Nikola Roza Interview: How to Get Freelance Writing Projects | BRIS-9

Hey, Welcome to the 9th interview in BloggingRay Interview Series (BRIS).

Nikola Roza is offering content writing and SEO services via his blog.

You can find tips to get the freelance writing projects.

You can also find some amazing blogging and affiliate marketing tips from this interview.

Interview of Nikola Roza

Without any delay, let’s jump into the interview.

Q1. Hey Nikola, Can you introduce yourself to my community? 

Hi everyone. My name is Nikola Roza. I’m a blogger and freelance writer from Serbia. My blog is nikolaroza.com 

Q2. Can you share about your educational background? 

I finished Gymnasium in my birth town called Zajecar. I also went to study Serbian language and philology in Belgrade, which is the capital city of Serbia.  

When I was in my third year, my mother got terminally ill and I had to come back to take care of her. 

That is my formal education. Everything I know in the blogging field I learned through the internet by myself. 

Q3. Who inspired you to start blogging & digital marketing? 

I didn’t have a who, I had a what. 

When my mother was terminally ill, she was so sick that the doctors refused to treat her as they didn’t want to spend their expensive medicine for nothing. 

So I got the idea to earn money online quickly and buy her expensive, natural treatment.  

Of course, I failed miserably as there was simply no time and, as I’m sure you know, there is no easy, fast money online.  

But that’s what inspired me and that’s when I learned what blogging and SEO are. 

Q4. What are the reasons behind the selection of nikolaroza.com? 

The inspiration was that I, Nikola Roza, will get out of poverty and hardships by my own two hands, through the power of blogging. 

Q5.  What is your daily routine? Can you share some productivity tips? 

• Get up at 5.30AM 
• Meditate for 10m 
• Go for a walk and think and relax 
• Come back and exercise 
• Drink one cup of coffee and start working until 12AM. 
• Eat, siesta and general break until 2.30PM 
• Take a walk and plan the rest of the day 
• Come back and work until 7 PM 
• Go for a run 
• 8PM, start work anew and keep it up as long as possible 
• 10.30PM start of my evening routine (making plans for tomorrow, reading and meditating. And listening to music before bed). 

Overall, I work like a horse in this stage of my life, because I’m in a hurry to succeed the fastest way possible. 

Q6. Which hosting you recommend for beginners? And why? 

I recommend HostGator. I hosted my first ever site with them (in the coffee niche) and for over a year had zero problems with them. 

The site had excellent uptime, was hacker-safe and pretty fast (~2s average load time). 

And finally, they offer great discounts and even a free trial. 

Yes, HostGator free trial hosting is a thing, and you get 30 days to test it out while paying just 1c with PayPal. 

Finally, all of this is backed by their 45-day money back guarantee. 

Those are the main reasons why I think HostGator is an excellent, newbie-friendly host. 

Q7. Which affiliate products you are promoting mostly? 

I mostly promote hosting products. It’s because hosting commissions are great, and because the market is insanely large. 

Here’s my main money maker when it comes to promoting hosting services. 

Other products I’ve had lots of success with is Missinglettr. My Missinglettr review is my second best earner, right after my hosting page mentioned above. 

Finally,y I can’t forget my Grammarly student coupon guide which is growing fast in Google traffic and commissions earned (https://nikolaroza.com/grammarly-student-discount/)

Q8. What are your black friday promotion strategies? 

I focus on SEO exclusively.  

I know there are other means of getting traffic to these posts, but SEO is my bread and butter here. 

And it works like a charm too. For example, I haven’t touched my Black Friday HostGator page in over 16 months; then I updated it, re-optimized it, pointed a bunch of internal links to it, and now it ranks on position #3. 

And I still have many ideas on how to further optimize that page. 

If Black Friday was today, that page with the rank it has now would make me at least $5000, and maybe much more. 

SEO works! 

Q9. You are leveraging Facebook and Twitter more? What are tips to Leverage blogging with Facebook & Twitter?  

Treat blogging as the main thing, and treat Facebook and Twitter as adjuncts, as helpful resources for expanding your reach. 

Don’t make the mistake of devoting too much time to these two platforms.  

There, the organic reach is too small and your blog has infinite room to grow. 

And it’s your blog, meaning no one can take it away from you. 

So, use Facebook and Twitter, but only as side dishes, and not as main courses. 

Note: I use the aforementioned Missinglettr to automate Twitter and Facebook positing, while I personally do the engagement part. 

It’s all about being genuine on social, while also being super effective and efficient. 

Q10. What are your thoughts on my blog Blogging Ray? Can you share some suggestions? 

You have excellent, thorough and in-depth content. Content quality is superb. 

The problem is that you only have ~30 articles. With that few articles Google is having trouble placing you in any niche and your rankings must suffer as a result. 

My tip is to create more content. Even if you can get one meaty 2000-word post per week, that is still good because as the content ages and your topical and link authority rise, all your content will rise in their respective SERPS. 

Second advice is link building. Link building is still incredibly important and the thing is that you don’t have to go crazy with it to see results. 

If you can build 1 link per day, after a year you will see a massive difference in your rankings. 

Finally, I like how you use your footer to promote your deals pages.  

That is an excellent strategy that I use too. 

But it’ll work even better as you raise your domain authority as those footer links will then grow more powerful. 

Overall, you’re doing a great job, just speed up and good thing await you. 

Q11. Can you share some tips to get affiliate sales? 

I have 3 tips: 

First, place affiliate links early on. You can get a sale or two even with very little traffic, so it’s better to have them than not. You can’t predict when it’ll happen. 

For example, my Windows hosting trials page made me one HostGator commission very early on. The page is 2 months old, and to date has had 11 visitors in total.  

Thas is 9% conversion rate that wouldn’t have happened had I not placed affiliate links early on. 

It pays to be diligent. 

Second, only promote reputable programs and never scams. 

Third, write thorough, helpful reviews that destroy everything else that is already out there. This will set you apart as a helpful blogger. 

You’ll make more commissions like that. 

For example, I don’t want to brag, but my Link Whisper review easily competes in quality with the sites ranking on the first page. 

And I wrote it by investing 30h into it. Now it’s on the bottom of the first page and once I update it, it’ll jump to the top. 

Honestly, I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t. 

Q12. Can you share some tips to network with other bloggers?  

I have 2 tips and I advise everyone to do both of them. 

First, be consistent and show up every day. Nothing beats consistency in every field, including networking. 

Second, be helpful. 99% of your networking should be you helping other bloggers succeed. 

Don’t worry too much about promoting your content, because other bloggers will promote you without even asking. 

For example, here’s how Fd Shakil from PassiveBlogger.com promoted my Bluehost free trial page.

He promoted it even though I didn’t ask him to do it, and he did it because I selflessly shared his content on Twitter and Facebook. 

What’s more, I’m pretty sure he has his own Bluehost free trial article he’s trying to rank, and here he is promoting mine. 

That is the power of reciprocity in networking. 

Q13. Can you share some personal branding tips? 

Yes, have a decent looking site. Have an image of yourself on your site. 

Fill out your main social profiles and get them ranked so you own your brand’s SERPs. 

Provide value in everything you do, and people will notice you in a good light. 

Q14. Google Adsense vs Affiliate Marketing. What are your thoughts on it? 

Affiliate marketing. Always. Would you rather earn pennies per clicks, or dollars? 

Q15. You are producing articles regularly? What are the tips to produce content like you? 

I have 2 tips. 

First, always start with an outline. Always. Makes the writing part 10X easier. 

Second, own the topic thoroughly. Then the writing part just flows and you glide from beginning to the end. 

Q16. Which one have to consider for blogging and Why? Personal domain or general domain? 

Personal domain. It’s because when you own a domain named after you, you can turn that into anything. 

Just as you as a person can change interests, your site can follow along by switching niches. 

I mean, when you hear nikolaroza.com, you don’t know that it is an SEO blog. 

Right? 

It could be a blog about shoe making and no one would know until they came and visited. 

It’s very brandable. 

Q17. How you got your first content writing project? Can you share some tips to get regular content writing projects? 

I left a comment on a blog, and the webmaster clicked my author link, saw I was a freelance writer, and hired me on the spot. 

My best tip is to first have a “hire me” page in the menu and clearly visible. Then you need to put out excellent content on your blog and to engage within your niche. 

The more people you engage with, the more people will visit your blog and some of them will be in need of writing services. 

And that’s how a freelancing career is born:) 

Q18. Where to contact you? 

People can find me at my blog nikolaroza.com. I’m also  a freelance writer and they can inquire about my services here. 

Finally, I’m fairly active on Twitter. 

Thanks for the opportunity, Venkat. I’m honored! 

Also Read

• Ryan Biddulph Interview
• Anthony Gaenzle Interview
• Bishnu Mahali Interview

Conclusion

I hope this interview of Nikola Roza will help you.

If you have questions let me know in the comments.

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Thank you.