Interview with Seth Waite of Blogussion
Commanding Influence: Build A Strong Online Presence
Seth Waite is an author at one of the most exciting websites you can visit if your interested in learning about becoming a more effective blogger.
Seth is a married guy who’s working his way through law school. He’s incredibly smart and he loves helping people grow and develop their skills as bloggers.
I would recommend Blogussion to absolutely anyone. Seth and his blogging partner Alex provide terrific articles, tutorials, resources and discussions all wrapped in an amazing template and a great community feel.
The Interview Begins…
Me: You run an amazing website full of great resources for bloggers called blogussion. What’s with the unusual name? How did you come up with it?
Seth: My partner Alex Fraiser came up with name of our blog, Blogussion. It is the combination of Blog + Discussion. We felt like bloggers needed a place to come and learn about blogging in a fun community. So our name is both a goal of ours and the mantra we try to blog by.
Blogussion Is A Fun, Growing Community
Me: You mentioned that it’s your goal to allow bloggers to learn and grow in a fun, enjoyable community setting.
As I’ve visited your blog I’ve really felt that community feel. I find loads of comments with people sharing their own thoughts and experiences. I’ve also noticed that you and Alex respond to nearly every comment. What does it take to develop a community like that? What’s your secret?
Seth: Our secret is spending time on the little things. Alex has spent lots of time with designing our blog to maximize the users experience for learning and participating. We have tried to make every detail of the design user focused and community oriented.
Another thing we do, like you mentioned, is respond to almost every comment made on our blog. We read the comments and really try to think about what was said. Then we respond. Often when we are asked a question we go out of our way to find an answer and either post it in our comments or email the commentator the response. These details go a long way with our readers and develop a community feel.
I personally try to email new commentators with a unique look at their blog and perhaps some articles I think they would find useful on Blogussion. I also thank them for commenting and ask them if they have any questions. Over time we have gotten to know a lot of our readers on a much more personal basis.
I use Twitter to connect with other people quite regularly. If I see questions about blogging, wordpress, thesis theme, or other topics I can help with I always send a tweet. Over time I have built great relationships with these tweeters and many have become faithful readers. Once you have a community the nice thing is that they start to promote your blog for you, and a referral goes a long way
Me: I’ve noticed that you don’t have advertising on your website. Are you not trying to make any money while blogging or are you monetizing your online efforts in some other way?
Seth: Our method for monetizing is more subtle and focused on long term success. By minimizing our ads we keep our readers on our blog much longer. If you notice as well we do have one advertisement on our blog, but it is a banner that rotates through ads for our “own” content. This way we can introduce readers to our own content and keep them learning on our blog. The more useful our blog is too our readers the more likely they are to keep coming back. Its also a fundamental element to our community building.
Our monetizing method currently is through relevant and useful affiliate sales
We also are releasing very soon our own product. We get asked through email, tweet, and comments, weekyl for offers to buy Blogussion’s design so we are now offering something very similar! A Thesis Theme skin with fully customizable features and the style of Blogussion. We think Thesis theme is great and wanted to provide a fantastic resource for our readers. We will be releasing this theme in almost no time so keep a look out!
Me: We sure will. Will you be offering an affiliate program with your coming theme release?
Seth: We will be offering an affiliate program so not only will it be a great product to get for either your current blog or any new projects, but its also a great way to earn money. We do not have all the details to release now, but your commission as an affiliate will be competitive!
Me: What’s your ultimate goal for Blogussion? Where do you see this site a year from now or three years from now?
Seth: Right now Alex is only 16 and still in high school (amazes me everyday) and I am currently in law school so we both are very busy outside of blogging. Our goal over the next year is to continue to build our community and produce more content.
We are also looking into providing a few more tools and products for our readers. Its our 1 year Birthday in December so we are very excited with where we have come. Our growth has been very organic and besides spending $50 one time to test advertising we have never paid for traffic.
We are currently below 24,000 in the Alexa rank and are reaching our first year goals quite satisfactorily. For this next week we want to continue our organic growth and reach out to many more bloggers. Our goals for the future after that are to be able to perhaps work full-time (the two of us) in 2012 when we graduate from high school and law school. We are excited about our prospects and are in no rush to earn. Our main goal is to build our blog.
Seth: First off I would like to thank you again for this opportunity and also let your readers know what a fantastic blog they are reading right now. You have done great work and really enjoy not only getting to know you but also seeing what excellent content you produce. A lot of my favorite posts from around the web come from this blog.
Saying that, I also think your readers have an excellent chance to compliment the things they are learning here with additional ideas and community members on Blogussion. Know that you are always welcome to join in on the conversation and be apart of a thriving blog community at Blogussion.com.
Me: I completely agree. Keep up the awesome work. I’m looking forward to the exciting future of blogussion.
Group Participation
If you haven’t noticed, I have a great deal of respect for Seth and for the work he’s doing over at Blogussion. If you haven’t already done so then you really need to check them out.
Seth also mentioned that he would be reading all of the comments on this interview and working to respond to them so let’s take advantage of that and let’s learn from him. What questions do you have for Seth? What questions do you have about blogging, writing, online relationships, marketing or anything else?
Nicholas Cardot
Nick uses his blog Site Sketch 101 to express his passion for helping bloggers and webmasters connect with real people through brilliant designs, unique content, and genuine creativity. Nicholas Cardot has 200 post(s) at Site Sketch 101
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Eric Bannatyne said:
Great interview. Blogussion is an awesome site that I have been following for a little while now.
A question for Seth: How did you get together with Alex to start Blogussion? Have you known each other for very long before starting Blogussion, or did you just meet and decide to start a site together?
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Seth W said:
I met Alex through blogging about 2-3 months before we partnered up. I ran another blog and we both read each others blog and admired different qualities about the other.
Then Alex’s first partner left and so I emailed Alex to tell him of my interest in partnering with him. We then worked out a viable solution and have been partners ever since!
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izzat aziz said:
i love blogussion especially the fact that they not look like other blog which have so many 125 x 125 ads, that almost take the whole page of blog in the screen.. want to look what in the sidebar other than ads? need to scroll down.. that not good, like blogussion say the fold should content important thing not ads..
love blogussion and love this interview thank you.
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Seth W said:
Thanks for the Love Izzat Aziz!
My Latest Blog Post: How Being Happy can Make you a Better Blogger
Alan @ Basin Glass Pipes said:
I just came across Seth’s blog today…its a fantastic resource and he is a great writer that grabs attention. I was reading his article about the similarities between Megan Fox and Google, and it was a fantastic read. Thanks for the interview, very cool!
Seth W said:
It was great to see you stop by and I’m glad you enjoyed the article about Google and Megan Fox. There are hundreds more on Blogussion you’ll love! A whole bunch on sitesketch too!
Antti Kokkonen said:
Thanks Nicholas for this interview with Alex. I’ve found both of your blogs just recently and enjoyed both a great deal.
First, congratulations for the success of Blogussion for Alex. The blog is a great example that you CAN make it in “saturated” niche like “blogging about blogging” when you put your heart into it.
And with that, the questions for Alex would be: What advice would you give for a established blog that “hasn’t quite made it yet” to grow traffic even further?
+ if you feel like answering a second one: Has anything gone as planned with Blogussion, and would you have done something different during the past year if you knew what you know now?
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Seth W said:
Here’s the answer to both of your questions:
1. Guest post! If your traffic has not reached the pinnacle you would like then get out and guest post. Try stretching yourself and writing at least 4 a month! Then you will see your traffic grow enormously!
2. Things rarely work out as planned. With Blogussion many of the things have worked out better than planned! If I was to do anything different it would be in how I promoted. I would have built twitter up much faster and spent more time building relationships with great bloggers like Nick here on Sitesketch.. you have a great resource in him!
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Annabel Candy, Get In the Hot Spot said:
Thanks for interviewing Seth. I hang on to his every word of blogging wisdom:) If anyone deserves success he does. His attention to detail, customer service and determination to succeed are unparalleled. All round inspiration !
Seth W said:
*blushing* Thanks a lot Annabel, I really appreciate that! Nick gave a great interview and was so hospitable. He asked very good questions and the interview developed very organically.
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Arie Rich said:
Great interview, SiteSketch 101 and Seth! Blogussion is the best blogging site ever. No lie. They provide great tips, and they always keep you coming back for more. I found out about them via a guest post Seth did on ProBlogger and then I followed Seth on Twitter.
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Seth W said:
Its true! Arie and I have had lots of great interaction ever since! She has guest posted on Blogussion and I have guest posted on her blog. We are also now very good twitter friends!
A lot of good things happen when we reach outside of our own blog and help others!
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Dana @ Online Knowledge said:
Bloggusion is really a great blog. I find many thing to build my own blog there.
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Seth W said:
Thanks a lot Dana. We enjoy your thoughtful comments and are glad you are getting a lot from our work.
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chandan said:
I am not a regular reader of your blog, but your blog is really impressive. I will visit your blog soon. Thank you Seth.
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Seth W said:
Glad you liked the blog and hope to see you around more often!
My Latest Blog Post: How Being Happy can Make you a Better Blogger
Web Hosting UK said:
Useful interview! Learnt one or two things from there, am a reader and subscriber of blogussion, i usually drop by everyday.
One great thing about the blog is that they respond to almost all comments which usually makes you ‘the reader’ feel more important to yourself!
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Seth W said:
We really try to make every reader know they are important to us. We appreciate the work that our readers put into our blog by reading it, commenting, and promoting what they like.
We are just appreciative of all our readers and want to thank Nick too!
My Latest Blog Post: How Being Happy can Make you a Better Blogger
David | ilcantone.com said:
Great interview Nick, very interesting.
I knew about Blogussion thanks to a comment on Sitesketch101
. I didn’t know that Blogussion had just one year of existence 
, that’s amazing, you’ve done a great work.
I want to change the theme of ilcantone.com, I’m looking for something simple, clean, and highly functional. I’m very interested in the blogussion design, so I will be waiting for your product.
I’m not very good coding
. I wouldn’t like to bother my readers with the updating process, what do you suggest me to do? A wordpress local installation or something like this? What would you do?
By the way, I’m in the law school too
. In fact, just right now I’m doing a paper. We are law comrades. Good luck with your studies.
See you Seth.
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Seth W said:
Its great to have a fellow law buddy! Also to answer your question, whenever I am updating a theme here are a few suggestions:
1. Setup your new theme on a subdomain first.
2. Do all of your customizations on your test site. Try everything.
3. Make sure your test site has varied content types, fake comments, and most importantly all the plug-ins you currently are using. Too often a new theme is tested but the plugins are not and they go haywire!
4. Then be sure to put up maintenance mode (plugin) and in less than 30 minutes you can have your brand new theme or design up and running with little or no problems!
I would recommend our new theme because it is a plug and play theme with lots of options and a very easy to use admin panel for specific theme options.
You’ll love it!
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Gabe | freebloghelp.com said:
As Seth knows, I’m already a regular visitor to Blogussion. It’s a site I visit often because of the valuable content. Keep up the great work!
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Seth W said:
We do know and appreciate you Gabe! Thanks for stopping by and being apart of our blog and also Nicks! He is an awesome guy and an excellent blogger.
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Alex Fraiser said:
Awesome interview guys, made for a real good read! I’m glad you understand Blogussion so well Seth.
It’s really cool your community here has taken such interest in the blog Nick! I also see a lot of familiar faces here too.
Again, awesome stuff! Tweeted.
My Latest Blog Post: How Being Happy can Make you a Better Blogger
Robomaster said:
Glad you like the content here at SS101, Alex! The main thing that sets apart this blog from others is that all the readers get to know Nick and each other in a way that makes us feel connected – any one of us could ask for a favor and I’m sure they would get it.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Robomaster –> That’s a good feeling to build when working to create a community around your blog.
Annabel Candy, Get In the Hot Spot said:
Ah yes, and thanks to the lovely Nick too for designing a blog for bloggers which doesn’t look like one. I love it:)
Robomaster said:
Yup, this site has such a great design that I can visit it many times in one day and never be bored or eyesore.
I hope I’m doing that with my blog!
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Annabel Candy, Get In the Hot Spot –> Ha ha. You’re welcome. I’m glad that you’re enjoying our blogs.
George Serradinho said:
A great interview of a great blog with many valuable posts and information.
Will make sure I look out for their theme skin, interested to see how it comes out.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
George Serradinho –> I am too. I think that it’s going to be great. I can’t wait.
Chad said:
I recently discovered Blogussion (via SS101) and subscribed immediately. The design is as killer as the content.
We need more interviews like this. Getting to know the people behind the sites is cool.
David and Seth – You guys sure about going into legal? I’m a 16 year law firm vet. RUN AWAY. Kidding. Maybe.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Chad –> I will work to do more interviews in the future. On Friday, I’ll be posting an interview that I did with a New York Times Bestselling author. I think that you’ll really enjoy it.
Seth W said:
Haha.. yes I am going to get a law degree, but not sure if I will be using it as a lawyer. There’s a good chance I’ll be working full-time online!
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