Interview With Michael Aulia From CravingTech.Com

Hi guys! This time I bring you one of my favorite blogger and fellow blogger. I met him at the time I just started my blogging journey. I remembered an article at his blog about a blogger who started a blogging journey,  I really enjoy his tips, he said we, the beginners should learn from a turtle

OK, now please let me introducing Michael Aulia from CravingTech.Com blog about Technology and Review. He share his tips here and I hope we can learn from the interview to improve our blogging skills.

Enjoy the interview.

1. Please tell me about your self, your daily activities, hobbies, interest, etc.
Nothing too exciting, really. I’m still working full time, so blogging is still a passion at the moment. Trying to juggle the time between work, blogging after work, and activities at church on the weekend

2. How did you start your blogging journey, what is the story behind your blog? How did you picked CravingTech?
I was posting a short review about my new phone, the HTC P3600i back then in a forum. I received lots of good feedback so I decided to put the review on a blog. I guess you can guess what happened next.

At first, I put my blog under my own name at michaelaulia.com. After the blog was being picked as one of the finalists to the Best Geek Blog in Asia Pacific 2009 by Nuffnang, I knew I needed a change – to transform my blog from personal to professional. Hence, Craving Tech was born. It was a hard choice but I never regret that decision.

3. Mike, please share your tips for my beginner friends who just started their blogging journey or who wants to become a blogger.
The most important tip: blog out of passion rather than solely for making money. When things get rough, whether you quit blogging or not depends on this choice (or so I found). I tried to open at least 2 other blogs just to make money. I stopped taking care of them after a couple of weeks.

I also made a few introduction series and tips to those who want to be a blogger at http://www.cravingtech.com/intro-to-blogging. Feel free to have a read.

4. How should a blogger deal with SEO and Social Media? Should we deal with them at the same time?
If you are serious in getting traffic and networking, you should. These two things are very important but to be honest, I haven’t put much effort into them. For example, I don’t pay attention to the keywords on my posts. I simply blog for my readers but surprisingly, some of my posts are on the first page of Google SERPs somehow.

5. Making Money from blog, there are few blogger started they blog for money, and most of them failed. Any tips how to make money from our blog?
I realize that many great bloggers make money quickly from their blogs. The rest (including myself) don’t really make much or at least, not that easy. I earned only a few dollars a month on the first few months of blogging. Now, it’s around $500 a month at least. Persistent is the key. Keep working hard and you’ll reap the rewards at the end. Sometimes we just want to make money quickly and feel like giving up when we can’t.

6. How did you promote your blog? This is really important for me and my beginners friend here, sometimes we don’t have any idea to promote our blog.
At the moment, I promote my blog through commenting at other blogs and Facebook. Although there are many ways to promote your blog, each blog is different and there is no definite winning formula. You need to do a trial and error for each social bookmarking and other methods (such as article writing through Ezine articles, etc). Find what works best for your blog.

7. What is your main traffic source? Search Engine or Social Media or any other way?
Search engine is my main traffic source at the moment. I get lots of constant visitors to my reviews and how-to posts.

8. Mike, how do you spend your free time when you are not blogging or work? Reading favorite book, watching movie or something else?
I love to play PC games so every now and then, I do a bit of gaming at home after I publish a blog post or two. Plenty of rest and spiritual activities help to keep my life in a balance I try not to blog in the weekend too – which helps me from burning out.

9. Any favorite blogger? How come? and any suggestion a blogger for an interview?
Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.com. He is a very pleasant guy (from the videos), very knowledgeable, humble, and also a pastor at his local church (if I’m not mistaken). I guess he is too busy for an intereview though.

Arnold Aranez from MrGadget.com.au is another one. He’s a good friend and he was the one who encouraged me to take my personal blog into the next level.

10. Can we find you at Facebook, Twitter or other place? Please let us getting know you better
You can follow me at Twitter (@michaelaulia). I do have a personal Facebook account but I try to keep it to a more personal level . Feel free to be a fan of Craving Tech at Facebook though (http://www.facebook.com/cravingtech)

Thanks Mike for the interview, and guys, please wait for another interview, happy blogging!

Latief is the proud owner of Another Blogger Dot Com that provide Simple Blogging Tips, always interesting about Blogging, SEO and Social Media, MMO and Technology. Add him as your friend @ Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn