
Anil Agarwal is the founder of Bloggers Passion, where he talks about professional blogging. He has been in the blogging industry since 2007.
He started blogging as a side hustle. He sold his first successful blog for $35,000 in 2009 and started Bloggers Passion in 2010. Now he is one of the top bloggers of India.
You can find Anil on Twitter and Facebook. This is our recent interview with him, as a part of our How I Blog series.
1. First of all, tell us a little about your background and how you got into blogging.
Thanks a lot, Istiak for inviting me in your ‘How I Blog’ interview series.
Coming back to my background, I completed my MCA course in 2004 from an ordinary college. As I completed my course, everyone was asking when I’m going to get a job. So I was looking for a job desperately.
Finally, I got a job in SEO profile towards the end of 2004. I was not expecting any programming job as I was not good at coding.
I was not happy with my salary and thus I have to look out for other revenue generation methods. So I started creating blogs on Blogger platforms. I worked on a health and finance blog on this free blogging platform for a couple of years. I was monetizing them through Google Adsense, paid reviews and banner ads.
In 2007, I started my first self-hosted blog on Blogging niche and sold to someone via Flippa in 2009 for $35,000 as I needed some funds.
2. How many blogs do you have? And how do you manage them?
BloggersPassion.com and HostingMonks.com are the two active projects right now. I started Bloggers Passion in Jan 2010 and Started Hosting Monks this year only.

I’m working full time on these blogs since Sep 2018. I take care of marketing and monetization for these projects. My team members help me with the content, design, and development related needs.
3. How many hours do your work on your blogs every day? And how do you manage your time?
I try to give 6-7 hours to my blogs daily [Monday to Friday]. And a couple of hours on the weekends. Here is my Monday to Friday schedule:
- 6 AM to 6:15 AM: Quickly checking emails, traffic stats, and sales, etc.
- 6:15 AM to 11 AM: Kids school-related activities, home dependencies, etc.
- 11:30 AM to 3 PM: Blogging time.
- 3 PM to 4:30 PM: Lunch Break.
- 4:30 PM to 7:30 PM: Back to Blogging.
- 7:30 PM to 11 PM: Family time.
- 11 PM to 11:15 PM checking email, traffic stats etc again.
4. Do you outsource any blogging tasks? If yes, share with us some details like from where and what type of tasks you outsource.
That’s an interesting question.
Rahul Kuntala from LearnBlogTips.com is working with me for over 5 years now (since January 2014). He takes care of most of the content for Bloggers Passion blog.
Theodore Nwangene is helping me with the content for Hosting Monks.
There is one guy in my team who helps me with design, development, images and video editing related needs.
5. How do you promote your blogs and latest blog posts?
Once we have published a blog post, here is the list of things we do:
- Link to that post from old blog posts (internal linking).
- Share them on Social networks (FB Group, Twitter and Pinterest).
- Create video versions for some blog posts and upload them on my YouTube channel while linking to the post.
Then we leave a blog post for 3-4 months. By that time, that blog post would have reached to its organic traffic potential. If we notice a blog post ranking on the second page or somewhere on the first page for its target keywords, we try to promote it more by building some links for it.
We have created a detailed guide on how we are creating high-quality backlinks for our blog posts here. I hope RoadToBlogging readers will find it useful.
6. How do you monetize your blogs?
Most of the revenue comes from affiliate product selling.
On Bloggers Passion, we are selling Web Hosting, WordPress Themes & Plugins, and SEO related affiliate products. On Hosting Monks, we are trying to sell most of the web hosting related affiliate products only.
Once HostingMonks reaches to a level, we will try to do partnerships with top web hosting companies. With Bloggers Passion, we are thinking to give a try to SEO and affiliate marketing related courses in the coming days.
7. Which devices and gadgets are you using now for blogging?
I have Apple MacBook Air Core i5 for blogging.
For videos, I use Blue Microphones Snowball iCE Condenser, in-built MacBook Air camera, and Camtasia 2018 paid version.
Sometimes I check my emails from my android phone (only emails). But I prefer working on the MacBook (laptop only).
8. What apps, tools, or plugins do you use to make your blogging journey easier?
For blogging, I’m not using any app.
Sharing a few plugins and tools I’m using to run my blogs with ease:
Important Plugins: Yoast SEO Pro Version, WP Rocket Pro, Easy Affiliate Links, ShortPixel Image Optimizer, Social Warfare Pro, and WP Review Pro.
SEO Tools: SEMrush, Moz, and Ahrefs.
Email Service: Drip.
Video Recording: Camtasia 2018 and Zoom.us (for interviews).
Some Chrome Extensions: AMP Validator, ColorZilla (for color picking), Hunter.io (for finding email addresses), Keywords Everywhere, Page Analytics, and TubeBuddy for YouTube.
Quick note: You can also find a list of all the blogging tools that we use at Bloggers Passion from here.
9. What’s your workspace setup like? If possible, share a picture of your workstation or home office.
I’m based out in Gurgaon. I’m using Insta Office Co-working space which is based out in Gurgaon since September 2018.
Since you’ve asked me the picture of how it looks like, here it is!

10. What’s the best blogging advice you have ever received?
Although it’s not really typical blogging advice. But it helps you succeed no matter what field you are in.
We often fail to build profitable blogs because we don’t think big and we are mostly inconsistent. If you want to succeed online, think big and be consistent at least for a couple of years.
Above all, start small. Do something every day. Write on Quora. Publish an interview. Leave a comment on others blog. Do something every day – even if it’s a small task.
Leave a Reply