An Interview With Istiak Rayhan: Founder Of Roadtoblogging.com [EBIS-2]

Hey folks,

I am Istiak Rayhan. I am a full-time blogger and an internet marketer from Bangladesh. I’ve been in blogging since 2012, and I’ve recently started WordPress plugin business with my younger brother (Imtiaz Rayhan).

Our latest plugin is Ultimate Blocks. It’s a Gutenberg Blocks plugin for bloggers.

I’m the founder of RoadToBlogging.com. I also run a few other blogs like WPLeaders, HostLater, SetYourOffice, etc.

Apart from blogging, I am also involved in angel investment. I’ve already invested in 3 startups here in Bangladesh.

Back in 2012, I used to work on a micro freelancing site called Microworkers.com. Most of the tasks were very easy like signing up on sites, following someone on Twitter, searching something on Google, etc. And the payment was very small as well.

But there was only one task that used to pay a good amount. The task was linking other sites from a blog/site with a good Page Rank (PR).

I created my first ever .com site on Weebly to do those tasks. It was going well until Weebly decided to shut it down showing some ToC issues.

Then I created another site on WordPress.com. That site also got the same fate. WordPress.com deleted the site because of some ToC issues.

Then I decided to create a self-hosted blog on WordPress.org. This time I wanted to do something different. Rather creating a site for those jobs, I wanted to create a blog where I can share my knowledge with others.

And I launched TechThumbs.com in 2012. It was a technology blog where I used to write about tech-related stuff like Symbian apps, Windows tips, and many more. That’s how I got involved in blogging.

While running TechThumbs.com, I came to know about many new things like WordPress, SEO, AdSense, etc.

I used to read a lot of posts related to these topics back then. And somehow I started writing about these topics in my tech blog.

After running TechThumbs for 6 months, I realized that it’s not a technology blog anymore. It became a blog about blogging.

Then I decided to change the name of the blog. As I was sharing my blogging learnings with others, I chose the name Road To Blogging.

That’s how RTB was born.

No, I didn’t have any business plan. In fact, I didn’t know that people could make a living out of blogging. All I knew that I could make some money from Google AdSense.

I came to know about professional blogging from Harsh Agrawal’s blog (ShoutMeLoud). I was amazed by seeing Harsh Agrawal’s income reports.

Finding his income reports is one of the things happened to me.

It inspired me a lot and I started working hard on my blog. An awesome thing happened in November 2013. I made an amount of $1800 from a single affiliate program.

So there was no plan, only the inspiration that I got from Harsh’s blog helped me.

The most challenging thing was the competition.

When I started RoadToBlogging, there were already some established blogs on blogging niche like Problogger, DailyBlogTips, ShoutMeLoud, Jon Chow, BloggingTips, etc. It was almost impossible for me to compete with these blogs.

So what I did was started writing about how to do things efficiently whereas those blogs used to talk about what to do.

If you check the initial posts of RTB, you’ll find that a lot of them are how to posts. It actually helped me to get some organic traffic.

However, I believe that competition is not a problem as long as you know what you are doing and you are doing it from your own angel.

You will always find someone who will love your contents.

There is no fixed time. I spend 6 - 8 hours daily on blogging and my daily schedule is very simple.

I wake up very early in the morning and I try to start my work at 7:00 am. I continue to work till 1:00 PM without taking any break.

I try to complete the most important tasks within this time. Then I take a break for prayer and launch.

I try to complete all the task with 6:00 PM. I don’t do any significant task at night.

Interesting question. Let me tell you the step by step process.

The idea stage:

• I get blog posts ideas from different ways. Sometimes it’s the problem that I’m facing or my readers are facing. Or sometimes from my competitors. And in many other ways
• Whenever I get an idea of a blog post, I note it down on the Todoist app.

Then the research part:

• I start with the keyword research. I just make sure that the topic has a decent search volume.
• Then I check the blog posts of others who have covered the similar topic.
• After checking all the posts, I make an outline of the post.

The writing part:

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• Once I have the outline, it becomes easy for me to write the blog post.
• I divide every blog post into 3 parts - introduction, main body, and conclusion.
• I start with the main body first. Then the introduction and conclusion.
• Once the writing is done, I proofread it with Grammarly.
• And then add images and other media if needed.

The publishing part:

• I optimize the post for On-Page SEO.
• Then add featured images for social media.
• And finally, schedule the post.

It’s a very difficult question to answer. But since you’ve asked, I’d like to mention a few names.

• Harsh Agrawal: Harsh Agrawal is my all time favorite blogger. He is always the inspiration for me. I check his blog regularly for the last 7 years.

• Brian Dean: I am a huge fan of Brian Dean of Backlinko. He never fails to amaze me with his amazing blog posts.

• Anil Agarwal: Anil is my another favorite blogger. I’ve been following his blog for a very long time.

• Leo Babauta: Leo is another awesome blogger. I always check his newsletter.

• Colin Newcomer: Colin is mainly a freelance writer. I am a huge fan of his writings.

I am not sure about the other strengths, but ‘sticking with one thing’ really helped me.

Like every other blogger, my blogging journey was not smooth at all. I felt like quitting several times. But I didn’t and always stick with blogging. And it actually paid off.

Now I am a full-time blogger.

Apart from blogging, I read books, travel, and play billiard. I used to be a huge fan of this game. Now I play billiard occasionally.

I am an angel investor of 3 prominent Bangladeshi startups.

You are doing a great job. Just be real and keep it up.