Its time for another interview. Today I am presenting Matt Coddington, person behind NetBusinessBlog, that became successful in a course of only couple months. Matt is 22 years old. He lives in Columbia, South Carolina where he is attending the University of South Carolina.

You became a celebrity almost over night. Was that the original plan?
I’m not so sure I became a celebrity (even an e-celebrity) but I do acknowledge that my name is much more known now than before I started the blog. Honestly I never expected the blog to grow as fast as it did although I certainly imagined it. I saw what others were doing and even though there is a lot of great information being given out I thought I had a lot I could contribute myself. One of my slogans is that I’m not an expert at anything, so don’t confuse me with those “gurus” but what I do offer is the knowledge I’ve accrued over the last 7 years. So overall I just wanted the blog to be a place where I could share with others what took me so long to learn and hopefully show some people how to make their living online.

How much do you earn now from blogging? Do you have any goal for this year?
Blogging is still an extremely small portion of my income. Most of my money is still generated through web development. The total amount I do make from blogging, however, is around $1500 at the moment. I expect that number to go up quite a bit when I get a public PR (I think it’s arbitrary, but advertisers rely on it for whatever reason). My goal for the end of this year is to become a problogger. I’d like to spend all of my online time blogging. I still do enjoy development, but I like blogging so much more and would love it if it became my job.

You work as web-designer. Is design really important for blogs?
In my opinion every serious blogger should at one point hire a designer to give his or her blog a unique look and feel not because design is essential to blogging (after all, content is king right?) but because it’s much much much easier to pull visitors into your blog and keep them there when you have an attractive and intuitive design.

What do you think about people using ready to go themes (templates)?
I think they’re fine, but if anyone wants to really be taken serious they need to eventually get a real design. Of course there are plenty of instances where one doesn’t need a custom design (Matt Cutts, John Chow, etc) but in these instances there is usually something going on at the blog that transcends all of the rules that us everyday bloggers would benefit from following.

Your writing style is very attractive. What helped you develop it? Do you read a lot?
I read every Goosebumps book up to about 45 when I was a kid. Since then I’ve read maybe 10 books (all school assigned). I’m not a big fan of books, especially when you can get the same experience of a day long read condensed into an hour and a half worth of movie. Honestly it wasn’t until I started blogging that I was told I have a good writing style. My professors hated it.

I guess it is because blogging allows more colloquial style…
Yep that’s probably the main reason.

Related question…In one of the interviews you sad that you do not read RSS, and use bookmarks instead. Why?
It’s partly due to the fact that I find it sort of overwhelming to open up my feed reader and see a ton of new articles up. I feel obligated to click on them all which takes up a lot of my time. It’s just a personal thing. It’s easier for me to skim over the crap when I have it open in my window. At the end of the day it’s probably just old habits dying hard.

How much time does it take on average to produce one post for Net Business Blog? Do you ask anybody to review your articles, before actually posting them? Does that help?
It takes me anywhere from 15-30 minutes to 2 hours. It all depends on the type of post, the depth, and the amount of additional research needed. Just about all of my posts I write just before they go live. I’m a bad procrastinator, so I rarely write posts in advance to be published the next day. None of my articles are read in advance by anyone.

I really liked your step-by-step guide for building a niche minisites. Do you have many of those? Do they actually work as revenue streams?
I don’t do minisites anymore, not because they’re ineffective but because I wanted more out of my work than just an income stream. Blogging is becoming not only my job but my favorite pastime, and I enjoy it much more than building niche minisites. But when I was running minisites they generated good income for me with the smallest amount of work I’ve ever done on a website. It just wasn’t rewarding enough.

Are they still online? Still generate some money?
Yes and yes, but I sold them to another fellow many moons ago.

You established yourself very firmly in the blogosphere in a very short time mainly due to getting on the front page of Digg. It seems impossible to do that without friends helping you out to get at least some initial diggs. Is that the case?

For unestablished sites you will never get to the frontpage without that initial boost from your friends Digging your stories. That’s the sad truth. Once your blog hits it big you don’t have to lift a finger, but unless there is a name and a reputation (not to mention a reader base) attached to your blog then you will have to work for at least those first 15-20 Diggs to get your story noticed.

Does MyBlogLog help you a lot in attracting people to your site? It seems like most people just do not go beyond the MBL profile page.
No. I have been thoroughly unimpressed with MBL. I’ve even removed the widget from my site, mostly due to the insanely slow load time. MBL is a great idea that has been executed poorly with no indication of having a bright future (development wise). The only reason for its success is that it was the first of its kind. BUMPzee is much more promising than MBL in my opinion and will dominate the niche by the end of the year at its current pace.

It is arguable that search engines attract a lot of visitors. What is your experience?
My blog is 4 months old and is already getting 20% of its traffic from search engines with no real off-site SEO. Search engine traffic is good. Very good. SEO should always be a strong part of your marketing strategy, but never make it your only source of traffic.

Your http://www.netbusinessblog.com/ is working on Wordpress. What are the benefits of using Wordpress as a blog platform?
Blogging is a very new gig to me; in fact, it’s my latest experiment in making money online. That being said I’ve only used Wordpress and Blogger. Wordpress is leaps and bounds above Blogger in every single way, but as for comparing it to MovableType or other blogging software — I just don’t have the experience.

How do you track statistics for your site? What are the main things ones should look for to make a use of it?
I use both Google Analytics and MyBlogLog Pro (only because it was given to me for free). I also have AWstats. I think it’s best to never rely on one statistics program because for some reason that is far beyond my comprehension, none of them EVER report the same thing. The main things I use tracking software for is to see which SE keywords are generating the most traffic for me for future keyword consideration. I also use it to see which pages are getting the most repeat visitors so I can tinker with the individual monetization of those pages to get the most revenue out of them. It’s also always fun to go down your referral list and click all the links to see which sites are giving you link love.

What is your single-word advice for those who wish to have a quick start in blogging?
Digg

Thanks, Matt!

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