Interview with Kevin Muldoon from Blogging Tips

Over the past few months i have been a loyal following of Blogging Tips that is one of the fast growing group blogs in the internet since March 2007. The site founder Kevin Muldoon was very kind to take part in the first interview at CSS Juice. Latest Kevin first officially started to accept advertisements with a very well competitive price, don’t miss the great chance!

1. How and why did you found Blogging Tips?
Well there isn’t a how - wordpress blogs take 2 minutes to setup. As for why, well I was looking to start a new project and I was very interested in blogging. I used to run a lot of web development sites etc so I had already wrote articles in the past about a lot of the topics I cover.

2. Who was the web designer of Blogging Tips?
I designed the current skin myself. In the first two months of the sites life I spent a lot of time working on the design and tweaking it every other day. The current design is a result of my changes due to reader feedback.

Im not a huge fan of it though. My design skills are fairly limited so in the next few months I will get a new design and will probably release this one to readers.

3. The superman logo is quite stunning, is it your idea?
I came up with the idea of a superman hero but thats about it. The mascot was designed by Sergio from SOSFactory. All I did was point him in the right direction and suggest a few things, he did all the hard work!

4. Personally i prefer to 3-columns layout design, what is the advantage for using 2-columns design?
I use to be a fan of 3 columns myself however I’m glad I moved to a 2 column design as it has allowed me to expand the content area. Not only does this make it easier for people to read your content, it also means you can include larger images in your posts.

However, I wont rule out having a 3 column design in the future.

5. What do you think about the new design of Problogger, John Chow and Shoemoney?
Yeah I like them all. ProBlogger is probably my favourite design - it has a lot of custom plugins etc for it and it has a really professional look, I prefer clean css based designs instead of ones which rely heavily on graphics. I’m a big fan of NateWhitehills work too through Unique Blog Designs.

6. What are your sources of web design and blogging inspiration?
A lot of my posts are written from a personal point of view ie. I give my opinion on things from the blogosphere a lot. I also try and write tutorials and guides on problems I have come across and have then resolved.

7. Is it important to design an unique weblogs?
I think it’s an important part of building a successful blog but it isn’t essential. There are a lot of successful blogs which do use common themes however I believe a unique design can make you stand out from the crowd.

8. Can you recommend 5 weblogs to our readers?
Well you already mentioned Problogger, John Chow and Shoemoney so heres another 5 some readers might not know about.

* North X East - Only updated once a week but the posts are of a really high quality.
* Daily Blog Tips - Good blogging tips day in day out. An essential bookmark.
* Gypsy Bandito - I was lucky to get the author (CT Moore) on board to write for Blogging Tips. His blog is primarily done via video. Some might not like his ‘in your face’ attitude but I think it’s a breath of fresh air. Hes talking about things that a lot of bloggers just aren’t covering.
* Blog Herald - Good blog which has a lot of high profile bloggers writing for them (eg. Lorelle Van Foseen and Chris Garrett)
* Website Publisher Blog - SitePoint posters will know the blogs author, Aspen. A SEO enthusiast who has made a lot of money in the last few years. The blog is updated every other week but it’s quality is very high.

9. Do you have any future plan for Blogging Tips?
In the next month or so my main targets are getting more writers on the blog and making sure the blog starts turning over a profit every month. After a few months I then hope to give the whole site a redesign. I do have some ideas as to what to do 6 months+ but I’d rather not say incase my short term goals are not achieved. Bottom line, I just need to keep working on it and keep the momentum going.