Running a Design Blog - Interview with Michael Dunlop

Today I have an interview for you with Michael Dunlop, a very talented 20 year old blogger, who makes quite a lot of money running three blogs, one of which is WebDesignDev, a web design blog he started when he was only 16 years old (young). In the interview Michael explains how to start a design blog, get traffic and make money.

First of all, thanks for doing this interview Michael! Please give
us a brief introduction and tell us what you do.

I'm 20 years old, most known for my website Retireat21.com and IncomeDiary.com - I teach people young or old how to make money online while they sleep. I enjoy mountain biking and kayaking in the Sea just a 2 minute walk from my house.

You recently relaunched WebDesignDev.com. Please tell what this blog is all about.

This is an old blog of mine, it started back in early 2006 as a project with a friend. Our first month ( I was 16 at the time ) we brought in over 200,000 visitors and I was earning a good income compared to anyone, young or old. I didn't update the site for 9 months and it was still getting 30,000 visitors a month from Google so I decided its time to put some effort into it. I am working with a friend called Andy on this project to make sure we can put more time into it so we can provide value.

There are tons of design blogs cropping up all over the place, do you have any tips for bloggers to stand out from the crowd and get
noticed?

Provide value and great content, everyone just wants to make money to badly. Take some time to create content people haven't seen before and make sure its on a whole new level. Create content that's going to make your competition hate you because your just that dam good!

A good example of someone doing this is Tutorial9.net

Local English Newspaper Interview

What's the best way to get traffic to a design blog?

My top tip for driving traffic to not just a design blog but any blog is to do creative content. Creative content is something unique and interesting to a wide audience, for example if you had a design blog you may want to do a post called 30 Top Web Design Tutorials or 10 Reasons Why It Sucks To Be A Designer.

On WebDesignDev, additionally to the blog, you have forums. What are the benefits of having forums? How should forums be run in the
design niche?

I won't lie to you, forums are hard work! I have 3 of them and looking back, I wish I organized it so I only had 1 forum but its too late now. The benefit of having a forum is that you can let your readers do the teaching and discussion themselves instead of you all the time. Forums are not as needed in 2009 because of the evolution of blogging. I add them to my sites so I can increase the value of my websites and make them more community orientated.

How important is Twitter for you? Do you get a lot of traffic from Twitter? Any tips?

I have around 40,000 twitter followers, all done in around 3 months. Twitter is very powerful for a few reasons:

- Drives crazy traffic to your website
- Find new people to network with
- Great way to build a brand and find new readers.

If you are not on twitter right now then your business or blog isn't doing as well as it could be. I highly recommend you check it out, my personal twitter account is @michaeldunlop

What do you like most about the online design community?

Everyone is very willing to help, spreading great content around the design community is very easy.

What do you like least about the online design community?

So many people jump to conclusions and want to bad mouth you, everyone needs to relax a little and pick better battles.

Michael with Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy

Do you have any tips for making money with a design blog? What monetization methods do you use/recommend?

I think the best tip I can give you is test, everyone just sees the top design blog and see they have private advertising or using BuySellAds.com - just because they are the top blog, doesn't mean they have everything right. Try something different and make sure to not have all your eggs in one basket. Spread out your monetization structure so in case one method doesn't make you money, you still have your other methods to full back on.

What is the most important thing to keep in mind when running a design blog?

Content is King, the second you put up a bad tutorial or bad post you lose your readers, simple as that!

Make sure to post daily and to out do yourself every day.

What are your future plans for WebDesignDev?

Just to grow and to keep providing new great content. I would love to have the top design blog but right now I have a lot of options on my plate and want to make the best choices. Webdesigndev is my oldest website so I will always look after it and don't intend to sell it any time soon.

Thanks again for doing this interview. Do you have any last tips or anything you would like to say to the Design community?

I think every designer or programmer should have their own blog to talk about the things important to them. Its super easy and I have set up a FREE eCourse on how to do it yourself, you can check that out here: http://www.incomediary.com/create-a-profitable-blog/

Apart from that, just be true to yourself and honest. Make sure not just to teach your readers but to also inspire them, inspiration goes a lot further!