Interview with Istiak Rayhan -Man Behind RoadToBlogging.com

In this interview series we have Istiak Rayhan the popular blogger from Bangladesh. He is the creator and founder of RoadToBlogging.com where he writes about WordPress, SEO, Blogging and Web hosting. Initially he started his blogging journey from TechThumbs.com but later on he changed his domain name and now he has created RTB as a brand name from which he is earning thousands of dollars from his single blog. So, guys without wasting our time let’s get started with the interview.

1. First of all, tell us about yourself?

Hey Tirtha, Thanks for having me on your blog and here is a little intro of me.

I am Istiak Rayhan from Bangladesh. I am a part-time blogger and a student studying MBA. I blog at RoadToBlogging.Com, where I talk about Blogging, WordPress, SEO, Social Media, Affiliate Marketing, Make Money Blogging and much more. I started my blogging journey with a tech blog named TechThumbs, later moved to RoadToBlogging.

2. When did you start blogging? What was the reason behind it?

The start was accidental. Back in 2011, I used to work on a micro freelancing site and some of the jobs required to write posts and publish them on a site. For that, I created a site on Weebly.com and unfortunately it got banned because of some terms and conditions issues. Later I created another site on WordPress.Com and it also got banned because of the same reason.

Finally, I decided to create a self-hosted WordPress site. And I created my first blog TechThumbs on 2012. To be honest with you, at that time I was not familiar with the term Blogging?. I was just sharing different news, tips, tricks on technology. In the meantime, I learned many new things about WordPress, SEO, Blogging etc. And I started sharing those stuffs. Later I changed my domain name to RoadToBlogging.Com as I was sharing what I learned from my blogging journey. Now I mainly blog at RTB.

3. How did you choose your domain name?

I was having a hard time to choose the proper name for my blog. Once I decided to change the domain name from TechThumbs, I started brainstorming a domain name. I wanted to pick a domain name that describes my blog. One day I saw the word ?Road To Peace? on a site and name ?Road To Blogging? came into my mind. Then I checked the availability of the domain name and bought the domain.

4. Who is your target audience? What is your traffic statistics?

My target audience is bloggers, webmasters and small business owners. Whether someone wants to blog with the aim of making money or to support their business, RTB has post for them.

RTB gets 30,000+ page views every month. Majority of RTB traffic comes from Search Engine (80%) and most of the social media traffic comes from Facebook.

5. What are the main sources of your Earnings?

My major income sources are Affiliate Marketing, Direct Advertising, Sponsored Reviews (very less though). I am planning to experiment some other ways to monetize my blog.

6. What are your blogging objectives for next one year?

I have so many things that I want to accomplish for my blog. But I want to make the list realistic and achievable. So here are the specific objectives that I want to achieve.Build a solid email list.

• Build relationships with more people.
• Write more detailed posts on RTB.
• Drive more traffic from social media.
• Write 3 ebooks. (First one will be published soon)
• I didn’t mention make money. Cause if I can achieve these goals, money will follow automatically.

7. Who inspired you to blogging? Any role models?

I got inspired from many bloggers. It?s tough to mention one name. If I have to mention one name, it is Harsh Agrawal. His blog ShoutMeLoud helped me a lot during my initial journey. And his income report motivated me to work hard on my blog.

My other favourite bloggers are Darren Rowse, Neil Patel, Daniel Scocco, Ali Luke.

8. Your message to the upcoming bloggers?

Be real. You don?t need to write about ?How to be a Pro Blogger? when you are a newbie to blogging. Write what you know best. What you consider as basic might be advanced to others. So don’t hesitate to share basic knowledge.

Focus on a niche. Don’t write everything under the sun. Try to monetize your blog ASAP. Making money requires a lot of A/B testing. If your blog doesn’t make money, you may lose passion for blogging.

9. What is the most memorable achievement of your Blogging journey?

There are several memorable achievements. What I won’t forget is getting my first big payment of $1800 from an affiliate program. That was the time when I started blogging more seriously.

10. What are your future plans apart from blogging?

Apart from blogging, I am planning to start a social eCommerce site. I have also a plan to do something related to Finance as my MBA major is Finance