Muslim Blog Interview – “around 8,000 visitors a month” for Zaki’s Corner

July 12, 2011 0 Comments

Below is a summary of the interview I did with Zaki Hasan, who founded Zaki’s Corner.

His blog has been nominated for “Best Blog” and “Best Writer” by the 2010 Brass Crescent Awards, and included in the Top 35 Political Blogs of 2010 by BestBloggers.org.

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How and when did you get the idea for Zaki’s Corner Blog ?

I have been doing a lot of writing back home in Chicago and I used to work for different community newspapers. And with the war in Irak and the general policy of Bush administration, I felt the need to have my own platform to write what I had to say about what’s going on, as well as on other topics like pop culture. So I started the blog thank to Mr. Bush!

You have been doing this blog for how long?

I started early November 2004.

How many visitors do you get ?

I get around 8000 visitors a month.

Which techniques do you use to get people to your blog when you started out?

I think the focus of the blog has really changed a lot. Like when I first started it was just really a way for me to have an online footprint and for the past 7 years it has turned into something much wider and much broader and that by the virtue of.. that I have learned what type of audience that I do have. So nowadays I am more focused on using SEO and social media marketing, sending out links and what nots. But before there was not so much of a focus, I was much concerned about brand building initially.

So at the beginning, is it just your content that got all these people to your blog?

Yes, I guess it is. It could sound like I am putting myself up on a pefostan…but the focus has always been about me writing about things that I find interesting reflected through my perspective and I guess it struck a receptive chord.

You got some awards for your blog, you’ve been nominated for “Best Blog” and “Best Writer” by the 2010 Brass Crescent Awards, and included in the Top 35 Political Blogs of 2010 by BestBloggers.org. What is the impact of such awards on traffic ?

The main thing that these awards do is to imbue an immediate amount of credibility. If you got recognized at xyz it will help your blog site gets more exposure than another site that does not. In terms of traffic, there is no doubt that it has a significant impact. I have been monitoring and keeping track of the traffic and over the past year and a half I have been able to see a perceptible, notable shift in not the only the amount of traffic but also the amount of times my articles are shared on things like Facebook and through Twitter. So yes, there is no doubt there is an impact.

How efficient is it to use “NetworkedBlogs”?

I do keep track of how many people are subscribing through NetworkedBlogs and the more subscribers I get, the more subscribers I tend to get! Because the greater the number, the more visibility I have.

Another thing is people who subscribe to the blog. There are around 900 subscribers and I know, personally, maybe a third of them. So, really it has been reaching out to an audience that is beyond just me and my immediate social circle.

Does being a Muslim blog make a difference?

I am not naive about that. In terms of my visibility in the relatively small community of Muslim writers and things like that, I think that I have a greater degree of visibility now since I started tackling issues that are more directly related to state of Muslims in America. I never set out to have a Muslim blog, it is not something that I think I have the credibility to do. I happened to look at it as a blog written by a Muslim on several topics.

You are a co-author of a book, please tell us a bit about that.

It’s great, it’s coming out in August. It’s called Geek Wisdom – The Sacred Teaching Of Nerd Culture. The great thing about this is that I was contacted by the editor of the book who reads and enjoys the blog. Based on his enjoyment of the blog, he thought I would be able to contribute something in it. The book essentially is 200 or so quotations from geek culture, movies, tv shows, scientists and books. Little quotations and then 200 words reflection on what we can learn from these quotes and what they teach us. So, what can we learn from “the force will be with you”, what does that say about us, what does it say about the society,…This is a type of thing I love because as a writer that is exactly the type of things I want to talk about. We talk about connective tissue between society and the pop culture and how the two sort of conform each other. It’s a great opportunity and I was happy to be a part of it and I think people will really enjoy the book.

It will be launched in August 2nd. It will be in print and also in digital.

You co-founded your company. Could you tell us a bit about that and also tell us if you only have an online marketing strategy or offline as well?

Well, Mr. Boy Productions is basically something that initially started out as myself and one friend I went to high-school with. It turned into something in Chicago where we were shooting commercial videos for people and doing that locally over there and when we came out here to LA, it basically turned into something in which we were shooting shorts and putting them out on the web. Actually one of the short films we did, a couple of years ago, called “24 – Jack and Tony’s day off” (a parody of the TV show 24) was chosen by Variety, which is a pretty influential magazine in LA, as one of the best shorts to come out of a rider strike. We have done some TV pilots but at present we are in a holding pattern where we get out next big project lined up.

What is your goal with it?

Well, ideally our goal is to create a company that is able to write and produce content for television, but essentially it is just to have a hub for creativity.

We do consider ourselves as a business but we have been in hibernation for the past year or so, just because our various associates have been working on separate projects on their own. Our ideal situation is, and I am sure the guys would agree with this, to come up with content for a TV show and sell it and be done with it except by virtue of having ownership stake in whatever we sell. That is the end goal.

Do you want to turn Zaki’s Corner blog into media, audio and video?

The blog site is somewhat distinct from the production company. There is a little bit of overlap in that the blog allows me to promote some of those venues but basic, we have always seen Mr. Boy Productions as something where myself and my two partners were able to take our creative ventures and consolidate them under this umbrella.

From a business perspective, what are your main sources of online revenues?

Well, the blog itself is not enough of a money maker but in terms of building a brand and having an online presence, it has been a gateway to different money making ventures. At most I have made a 100$ a month with clicks through the blog which is nice, thank to Amazon affiliate program. But I am disappointed because our governor here Jerry Brown just signed a law that will get rid of this program, and I got an email from them saying the service has been discontinued.

It’s aimed at Amazon. Without getting into too much of the weed’s here, it’s a way of charging tax that Amazon makes throughout the state. The disadvantage is that I would be losing the extra income I would have been making.

I have never looked at the blog as a money making vehicle, I have looked at it as an avenue to get money making venues. For instance the book came out of the editor reading the blog and I also had other people who read the site asking me to write different articles and paying for it. That is essentially the way I look at it and that is how I have always looked at it as it is primarily about creating a brand and creating a footprint that allows people to have one place to look to find what they need to know about you.

Can you measure the amount of money that come indirectly from the blog?

I would say over the past year, I have made probably a little over 2000$ off of the site, which is nice considering it is something I just do on the side.

From all these years of blogging you surely have learned a lot. What could you have done sooner to be where you are now, quicker?

At the beginning I viewed the blog as just something where I would put posts whenever I have something to say. The posting is relatively light. I would say it’s not as substantial as it could have been. So one thing I have started and made a decision about a couple of years ago was: I got the web space, I am paying for the domain, so I am going to post as much as possible until the goal I have set, one post every day, is met. Sometimes I meet that and sometimes I don’t. This is important to me because it makes your website something viable that people need to come back to again and again. People see that this author has something to say about a lot of things and they want to hear it. What I found is that I can pretty much link the amount of success that I have achieved in the past few years to the increase in content. Related to that is that the more you write, the more things you will have to write about. This is how I am, I have taught myself that the only thing that matters is that I care about it and people will show up. I do check my statistics in terms of which post gets the most hits and I do tend to cover those topics more. I think one has to be aware of the audience out there. Again, the more things you write, the more of an audience you are going to have because you are going to cover a wider range of different topic areas.

Do you outsource some articles or do you write everything yourself?

I write everything myself. I have actually occasionally asked few people to write something but inevitably something has come up. I am taking this as a sign…

It’s called Zaki’s Corner. It has my name on it . I don’t write behind an alias. I carry this thing as a point of pride. Because what you get is from me. That means I will do my best to treat an issue as honestly and openly as I can perceive it. I think this has been beneficial

Do you use some techniques to make sure that people comes back to your website?

One of the main things that I have done in the last couple of years is that I became very active on Twitter. This was kind of a bitter pill for me to swallow because I was one of these people who criticized Twitter: what can you say in 140 words ?…

But for me my Twitter identity is integral to my blog’s identity. Not only does it allow me to plug content that I have written but also allows me to put things out there to share links that may be I don’t have time or patience to do a full piece on. But people out there in Twitter land will read it and say that this is something I am interested in, let me check what else this person has to say. I see for myself how many hits I get of Twitter and another big thing which I wished I had started earlier is to really working on SEO and using keywords and things like how best to construct blog’s headlines. These are the things that I wish I had tuned into a bit earlier because I have seen for myself how it benefitted my traffic.

One technique I use is when writing about a topic is to see what are the search phrases coming up into Google. Then I look what is the number one hit and number two. I then construct a blog header based on those hits. One thing that I used to do more and still do to some extent is to put the funny, clever and loving headlines for my blogs, but I found that these headlines get less hits versus something that is more straight forward. Your site is more likely to come up with the straight forward headline.

Do you have some business/marketing books to recommend to Muslim bloggers ?

I really don’t know in terms of marketing stuff because my approach on this site has always been focused on just trying to create content.

I would recommend different approach which is yes have marketing but also read out on how to create the best type of content. So be well read in whatever topics you choose. I cover a wide range of social topics so I feel it’s my responsibility to be well read on what’s happening and be well read on the days of events, also on grammar and articulations. I would recommend to become the best in the area that you want to cover on so that you are considered as an authority.

Last question: which advise would you give to Muslims who want to create successful blogs. Like if I want to be the Best Muslim Blog at the Best Cressent Awards, what should I do ?

Journey of a thousands miles starts with the first step. I think what happens often is people does have this idea about on their heads. They think I want to write about x and…we don’t do it because at some point we say Ah! I don’t have time!

You know part of getting it going is getting it going. If you have a passion and if you have an interest, you should pursue this. Let the world know. I do really believe that whatever success I have been able to get from the website is due to having this mindset.

Be confident in what you have to say.

We need Muslim voices out there. It is very critical at this stage in our global history.