Interviews rock because they show us the brilliant people behind the usernames. Today, Performancing is excited to share with you this interview we got with The Gaffer... a guy living in Florida, originally from Wales, who runs the very successful EPL Talk soccer blog, podcast and video show.
1. How'd you get started as a blogger?
I did things a bit backwards really. In 2002, I launched a corporate blog on an intranet where I was the director of internet marketing for a brick and mortar company. Then in 2005 I got the bug to write about my first true love, soccer, and EPL Talk began. I've always been a writer so it came naturally to me.
2. What's the key to being a successful soccer blogger. How do you stand out from the crowd?
Differentiation is key especially with more than one million blogs worldwide on the topic of soccer. With so much competition (both from the international press and blogs), I focus on the world's most popular sports league which is the English Premier League (aka EPL). I target the readers from around the world who experience the league via their TV sets. As a result, the topics I cover on EPL Talk are quite different such as the quality and quantity of TV coverage, the commentators and TV presenters who the viewers see and hear on a weekly basis and my colorful opinions regarding what happens on and off the pitch.
The key to being a successful soccer blogger is to remain impartial and to keep the content remarkable. It's easy to say but difficult to do.
[Editor's Note: The Gaffer also stands out by differentiating his soccer blog with a Podcast and YouTube video show]
3. Do you blog primarily for money or for passion?
It has to be passion. If I blogged for money, I would have quit a long time ago.
4. Tell us about the biggest mistake you've made in blogging and what you've learned from it.
The biggest mistake I made was deciding to host the blog on the Blogger platform. Blogger's ease of use was wonderful, but I invested so much dependency on Blogger where I drove a ton of traffic, built a respectable Google PR and generated a ton of links to a site that wasn't even hosted on my domain. If I had to do things all over again, I would set up a WordPress blog on my epltalk.com domain, which is precisely what I just did and it was something I should have done two years ago.
5. Do you see yourself still blogging in 2 years, 10 years?
I don't foresee a time where I'll stop blogging. In the past two years, I've launched an EPL Talk podcast and vodcast but both continue to take so much time and energy, and are quite tedious. In contrast, blogging is such a joy to accomplish and a wonderful release. All I need is an Internet connection, a blogging platform, an idea and the words just flow. Read the rest of this entry
