Interview – Jad Limcaco from Design Informer – How To Start A Successful Blog

Today we have a bit of a treat in that Jad Limcaco of the popular design blog – Design Informer found some time to talk to Lucidry and answer a few questions about launching a blog, Design Informer and his thoughts on a few things. Lots of detail and tips in there – enjoy!

Hi Jad, can you give a quick little run-down of who you are and what it is you do?

Hi Mel, thanks for interviewing me. Well, to those who are not familiar with me, my name is Jad Limcaco and I run a web and graphic design blog called Design Informer. I also work full-time as a web designer and I work on freelance design projects from time to time.

What prompted you to launch Design Informer?

It’s actually a really long story, but I will give you the condensed version. A little over 3 months ago, I wanted to give back to the design community and share my knowledge of design. I thought of doing different things but after much thinking, I knew that starting a blog would be the best way to give back. I already had a little blog that was connected with my freelance business and it was getting a decent amount of traffic, so I did have a little bit of experience. On November 1st, 2009, I finally decided to launch Design Informer.

How frequently do you post? Do you post as often as possible , on particular days? Or is it literally as and when you get round to writing a post?

That’s a great question. When I first started, I was so excited about blogging that I wanted to share all that I knew right away. I was posting 4 or 5 times a week and sometimes even more. There were even days when I posted twice in one day. After a while, I decided that this was not the best way for me to approach blogging. I was spending way too much time writing new posts and they were getting a little bit boring and the quality was dropping. It was then that I decided to get on a schedule.

Now, I post about 3 or 4 times a week at the most, usually on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, with the weekend post being a round-up or a free wallpaper of the week. Don’t get me wrong though, I am definitely flexible and there are times where I do break out of the normal posting routine. It all depends on the writer, their time, and also what type of blog they have.

Design Informer, unlike many blogs has gone from 0 to hero in approximately 2 months and currently has 83,000 unique visitors per month? What do you put the blogs success down to?

Well, if I had to attribute my blogs success to one thing, I would definitely have to say that it’s all because of hard work. I’m not trying to boast or lift myself up, but I have put in hundreds of hours on building the blog, promoting it, writing posts, and interacting with readers. Blogging isn’t easy! When I first started, I really wanted to not just have an average blog but I wanted to actually do something special and make a difference in the design community. I knew that this wasn’t going to happen with just talent or ability. I’m not the best designer or developer and I still have a lot to learn. I do know however, that hard work always pays off. That’s why I decided that if I was going to blog, I might as well give it my all. I am assured that if you put in the work in building and promoting your blog, you will have some good results. By the way, I’m very happy to say that I have already made a small difference in the community. I started a project on Smashing Magazine called #Daily365, a challenge to designers to design something every day, and so far, there are hundreds of designers who are participating in the project.

Something everyone will want to know is – How do you find readers and drive traffic to the blog, especially when you first started the site?

Finding traffic and acquiring readers was very hard, especially when I first started. Let me give you a list of things that I did to grow my blog.

Great Content – This is very important! If you want to drive traffic to your blog, then you need to have top-notch content. There are hundreds of other blogs in the same niche as me, and I absolutely need something to separate myself from the rest of the crowd. Having great content will definitely get you more readers.

Get Involved - What I mean by this is you need to participate in the community happenings. Visit other blogs in your niche and read their articles. After doing so, write some meaningful comments that add to the discussion. I guarantee you, this will get your blog noticed. You can also visit forums and answer questions. You want to get involved as much as possible.

Give Back to Others – This is one of the best tips that I can give you about growing your blog. Don’t be selfish and always just promote yourself. Learn how to give back to others. If someone tweets your article, then thank them and then go the extra mile and check out their blog, comment, and retweet them as well. If someone has a question, answer them. If someone comments on your blog, respond back to them. Little things definitely can go a long way, and doing these can definitely increase your readership.

Glean from the Best – Study others who are doing well in your niche and learn from them. By the way, I did this a lot. I studied the best blogs and tried to break their success down. I also found out that most of them will help you out and give you advice if you ask. Don’t be afraid to ask them for tips and suggestions on how you can improve your blog. Who knows, they might just give you some advice that might be the difference maker in your blog’s growth.

Generate Interest – People will visit your blog and follow you on Twitter if they find you interesting. Tweet interesting things, and not just what everyone else has already tweeted. I’ve increased my Twitter followers very quickly because I try to tweet articles and resources that are of interest to my followers. You can also write about topics and subjects that naturally interest people. I guarantee it, if you find that one subject that can spark interest, and you write a great article about it, you will have an influx of traffic. We recently had a post about “Lorem Ipsum” on our blog and this post generated over 200 comments. I think it’s safe to say that people were interested in that topic.

Design Informer is great in that it fees like a community. Most posts have well over 50 comments. How do you encourage so much participation?

Well, like I mentioned above, the topic/subject should be something that they are interested in. Also, I make sure that I always respond to the comment that’s left on my blog. Some of you are asking, “That’s a lot of work. I can’t do that!” Well, if you don’t think you can respond to people’s comments, then don’t expect them to comment. Also, threaded comments are great to add to your blog. It makes replying easier and it encourages commenting as well. Lastly, leaving comments on other blogs can definitely help. I find that by leaving thought-out, interesting and witty comments on other blogs, these bloggers often return the favour and comment on my posts as well.

There is stories everywhere of how to monetise a blog. Did you look to earn money from Design Informer from day one? What sites/ads do you use on the site now?

Actually, when I first started the blog, I didn’t think that it would make money at all. I knew from the start that it is very hard to get advertisers to sponsor your blog. I then heard of a service called BuySellAds where they sell the ads for you. They are the only company that I use. I’ve heard that a lot of people use Google Ads but I don’t like the fact that you don’t really have control on what ads show up on your blog. I’m sick of those “Lose Belly Fat” ads that or on design blogs. That’s why I decided to use BuySellAds and it has worked out quite well so far. I’m not making a fortune, but it is definitely a decent amount of money, great for investing in my gadgets/toys/etc.

You use wordpress on design informer.. What made you choose wordpress? Do you swear by any particular plugins?

Yes, I do use WordPress and the reason for it is because to me, it’s the easiest blogging platform to customize and there are already tons of people using it so if I ever need help, I just ask or Google my question and it usually gets answered right away.

Hmmm… good question. Plugins? I would have to say that I don’t rely on a particular plugin but there are some that I always use on my WordPress blogs, such as Google XML Sitemaps, W3 Total Cache to speed up the site, WordPress Database Backup to back-up my files, Theme Test Drive so I can test out my new themes, and there are a lot more plugins that I use. I guess it all depends on the project and what you need.

Up to this point, what do you think is your biggest blogging mistake?

My biggest blogging mistake can be found here. Other than that, I would also have to say that one of my biggest mistakes in blogging was when I first started, I didn’t plan too far ahead. If I can start over, I would definitely have been more prepared. I would have planned my articles, posting schedule, and promoting. But there’s nothing that I can do to go back to the past so I don’t look back now, I just strive to do better each day.

What’s the most surprising aspect of blogging for you?

Actually, I’m really surprised by how much I  have learned since I decided to start blogging. I’m a better designer, I’ve learned WordPress, PHP, XHTML/CSS a lot better since I have started blogging. The reason for this is that in order for me to write about a certain topic, I need to be well informed and educated about it, so I do a lot of research and reading on what I will be blogging about. Blogging is definitely a great way to learn new things.

Do you think you will launch another blog any time soon?

I’m actually planning to launch another blog on March. It’s called Coding Informer. This blog will be more focused on web development and it will cover WordPress, XHTML/CSS, PHP, jQuery and other programming languages. It will have lots of tips and tutorials about web design. I’m definitely excited about that new blog, and I’m also working with a super talented individual named Brendan Sera-Shriar on that project.

If you had one piece of advice for somebody looking to launch a blog, what would it be?

Well, I would have to say that before you launch a blog, check your motives and reasons behind starting a blog. You better make sure you have a good reason because if you don’t, it will be very easy to quit. If you are just in it for the money, it will be very hard to stay motivated because making money from blogging isn’t easy. Besides, there are plenty of benefits in starting a blog that doesn’t involve money.

Anyway, thanks for interviewing me and inviting me to Lucidry. It was great to be able to answer these questions and share a little bit about myself.