Blogger interview – Monik, 13, Etiole.com

If you remember my interview with Kid Tech Guru and read my comments to it, you will know who Monik Pamecha is. He is 13, lives in Mumbai, studies and runs Etiole.com technology blog. Here’s the interview.

Hi Monik, thank you for letting me know you would be interested in this interview. Here are the questions:

Syl: The logo of your blog ‘Live the dream’; what does it mean to you? What does stand for?

Monik: Actually living the dream represents my blog Etiole which states to you that to do what ever you ever wanted to do, like I wanted to blog so did it and if you want to do something go ahead and complete it!

Syl: You have mentioned monthly 20k traffic to your blog. How do you do that?

Monik: When I started it was like, quite boring but then as slowly readers started getting attracted to my blog I got even more interested in it. I used many tricks to get into “The first  Result  Page of Google” like some basic URL tips, by including some of the keywords in the post URL, I will not go into the detail! :), and other traffic bringing widgets like Blogrush, entrecard and so on..  I tried link exchanges and also would like to thank some of my friends who linked to me too, which helped me to get better PageRank (Google’s way of marking websites). And finally used Google analytics to find out what actually my visitors wanted, by finding out keywords which my visitors like and so I concentrated more on those keywords. I posted some of those tips on my blog too so that my visitors would be aware of it.

Syl: I have seen your mission statement on Facebook: ‘We want to have a record breaking traffic – 6,000,000 page views per week!’ What tools and promotion do you use to achieve that?

Monik: I mentioned it in the earlier questions that I use tools like Blogrush, Entrecard, Adwords keyword finder tool (to find which keywords have more density in the search engine), and also some Good, new and fresh content. I also love to listen to reader comments and reply to them is also a must, as to make up a reader-author relationship between me and the reader. I also did not want to put up ads on my blog (which helped to increase readers and search engine attention) but to run the blog I had to pay for the domain so I started putting ads. Using Feedburner is a very nice idea as you can reach your readers via various other ways.

Syl: Apart from your blog and Facebook, do you have other presences online?

Monik: I First Started on WordPress but then shifted to blogger ( I know it’s weird ). I love twitter too but got no followers as I joined it recently. I am on technorati too. I am not interested in social networking actually, but just to keep up with friends I am on Facebook.

Syl: You have mentioned you are 13. It’s exact lower border age for most social media sites and tools. For instance, Twitter does not allow people younger than 13 to sign up for the service. Would you be upset about it let’s say a year ago?

Monik: No, this is an age limit set-up by them for our safety so we should actually follow it but when anyone at a young age would he be able to understand the reason, obviously no. But then what is the problem even if you fake your age in your account? It’s safe and you can use the service too.

Syl: Do you think 13 years is a reasonable age to begin blogging and other social media presences?

Monik: I can’t answer this question, it depends from person to person, just like my brother says we shall not start blogging and social networking before we are 16 but I don’t think so. If you want to do something nothing can stop you, nor your brother and not your age.

Syl: How and when did you start blogging?

Monik: I started blogging a year ago or maybe before than that. Like you too, I first blogged on WordPress, then I shifted Xanga, then to Weebly, then back to WordPress and then finally to blogger, you see it’s a long journey. Blogging in India when a started blogging was like, What is a blog? , but I saw this man, Amit Agarwal who runs a blog called Labnol, who dared to leave his job a become a professional blogger and I saw his video where he told people how he earned from Adsense, my main aim from there was to setup a blog which would have much more traffic he would have and also have Adsense earnings in 6 digits, but unfortunately I got disqualified from Adsense but I just blogged and blogged.

Syl: What do you want to achieve with it (apart from impressive readership)?

Monik: I want to achieve some fame. I also want to get some attention and want to start a bloggers community, I already Started A blogging platform and Blog Showcase for it.  I started some other services like Forums, Search Engine (powered by Google API), social networking website (powered by Ning)  so that readers can enjoy many other things too and I want to give these services attention too.

Syl: I usually post a part of my interview on Bar Mleczny, my other place online (promoting Polish culture). If I say Polish, what comes to your mind?

Monik: Since I am Indian I really not aware of Polish Culture but would love to know more about it!

Syl: Do you like to cook? What is your favourite meal? 🙂

Monik: I occasionally cook, I can’t cook more or my mom will assign me a job as her chef! I love eating Pav-Bhaji , I think so everyone in the world shall not die before having tasted it. I know many people won’t be aware of it so if you want to know more just google it and look at the images, your mouth will start watering!

Syl: You are obviously interested in technology. Do you have other hobbies?

Monik: I am interested in sports too. I love playing soccer and badminton too. I love public speaking too so I try spreading awareness on the environmental issues.

Syl: What is your message to other younger bloggers?

Monik: It is not of much concern what your age is, go for whatever you like, not only blogging, may it be your love for soccer or for anything just go ahead and do it. Don’t worry about traffic, concentrate on your content because if that is good traffic will already be there reading it!

Syl: Thank you!