Saturday 5 April 2014

Bloggers success story | Interview with Reginald Chan


Welcome back friends, This article is all about the success story of an entrepreneur and also a CEO named 'Reginald Chan' from Malaysia. He has been considered as one of the best consultant for SEO, blogging tips, social media marketing, wordpress projects along with monetization and internet marketing works. Providing value driven services to his customers (through his blog Reginald chan) and making them fully satisfied is his main motto. 


Apart from his regular blogging and consultancy activities, Reginald also happened to be a well connected social networker aiming to make good relationship; by making friends rather than customers ! If you wanna check this, do connect with him. 

Below is the status of Reginald Chan's social media presence 

OK, here is how I posed questions and how he responded to that


1. What did you do before your presence in social media (blogging) ?


Reginald reply :

Thanks for the kind opportunity. Before going into blogging back in 2005, I was a ghostwriter for several years. After doing ghost writing, I decided that it is time to build my own brand (starting a blog) in 2005 and only a year years later, I started serious blogging.

2. How did you get the idea of blogging ? Is there any reason for choosing blogging? Please state any three reasons.


Reginald reply :

I started blogging out of hobby. My first blog was on Blogspot and I was blogging on general things; life, love and technology. It was purely fun and only as hobby. Back then, I did nothing on SEO, social media etc. I got the 'light bulb' only after getting my first $0.50 from Adsense three months laters. Haha!

Why blogging?
  1. State my opinion
  2. Sharing tutorials and guides
  3. Providing information on things I know; SEO, social media and blogging as I see so many blogs providing the wrong information

3. For how long have you been in this field and what is your followers' status after one year of start ?


Reginald reply :

Started blogging in 2005 and gotten serious around 2009. Back then, I didn't have any followers and to be honest, I didn't believe the importance of followers until 2012. Now, I have roughly a thousand followers on my blog. On social media, I have around 8,000 - 10,000 followers.

4. We know that you are good at mentoring, How did you get the thought of guiding people ?


Reginald reply :

Well, I would blame it on my background. I love teaching others and my expertise are on Operations, Sales and Marketing. Until date, I have worked with over 5 International companies under 8 years and now, I finally settled down as a head of department in an International company.

As you can see above, I founded my 'indirect' talent and coaching and decided that helping out others is extremely fun!

5. What are the products offered through your blog ? What other products you offer offline ?


Reginald reply :

Generally, I offer free blogging advises; content marketing, Internet Marketing, SEO and WordPress. Whatever I know are there and is for anyone to read. Besides that, I do run my own consultancy agency but I don't promote it much (for obvious reasons). I promote my blog more than my agency. Haha!
Bet this doesn't answer your question right? :)

6. How did you managed to drive traffic to your blog in the beginning ?


Reginald reply :

When I started my self-named blog, I gotten a huge number of traffic under 60 days. Being in blogging industry long enough, I know there are huge demand of untold stories. For example, I am often sharing weird ideas on SEO and even WordPress.

This build my reputation as an unique blog and overtime, creating more readership.

What I do mostly are:
  • Sharing stats
  • Doing case studies
  • Determine how to outsmart Google (when I am extremely boring!)

7. Could you please tell us about your readers ?


Reginald reply :

My readers prefer more SEO and marketing tips compared to any other. So, whenever I blog, I try to incorporate this thinking into it. Oh yes, majority of my readers think that my blogs are too long; over 1,200 words per article on average.

8. How do you manage personal/family life along with blogging and social networking ?


Reginald reply :

I blog during my free time. Family and my consultancy comes first. Therefore, I try to blog at least once a week (focus at least 2 articles per month). On social media, I use automation such as Buffer. Afterall, we are all living in the 21st century and thus, time to make use of technology right?

9. At present, how much visitors (approximately) do you get to your blog ?


Reginald reply :

Relatively low. At an average around 300 per day. I blame this to my extreme writing. People tend to love tips and tricks than business blogging. My blogging methods are more towards educational which makes it pretty length and boring! 

But, one clear advantage of this is that I get very good followers back in return.

10. Did you anytime felt like "Am I doing right ? Is this useful ?" during your blogging career ?


Reginald reply :

Honestly speaking, no. When I blog, I blog what I think is correct and yes, tons of negative reviews as well but it is good. More words of mouth means free advertisements. My main goal is to ensure that the information I shared are self tested (i test everyone of them) and I believe that stats speak for themselves.

But of course, I hope that all my articles are extremely useful for all.

11. Which blogs inspired you to start your own ? 


Reginald reply :

This is a tough one. I read a lot (over 10 blogs a day) but here's a recap:

12. Is there anyone who inspired you to achieve this success ? Can  you list some of your favorite influencers and co-bloggers ?


Reginald reply :

When it comes to influencers, there are many. A few would be like Neil Patel and Brian Clark. They are pretty much top notch in marketing. I don't have co-bloggers but I do have just one guest bloggers until date (okay call me choosy and picky)!

13. Can you briefly explain some of your achievements as a blogger ? Something that you can't forget !


Reginald reply :

Hmm, I would say the various mentions from other blogs or bloggers. Three of my achievements I really love are:


14. What are the steps that you took to get identified by many ?


Reginald reply :

Be different, thinking out of the box and be bold.

For example, if everyone is finding 'tips to make money online', why don't blog a post about '50 ways to make your first $100 under 14 days'. Make sense to you?

15. What tools do you use to manage your social media presence ?


Reginald reply :

My current go-to tool is Buffer. However, HootSuite and Socialoomph are my previous tools. Basically, just use one paid services and you would be just fine. Moreover $10 or $20 per month is a pretty good deal since 90% are on automation. And yes, balance between automation and manual is the best way to go around.

16. Could you state your major source of income (if any) from your blog ?


Reginald reply :

On average, I make around $500 per month from my main blog. Affiliate earnings takes around 90% of my income while 10% from banners. 

17. Blogging and social media presence is really a tough job and requires much of our time. What else do you do aside from blogging ? How do you keep yourself positive and active ?


Reginald reply :

I am a born motivator and I always see things on the positive side. My day job requires me to solve problems and issues (yup 8 hours of negativity). So, staying positive is a must. Do this when you wake up daily. Ask yourself in the mirror if you want the day to be good. If you want it to be good, start looking at the bright side of life. 

Why should you take things too seriously? 

18. As a blogger, where do you see yourself 5 years from now ? What are your next targets ? Is there any upcoming product that you are working on ?


Reginald reply :

I see to build my own membership site (it has been my goal since 2013 until now). Let's see when I will launch it thanks to my limited time. Also, I tend to ditch my day job and focus completely on consultation down the road. I love to help businesses grow!

19. What suggestions would you give beginners for their success ? How do you want them to start ?


Reginald reply :

The first is mentality. If you want to start blogging because of money, you are wrong. You could make money fast but not enough to last. The ultimate goal is to have every lasting money.

Therefore, have these plans in mind:
  1. What do you want to target? (niche blogging, general writing etc)
  2. Who will be reading your blog?
  3. How do you generate more readership for the blog?
  4. How to monetize from your visitors?
  5. How to sustain and grow your blog?
  6. Who are your competitors?
Now, answer these 6 questions and try to explain each in detail. If you are able to describe each of the above questions in detail, you are probably good to go. If not, you need to do more planning.

The biggest mistake I hear from blogging is that they want to make money blogging or they want to build a site on blogging tips. They don't consider factors like how to stand out from the rest.

Remember that there are over 60 million blogs out there that are competing with you.

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That's how our conversation ended. Hope you enjoyed reading this. As you can note from his replies, how friendly he communicates things that too brilliantly. That itself shows his art and that's the reason why he is considered as one of the best consultant. I am glad that Reginald accepted my interview invitation and spared his valuable time to share his thoughts with us. We wish him to reach further heights in his career.

Good luck and thank you Reginald Chan !

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Hope this helps.

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5 comments:

  1. Nice to see my favorite blogger got featured here, thanks Banu Chander :)

    I am great fan of his SEO tips, but to be frank am bit lazy in reading his long posts. This is the reason am not active on his blog and I used to bookmark some remarkable posts of him but forget to read with my busy life. Anyway, i wanna read his executable tips and i think that I should find quality time to read his blog posts.

    I know him from long and I feel good that I get immediate reply from him, if I hit his FB PM, even if he busy at work and meetings.

    Good to read his simple and real reactions for your questions and his advice & idea to stay positive will inspire the newbie bloggers.

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  2. wow! It is really interesting to know much more about Reggie. One of the finest guys in this blogoshere. I like him and the best I can say it for him to continue doing what he does best.

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  3. Thanks for sharing this successful story on making money online blogging. $500 per month just blogging twice a month, that is great.

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  4. I was able to clear a couple of doubts, for which I’m deeply thankful. It is rare that you come across such an insightful work. A big thumbs up from my side.

    ReplyDelete