part of blogging. But after starting my Facebook Group in 2018, I started connecting with people and explored the world of networking.
That group is a game-changer for my blogging career. Earlier I simply used to write content, do SEO and create backlinks as a part of my blogging activities. But after starting this group, I found a new motive to help people, to motivate people and to guide people to create a passive income source. Undoubtedly, that is the best thing that happened in my blogging career and after that, I made many good friends online and you are one of them. 🙂
What is your day-to-day work routine? What is something that you are BloggingJoy do the best?
As a working professional, I spend 5 days of the week in the office. On those days, I generally spend 3-4 hours in the morning and night for blogging. This includes managing my Facebook Group, writing content for my blogs and other blogging activities. I mostly spend the weekends for my blogging works and try to put enough effort into executing all my blogging plans. Of course, I don’t compromise my family time and all other responsibilities. Manidipa helps me a lot to manage my blogging activities besides her work and that’s how I get a good amount of time to manage both my life and work with blogging.
What do you do to push yourself out of your comfort zone?
Blogging is very monotonous and boring. So, sometimes it becomes very challenging to stick to a blogging plan. That’s where I find my Facebook Group very effective. As I am connected with a lot of like-minded people, I always engage with them, help them so that I can be with my motive & focus on the same subject. Besides that, my family is always motivating me in every possible way to do what I love to.
Do you think there is something that newbies don’t know about product marketing? If so, what is it?
Yea, I think as a newbie people try to target multiple products at the same time. I made the same mistake in my early days of blogging. But later on, I have realized that the best way is to focus on 1 single product and then try that product and share genuine reviews.
We are in 2024 and have seen multiple search algorithm updates by Google, one after another. How did you actually prepare your websites for any new update? Did any of your websites were affected? How did you recover?
I have always taken these things seriously. My first website got hit by Google in 2014 and I lost a big amount of traffic. From that time I started working on a different website and never focused on that website. Gradually I realized that it’s better to focus on creating good content that will help users. And in the last 2 years, I have been doing the same. Now I stopped following Google updates and haven’t faced any such hit since then.
Getting a higher ranking is very difficult these days. So it’s better to focus on the basic SEO things, writing content that solves people’s problems and being active on social media. Creating your own brand matters a lot in 2024. So, I am focusing on growing as an authority in my niche.
Apart from digital marketing and blogging, name something that you’re good at. (For example, 8 ball pool or cricket.)
Right now due to work pressure, I am not that active with any sports. But occasionally I run a few kilometers. I need to make it an active sport and want to become a regular runner in the coming days. After all, fitness is the key to staying happy and motivated.
How can someone reading this blog post connect with you? (social media links please)
As I said, I am quite engaged and connected with all my Facebook members. Anyone can Join This Group and chat with me. I may not be able to reply immediately, but I always try to respond in a day. Join My Facebook Group and also follow me on Twitter.
What is your feedback on my blog (vashishthakapoor.com)? What is the scope of improvements?
Your blog is an amazing place to read some awesome content. I have known you for a long time and I admire your blogging skills. Keep writing such amazing content and help the readers.
Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.