Bloggers Face-Off: Joost de Valk vs. Satish Gandham

by Daniel Scocco

As Eminem would say, guess who is back?

We got a bunch of applications for the Bloggers Face-Off last week, so hopefully we will be able to keep this column going regularly in 2009. I will aim initially for one new face-off every two weeks (so two per month).

Joost de Valk is a good friend mine, and a terrific SEO and WordPress developer. He blogs at Yoast.com, which is a must read for anyone interested in those two topics.

Satish Gandham is another popular tech blogger. GeniusHackers.com, his main gig, has just crossed the 7,000 RSS subscribers mark, and it covers a wide range of topics, from software to blogging tips.

We got a new table format too, which gives more room for the answers. Thanks Glen for that.

Joost de Valk	Satish Gandham
1. How many hours per day do you dedicate to the blog?
From 2 to 4 hours per day	I spend most of the time on line, chatting with fellow bloggers, reading other blogs and tweaking my blogs design. I can not exactly say “I spend 2 hours or 3 hours on my blog”
2. How many page views does your blog get daily?
Around 10,000	From 8 to 10,000 per day (70% of my traffic is organic)
3. Do you make money with it? From what sources?
Yes, about $4-5k a month, from direct ads and affiliate programs	I make around 400USD per month from links sales and direct advertising. GeniusHackers.Com is banned from Adsense for having some posts related to hacking
4. How long did it take for you to reach 1,000 subscribers?
Long	Initially I dint concentrate on increasing the feed count. You can take it to be around 15 months. My feed count raised from 500 to 7100 since December though
5. Do you think one needs to post daily to be successful?
No, being unique is way more important	I don’t think so, but you must consistently post quality content
6. What is the biggest blogging mistake you did?
Doing paid posts in the beginning of my blogging career. It’s a waste of valuable time and it pushes away you readers. I now only do sponsored posts when people have a topic that is truly relevant for my readers	My biggest blogging mistake was not having a .Com domain in the beginning. You can read more about it here
7. Twitter is a distraction or a good promotional tool?
A good promotional tool and a GREAT way to have meaningful conversations	I don’t tweet much, so its not a distraction for me. It sure is a good promotion tool if you have good number of followers
8. Do you think AdSense makes a blog look unprofessional?
Depends on how it’s used, but I’m not a fan	I don’t think so, adsense ads are neat and unobtrusive if used properly
9. If you could give an advice for a novice blogger, what would it be?
Only do it cause you love it, not because you make money from it	Write quality and original content. Learn some basic html and php if you want to have total control over your blog look and functionality
10. What is the best way to increase website traffic?
Write relevant, interesting and truly unique stuff / tools etc. Just give people something they can use or think about	The best way to increase traffic is to write good content, apart from that use keywords in your post and highlight the keywords with strong tags

Declare the winner of this Bloggers Face-Off round: ( online polls)

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29 Responses to “Bloggers Face-Off: Joost de Valk vs. Satish Gandham”

Vygantas on March 31st, 2009 1:31 pm

Tables? Come on ;p
Rarst on March 31st, 2009 1:39 pm

Nice one. Off to check GeniusHackers.com

PS not saying it is extremely important part of a blog but difference in profits is huge… need to skim yoast.com for some monetizing advice.
Daniel Scocco on March 31st, 2009 1:42 pm

@Vygantas, a table seems to be the best way to organize a double interview like this one.

What would you use instead?
Matej on March 31st, 2009 1:55 pm

Wasn’t Genius Hackers on Blogging Idol. He started collecting a lot subscribers by the end of competition by offering free accounts for something, can’t remember …

Anyway, Joost de Valk is authority while I think that Satish Gandham is just starting his successful blogging career ( call it that way )

My vote goes to Satish, because Joost never answered my SEO questions in comments hehe
Mr. I on March 31st, 2009 2:20 pm

I voted for Joost. His WP plugins are excellent and must have for any WP user.
Satish on March 31st, 2009 2:23 pm

Thanks for the vote Matej
Lohith on March 31st, 2009 2:42 pm

This vote is dedicated to Joost as I got so many filters and word press seo pugins from his blog.
esoomllub on March 31st, 2009 3:16 pm

Joost… nice way to demonstrate the power of Twitter. I learned about this with your Tweet. @KentAllen
Eddie Gear on March 31st, 2009 3:27 pm

Hi There,

This is very interesting. This is the first time I’ve come across such an interesting idea. I checked out both sites and they have some very good info. Thanks for the “Battle of the Bloggers”.

Cheers,
Eddie Gear
Justin Parks on March 31st, 2009 5:16 pm

Joost de Valk gets my vote because he’s 6ft 1 inch tall and scary. Also his advice and plugins rock, but they are not so scary.
Melvin on March 31st, 2009 9:43 pm

both are great dudes but I think in that particular poll, joost is gonna win it mainly because he’s more known in this niche…
diabetic on March 31st, 2009 11:50 pm

the young bloggers….but very expert, efessien and effective
Kurt Avish on April 1st, 2009 2:22 am

From the above I think Gandham answers look ‘less than a bot’ responding. Less professional than Joost but more real and natural to read and thats better. Joost answers are a bit too straight without much of the little details that make if fun to read.

So Gandham win IMO.
planujemywesele on April 1st, 2009 5:15 am

My vote also
New York Firefighter on April 1st, 2009 6:03 am

I definitely voted for Joost. This guy is an authority in Wordpress world. His plugins are second to none are very clearly written in terms of PHP.
I never heard of the other guy, but I respect his views. He seems to be at beginning of blogging career.
krishna on April 1st, 2009 9:34 am

From the above conversation i can see that there is lot of difference in the earning b/w the 2 bloggers though they r having same number of suscribers. Satish Gandham says he is banned from Adsense…why not he try with other programs like bivertiser to increase his revenue…just a thought though
Jamaipanese on April 1st, 2009 12:29 pm

Satish wins by a mile
FestivalPlanet on April 1st, 2009 12:47 pm

Great article, it definitely gave me lots to think about.
Inspiring me to post less often and concentrate on keywords. Thank you.
Oh and Satish got my vote.
Jatin Sapra on April 3rd, 2009 11:53 am

Well what to do? Whom to choose? Satish who actually is the person behind my career@blogging or Joost who just provides great tips & plugins. I am in a dilemma…. I don’t know Joost personally but Satish is undoubtedly a great blogger along with a great person & friend. So, my vote goes to Satish! All the best
NPO on April 3rd, 2009 12:04 pm

Its a very nice and informative post to comment herewith.
Most of the visitors are encouraged to blogging. Thanks a lot for the post.
topcool on April 5th, 2009 5:35 am

i vote for joost
Ara on April 5th, 2009 8:10 am

Nice post on face-off! It gives me a different point of view in blogging. Anw, i vote for Joost.
Matthias on April 5th, 2009 2:36 pm

I have just voted. This is such a close call . Results show: Joost – 311 , Satish – 309.

There’s only one conclusion. Both are awesome !
denny on April 8th, 2009 11:22 pm

Joost. Both are useful blogs, but Joost is making 10x as much.
King Of Bhutan on April 28th, 2009 5:44 am

Very useful blog, thanks for posting and sharing.
Real Princess on April 28th, 2009 5:51 am

Nice Article to Read Herewith on an un-common topic.
Mambo on July 21st, 2009 9:40 am

Very useful and informative content. This blog will help the Bloggers to implement the best,
Thanks a lot for sharing.
Poor Artisan on July 22nd, 2009 4:34 am

I think, this post will definitely increase the Blogging sensation along with increase the quality and competition in Bloggers as well, hence the most important tips are have been to all.
Btw, Thanks …..
ravi on September 30th, 2009 5:25 pm

both are great dudes but I think in that particular poll, joost is gonna win it mainly because he’s more known in this niche…