This is an interview-style post with Kulwant Nagi from Blogging Cage.
Hey Kulwant. Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.
Hi! First of all, thank you so much for giving the opportunity to interact with your audience. 🙂
I am a full-time blogger, affiliate marketer and digital marketing strategist. I started my career as a bloggers in 2011 after doing the graduation in Electronics and Communication.
Although my education and blogging didn’t have anything in common but the passion inside me for the technology pushed me to become a blogger.
During the initial days, it was difficult for me as I didn’t have a good internet connection in my city and my educational background was totally different.
I kept on pushing my efforts and made my first dollar after 7 months, soon I started affiliate marketing and my life was changed after that.
Now I am totally focused on affiliate marketing and running my digital marketing agency.
What made leaving your family and the environment there a turning point in your life?
See, the family is always the biggest force behind your hard work. Either you do something good, or bad, the motivation is always the family.
I wanted to give the best life to my family so I sacrificed my sleep, my health a lot of other things to give them what they wanted.
Your environment plays a big role in your success but it can never stop you. People willing to something in life always find the right methods from the minimal resources.
What was your first job after college and what did it teach you?
I was passionate about the VLSI industry.
So after being graduated in ECE in June 2010, I got the training of RedHat Linux so that I could get in the VLSI industry (as whole VLSI industry works on Linux). As soon as I finished my training in November last week, I got an email about a job opportunity.
I immediately applied and got selected after clearing 5 tough rounds.
That was my life’s first interview and I got my first job as soon as possible.
The funny thing in this selection was – HR asked me, would you work for us if we pay you only $167 per month? Would you be able to survive in this Salary?
I replied – I would work even if you don’t pay me anything.
I was so passionate for that industry that I was willing to work for FREE too.
During the job, I learn that any big thing in life can be achieved if you have the right people working in your team.
That one principle helped me to become what I am today.
How did you fall in love with blogging?
It happened by chance.
I started my first blog in September 2011, which was based on network marketing and MLM.
I was working in an MLM company so I started this blog to generate online leads.
As I was adding 2-3 articles a week on my blog, I was reading other blogs too. Soon I realized that blogging is much bigger (and legal) profession than MLM.
So on 15th January 2012, I bought BloggingCage.com and never looked back.
Yeah, we just completed 7 years last week. 🙂
What do you focus on first to grow a blog?
The very first things I focus before even starting a blog is keyword research.
Keyword research is so crucial for your blog that you shouldn’t even think about starting a blog if you haven’t done any keyword research for it.
I have written an article about Keyword Research Importance at BloggingCage.
The second most important thing is the content. There is so much information on the internet that people have been bored after reading the same content again and again.
So your task being an awesome blogger is to create EPIC content which people love to read and share.
Tell us a bit about your work process in the early days (before you made any money from blogging).
Back in those days, I was spending most of my time to educate myself. I used to read a lot of blog posts and kept implementing those techniques on my blogs.
Soon I started seeing the success of my blog and replicated those strategies on other blogs too.
I used to work 14+ hours in a day to educate myself and write one article on the daily basis.
The biggest challenge for me was the internet connection. I blogged for 18 months with a 2G mobile internet and later I got 1Mbps broadband connection from BSNL.
Learning blogging at such a slow speed during the initial days was very difficult for me, but my passion always pushed me to surpass all the barriers.
I worked hard and overcame all the challenges.
Maximum I have generated with a single blog so far is around $150,000.
How many blogs do you run now and what’s your monthly income from them?
Right now we are managing close to 15 blogs. They all are generating 5 figure a month combined.
What’s your favourite way to make money online and why?
Affiliate marketing is my one of the most favourite ways to make money online. It’s a business where you sell someone’s product with your efforts and get paid a decent commission.
I have written created a free 10 days training to learn affiliate marketing if someone is interested to learn.
You also have a business selling premium WordPress themes. Tell us how and why you started it.
We started that business in 2016 and later we shut that down.
Now we have started it again and coming back with the bang soon. You’ll see more updated soon at DashingThemes.com.
You have interviewed people like Neil Patel, Brian Dean and Matthew Woodward. How did you get in touch with them?
Getting connected with such high authority people in not tough when you are in a real business and provide value to your readers.
My blog is my showcase which always helps me to get connected with the best minds in the industry.
How did you start speaking at conferences?
I always wanted to speak a big conference so that I could not only help people worldwide but build my portfolio along the way also.
I started this by speaking at colleges, universities, and many small conferences.
Soon many people started noticing me and I got the opportunity to speak at India affiliate summit and India affiliate conference as well.
Later I got the opportunity to share the stage with Neil Patel in Hanoi, Vietnam at Success Conference.
What’s next for you, your brand and business?
Both are important to survive in this fast-paced world of online marketing. I put equal efforts to build my brand as well as my business.
