Today I have an awesome interview with Kristoffer Sandven from Joomlablogger.net Kristoffer has been blogging since 1999 and shares with us his insight to becoming a better blogger and how the blogging community has evolved since 1999.

Let’s get started with the interview

Me: Hey Kristoffer, glad to be doing this interview with you today. To start off this interview can we get a little bio about what you do?

Kristoffer:

Hi Bilal!

I work as an SEO and web consultant in Norway. I work for another company, and have my own business as well.

I started blogging around 1999 (!) when the internet was just starting to take hold. I’ve actually continued the first blog I started to this day. It’s in Norwegian, and has a steady amount of traffic. The theme is technology, primarily focused on mobile tech. It started out as a website 100% focused on the Palm PDAs and later Palm Smartphones. Now, the scope is wider. I also run a few other, smaller blogs in different niches.

In May, I started an English language blog at www.joomlablogger.net. The blog is about the Joomla CMS. My goal with this blog is to provide useful tips, tutorials and news about Joomla. Because I use this platform for almost every website I create, I discover new things all the time. These discoveries are shared with my readers. I try to make the posts detailed and thorough, and spend quite a lot of time on each post.
Because of my work with SEO, I try to see everything from a search engine friendly perspective

Me: Interesting, seems to me you have many years of blogging experience. A big debate in the blogosphere is which is better Joomla VS WordPress. Why do you choose Joomla over WordPress?

Kristoffer:

I just happened to start using Joomla, and fell in love I really haven’t tried WordPress at all. I tend to build more complex websites, and think Joomla is well suited for that. WordPress might be better from a blogging perspective, but I proud myself on solving every need in Joomla. I guess I like using one platform and get the most from it. Too many systems, too much clutter in the mind.

Me: Haha totally man I understand. What is the biggest tip you would give to a newbie blogger?

Kristoffer:

Everyone talks about content being the most important in a blog. I agree with that – but that’s discussed to pieces As a newbie blogger it’s very easy to fall in to management mode. That is, you tune every setting of your blog, read everything you find about blogging, check your affiliate and Adsense stats constantly and generally keep very busy. But you’re not producing anything. You should spend 90% of your time working on your blog producing quality content. I know it’s difficult – and I need to remind myself of this every day. There are constant distractions around. Turn off your social media apps, your browser, your cell phone and every other distraction – and just write. Recently, I’ve started using a full screen text editor like JDarkRoom. Keeps the distractions away.

Marketing your blog posts with social media like Twitter, Digg and StumbleUpon is also important, but don’t forget to share as well. Only promoting your own stuff will come across as boring and self centered. Share, contribute and people will respect you more.

The last tip (I could go on for quite a while…) is to be personal – or at least speak directly to the reader. Write as if you were explaining the subject to your best friend. I’ve not done this too much in the past, but I really try to improve on this.

Me: That’s some really amazing advice. Another difficulty young bloggers have is standing out from the crowd, how do you suggest they stand out?

Kristoffer:

Well, everybody tries to stand out – and that can become a bit forced, don’t you think? It’s like ‘You try to hard!’. Relax, be yourself, write about what excites you and create good, quality content. Solve problems for people. If you want to stand out, do so by creating better content, more detailed content, more engaging content – quite simply by doing a better job than your competition. The readers will come – and they will stay.

Me: Yea I agree. You said earlier in the interview you’ve been blogging since 1999? How has the blogging world changed since then in your opinion?

Kristoffer:

I started a site in 1999 which had the form of a blog. Of course, I didn’t call it a blog at that time. The biggest difference is that now everyone’s using the internet. Back then, the internet was still something the techies and innovators used.

Another big difference is that today we know a lot more about what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how to measure it. Also, everything happens much faster now. Social media and RSS readers keep people updated and spreads our message in an instant. In 1999 Google was virtually unknown. Actually, I have a book about web design from 2001 where Google is not even mentioned…! Today, many (most?) blogs rely on Google as their primary source of traffic.

It’s also easier to set up a blog and get started today. I had to build my own CMS when I started in ’99. Today, the systems are ready and you just need to create good content. Google Analytics and other tracking systems give precise answers and makes it easy to adjust what you are doing. You don’t need to be proficient in HTML or anything to get started blogging. I would say it helps, though

Me: Awesome man, it’s great to get a taste of how blogging has evolved. Has there been anyone who played an impact in your career?

Kristoffer:

I haven’t had any ‘heros’ in blogging until this year, really. I discovered problogger.net and liked it instantly. I read everything Darren writes – he’s a great guy.
I’m also very inspired by Tim Ferris and his philosophy of outsourcing and reducing distractions. After being a PDA/net addict for well over 10 years it’s hard to slow down the media’s consumption

Me: Darren is definitely a great guy, I was lucky enough to sit down and talk to him a couple weeks back. He really taught me a lot. If you were to start all over again what would you do differently?

Kristoffer:

I would definitely have started blogging in a more serious manner earlier on. And – as Darren and any other problogger will tell you: Don’t wait with setting up an email list with a serious service like aweber.com. I wish I did this a long time ago with one of the blogs I run.

Me: So you would suggest for bloggers to start a mailing list no matter how small or big their blog is?

Kristoffer:

Well, at least if they’re planning on making money with their blog An important point is that IF you start a blog with a free service, for instance, you are in for a challenge if you want to convert to aweber.com later. They have a strict double opt-in policy. That means every single subscriber needs to confirm their subscription again..! John Chow has written a piece about this – he lost a huge number of subscribers because of this fact.

Me: Definitely man, I think some people should just go on the deep end and take the risk of spending $10-20 monthly for a service like Aweber. What do you like most about the Internet lifestyle? What do you like least about it?

Kristoffer:

What I like the most is that I can organize my own day and that I’m dependent on a physical location to do my work. It’s also an amazing thing to get in touch with so many great people from all over the world. Today I’ve communicated with people from the US, Canada, Singapore and India The internet lifestyle is great fun – and a constant learning experience.

This way of life and work can be challenging, though. Setting clear boundaries between work and non-work hours is crucial. I tend to spend too much time in work-mode, even if I’m not working as such. I find myself thinking of ways to improve my business and blogs all the time – it’s hard to put it away. But I guess that’s what it’s like to be creative

This is why I love the work of Tim Ferriss. He’s constantly reminding me to set boundaries and learn how to really have time off.

Me: Awesome. Before we tie up this interview, is there any plans you would like to share with us, business or personal?

Kristoffer:

Hehe – I won’t give away too much yet. But I have plans. There will be at least two more blogs coming out this year. I have one at www.lifeblogger.net already which is just started. It’s more of a personal blog. Not a huge fan of personal blogs in the traditional sense. It needs to be something to take away from what the blogger writes. Simply sharing what happens in your life is not that interesting if it’s not put into a larger context. Nevertheless, I thought it would be nice to have a place to share stories and thoughts that does not fit into my other niche blogs. The other, upcoming blogs will be niche blogs with clear focus and goals. I look forward to seeing how they are received.

My primary goal now is to see my blogs grow to such a size that I can be blogging full-time. It will take some time, I know that. But I will have a lot of fun getting there

Other than that, I plan a trip to Japan again for budo practice – hopefully before next summer. I’ve been doing Aikido and Kenjutsu for almost 20 years and there’s nothing like going back to the source to study. You can read more about that side of my life at http://mylifeinbudo.blogspot.com/

Me: Awesome man, look forward to hearing more about these projects. I’d like to thank you Kristoffer for taking the time and sharing your insight with us. You have definitely gave us a ton of a great information learn from today!

Kristoffer:

Thank you! It’s an honor being interviewed on your blog. Nice talking to you – take care and good luck on your projects!

Kristoffer definitely sealed the interview with his great blogging tips and advice to bloggers. Be sure to keep in touch with Kristoffer by visiting his website at Joomlablogger.net and following him @Joomlablogger