In todays interview we are going to be talking with Kevin Bland from theshitseo.co.uk. We have such a great treat to be able to interview an SEO expert that has experience since 1997. 
1. Please tell us about yourself and how you got into blogging?
Being apart of the “tier one” set of SEOs in the world, I have to be seen among the community as a leader, a visionary and someone who people look towards for guidance on the future of SEO/content marketing and to basically tell them how to do their jobs. There’s a lot of SEO gurus out there who need a helping hand in order to be gurus. The guru they come to see is me.
I’m a bit like Dr Dre as he’s the doctor the other hommies go and see when they need a hit or a dope beat. I’m the one that gives out all the amazing material to help them hit the heights of SEO guru greatness. I have quite a burden to carry on my shoulders.
Because I’m dropping these amazing blog posts full to the brim of awesome, it can attract a large amount of jealousy from people who thought they were the top Gs in the industry. The way I see it is they’re just mad at me because I can finally afford to provide my family with groceries. They don’t like a brother like me doing well and eating stuff from the Tesco Finest range.
In order to get my insightful SEO gold dust out into peoples’ minds, I need to blog. I can’t hire a stadium and host huge SEO gigs as I just don’t have the time to do that, so the next best thing is to guest post and write on my own blog, in order to address these good people.
This is essentially how I got into blogging.
In every blog post I write, I always aim to educate and motivate SEOs and online marketers to do better. I also want to make sure that future generations of content marketers hold me in the same regard as young scientists see someone like Albert Einstein.
2. Walk me through step-by-step process that you went through to get to where you are today?
As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be an SEO and a Rockstar SEO at that.
To me, being an SEO was better than being President of the United States or the Prime Minister of the UK.
Even before I went to the SEO conferences looking for insights from the Rockstars and the desire for a job in SEO, I knew I wanted to be a part of them. It was there that I knew I belonged. In SEO and blogging.
To me, it meant being somebody in a neighborhood full of nobodies in Whitstable.
The SEO Rockstars weren’t like anybody else. They did whatever they wanted.
They parked in front of hydrants and never got a ticket.
When they played cards all night…nobody ever called the cops. These guys are untouchable.
My first experience of SEO and blogging was when I was 20. It was 1997 and I took the train down to London from my home town of Whitstable in Kent. I went to one of the very first SEO and blogging conferences. It was called, SearchLike, and it blew my mind. I saw an ad for it in a PC Pro Magazine. I knew that this was my date with destiny.
When I arrived, there weren’t many people attending, only Tony Dimmock with his Star Wars lunchbox full of crab paste sandwiches. You see SEO was just starting to become an actual thing, hence why there was a lack of people attending. It was there I gathered up all the information I needed to launch a very successful SEO and blogging career.
When I got back to Whitstable that night, I wrote 20 blog posts and applied for about 40 jobs. Within a week I was earning my money as a part time blogger and as a full time SEO geek within a large high street carpet retail giant.
I haven’t looked back from those dark days of pre-SEO nothingness.
I’ve been blogging and working within the online carpet niche for 17 years and earning a massive 4 figure salary ever since.
3. How would someone describe your blogging style?
There isn’t anything out there that compares to me. You can’t put a name to my style. If I had to give it a label then i’d probably call it “Kbomination”.
When the Beatles first came on the scene back in the 60s, people didn’t know what the hell to call their music. It’s the same with my blogging style.
Let’s not try and describe or put a label to my blogging style. Let’s all just stand back and admire it for what it is, and let us hope future generations can read my work and become better SEOs from it.
4. A lot of people are interested in blogging for some money earning potential. What are some tips for people interested in making money from blogging? What are some realistic expectations in regards to what can be made?
There is no limit to what you can make from blogging. I set up one blog last week about animal menstrual cycles, and in the first day made $42.65. The trick is to identify a niche that no one has ever written about and attack that space like a pitbull would a small kitten. If you don’t go hard, you’ll just give up and whimper away like a spasticated water vole.
Here are a few tips to making money from blogging…
– It’s important when you blog that you have a full time blog as this is where most of your income will come from.
– Only give up your day job for blogging when you have found a better full-time job.
– Save up some money from your full-time job to buy an already successful blog on flippa.com
– Write content in order to push affiliate offers, because people love reading stuff like that. They will never get bored of being sold to in such a crass and patronizing way.
5. Name some of the bloggers whom you look up to and why?
I don’t really look up to any other bloggers. It’s more the other way round. Let’s rephrase the question. “Name some bloggers whom you look down to from the top of your blogging awesomeness mountain”
Ok, well I like reading.
6. What tips can you recommend that you’d only share with a close friend about blogging?
Look for the most popular blogs in your niche. Run them through SEMrush to see what they rank for. Identify the content that ranks the highest and that brings in the most traffic. Take that content and do a little bit of analysis on it to see if you can improve it, add more stuff to the mix etc. Rewrite it, relaunch and then outreach to the links that the original content attracted. Wait a few months and the traffic should come pouring in like a waterfall of highly targeted people who want to make love to you and your content.
7. How are you currently monetizing your blog traffic?
Because I am so authoritative in my niche, I don’t need to monetize my blogs. People come to me and ask if I can do this and do that for them which results in three figure sums exchanging hands!
Yeah you could be an affiliate for some new SEO tool or put loads of google ads on your site, but I like to advertise myself rather than make money for someone else. I want all of the pie thank you very much.
8. Can you give us three recommended tools/services that you use with your blogging?
Tools: SEMrush and ahrefs are the tools I use for scoping out content ideas and deciding if something is worth dedicating time to, from a link perspective.
Services: Textbroker. You need to spend a bit of time trailing out writers, but once you find them, they are worth their weight in gold. Obviously I don’t pay the going weight in gold, but you know what I mean. For $25 you can get a really well written piece of crap that you can point loads of links at and get that little bastard ranking.
9. What is next for you? What can we expect in 2015?
2015 is a big year for me. I’m going to be setting up my very own online Warhammer social platform where people pay $9.99 a month to get the latest premium gated content on all things Warhammer.
I will continue to produce amazing carpet related content that earns my clients millions of Polish złoty every month.
I have an ebook called “How to make a four figure income from blogging just 3 minutes a day” coming out in March, available to download from my own site and from Amazon.
I am also launching an award called “The Blands” where I will recognise people who have done awesome things within our industry. The ceremony, a black tie event, will be held at the Whitstable Methodist Church Hall in June where the awards will be presented by Duncan from Blue.
I’m quite a big deal when it comes to SEO conference content, so I will carry on my SEO Tips Glory hole at all the major events as well as producing insightful and resourceful guides on how to get the most out of these conferences.
Also in 2015 I am going over to LA to meet up with my best buddy Neil Patel. We’re going to go shopping for clothes as he’s always telling me that I need to dress like a successful businessman rather than a death metal homeless crack addict.
10. How can readers of my blog get in touch with you?
I’m on Twitter
I have a website called theshitseo.co.uk
I have an email theshitseo at gmail dot com.
Thank you once again Kevin for taking the time to share your advice and story with my blogging community.