I like interviews. I like to do interviews, read interviews and be interviewed. I figured it will be worth while to do some interviews with accomplished probloggers. It is a great way to learn something new, discover great ideas, and start thinking outside the box. I really hope you like it.

I am starting the series with a little chat with Chris Garrett, professional blogger and online media consultant who helps people make the most out of the web.

Chris, could you please tell us a little about yourself?
I’m a blogging and Internet marketing consultant based in the UK. I help businesses and bloggers become more famous, focused and profitable. While I have been working in the Internet field since 1994, and blogged since 1998, in 2005 I launched my own company and started blogging full-time.

How and why did you start blogging?
Well it wasn’t called blogging when I started. My website reading habits revealed a number of websites that I visited daily had started writing daily journals or articles and I thought it would be fun for me to do the same thing. A lot was going on in my life at that point, had just got married, was trying for a baby, just changed job, moved house, the idea was to write a diary.

Why did you decide to do blogging full-time?
I had been working for other people at various marketing, advertising and new media agencies and decided that being an independent consultant and blogger was what I really wanted to do. Other people separate my blogging and marketing consultancy but in my mind they are facets of the same thing.

How many blogs do you have currently? Are they the main source of your income?
A lot fewer than I used to have. It depends what your definitions are and what I want to admit to on the day you ask, heheh. My income is 100% dependent on my blogging, but I am an indirect problogger. This means I do not earn more than a small percentage, say, from AdSense, writing reviews, etc. If you look at my blog you will be hard pressed to find where I monetize - it is all about building a relationship with an audience.

Why did the number of blogs decrease?
Time mostly, but also because I wanted to get out of the affiliate game. Before blogging I was doing affiliate marketing but it never felt natural or fun so I got out of it.

How much time per day do you spend blogging?
I spend all day every day. 7 days a week. Apart from during my vacation where intentions were slapped down by the reality of poor Internet connectivity, d’oh!

Do you do extensive SEO for your blogs? What is your main source of visitors?
The last time I did extensive SEO was for a client, around 2004. My main source of visitors is other blogs. Word of mouth (mouse?) is the best traffic generator there is but it is hard work.

I guess search engines still do send you some visitors?
It depends on the blog and how much attention I give keywords and such. It varies.

Do you pay much attention to statistics?
Oh yeah, but not so much as I used to. Analytics and CRM was a drum I banged quite hard with marketing clients for years, and then of course while I was at Performancing.com. We had a popular metrics service.

How do you track statistics for your blogs?
Right now, just feedburner, but I did install 103bees or whatever it is called.

Your posts are quite profound. It seems like you could put any one of them to Digg and expect some amount of success. How much time does it take to produce a digg-worthy post?
I don’t write with digg or any other social site in mind, I write for my audience and hope they will enjoy it. That’s a dead end road. If we take our eye of the target and start doing all sorts of attention- seeking it can become addictive and ultimately damaging. I love it when someone submits my site to digg, I love it even more when they bookmark me or stumble etc, but I don’t submit my own articles and I don’t get upset when they are neglected by social media. So long as my readers enjoy it that is all good by me.

Do you read a lot? What is your favorite reading?
I read too much. It’s a failing of mine that I don’t let my eyes rest! My absolute favorite blog of all time is Scott Adams Dilbert Blog. There are hundreds of feeds in my RSS reader, have been over the 1000 mark too many times. I have daily reads, such as I read the top articles at digg, news.bbc, problogger, strobist.com and I am a member of many forums such as 5000bc.com and Flickr communities. Then there is always a pile of books next to my bed waiting to be read, each one of them has a bookmark in where I started reading and got distracted. I buy several books a month.

What positive (or negative) influence does reading have on your writing?
Reading opens your mind, adds knowledge, creates mental connections — you just have to make sure you read outside of your bubble, don’t fall into the trap of just taking notice of your echo chamber.

You do not write much about monetizing blogs. Is there a reason for this?
Other people do it far better than me and my philosophy is quite different. It takes all sorts to make a world, I know it’s not my niche. Darren does that very well. I wish Andy Hagans still did his monetization makeovers that he used to do at Performancing.com

Why did you choose Wordpress for your blogs?
Wordpress yes, but also Drupal. In a nutshell, Wordpress rocks! It’s simple, easy and powerful. It just works.

Drupal is becoming quite popular these days. How is it different from Wordpress?
Drupal is a CMS, portal and community platform AS WELL as being good for blogs. I would use it for multi-author blog communities, Wordpress for single author blogs. Expect to see Drupal grow and grow, keep your eye on it over the next 18 months. Wordpress is much easier to work with though. Only get into Drupal if you need to!

What is your single-word advice for those who wish to have a quick start in blogging?
“Write”.

This is a good one! Thank you, Chris!

Readers are more than welcome to leave their comments or questions. Next interview will be up early next week. It will be with Matt Coddington, the man behind Netbusinessblog. Stay tuned by subscribing to RSS or email notifications.

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