This interview is part of our initiative to know our users take on our themes, web development and other things in general.
Today, we are interviewing Dominique. He is a pro-blogger and teaches companies/individuals inbound marketing on his personal blog. He created his first blog 4 years ago and recently sold it for a 5 figure sum. He uses a few of our products with the most recent one being SteadyIncome.
If you wish to be interviewed by MyThemeShop, get in touch with us. Only requirement is that you must be using any of our free or premium products for more than 3 months.
Here’s the full interview.
A. Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Dominique Jackson. I’m a content marketing specialist, affiliate marketer, and blogger. I’m on a mission to help other bloggers and online marketers learn how to create better content and get on the inbound marketing train, because traditional outbound advertising/marketing is dying. So many bloggers and companies struggle with creating the type of content that their audience is craving, and also ranks highly in search engines, so I show them how to do it on my blog.
Over the years I’ve created a lot of sites and have done A LOT of freelance writing. All of that experience has taught me how to produce AWESOME content. At the end of last year, I sold my first profitable blog for 5 figures, which isn’t a huge amount of money for some people. But the feeling of building something from scratch, and making it so valuable that someone is willing to pay you a pretty significant chunk of change for really ignited my fire and showed me just how powerful great content can be.
B. When did you start your first blog or website and how?
I started my very first blog over 4 years ago. I was just learning about what WordPress was, and the ins and outs of setting up a website. The idea of making money online seemed completely foreign to me, and I was really excited to create something and see what this whole blogging thing was about. I just wanted to get my feet wet.
I didn’t know anything about social media marketing, blogging, internet marketing, WordPress, or anything. I had to learn everything myself through blogs, videos, and forums.
The blog I created was about highlighting local creative people like artists, musicians, and writers. Since I was so new to the whole blogging and online marketing world, I didn’t realize the potential the site had and just neglected it.
C. How did you hear about us?
I’m always searching for new WordPress themes. I like to see what people are creating, and whenever I start a new site I like to see what’s out there. So on my search for a theme one day, I found your site through Google.
D. Why did you choose MyThemeShop?
My main reason for choosing MyThemeShop was the visual appeal of the themes. I’ve used so many themes from other developers that just didn’t have the clean and professional look I was after. I would always see popular bloggers that paid big money for their custom designed sites, and I wanted something with a similar feel, but without having to dish out tens of thousands of dollars to get it.
Your themes fit what I was looking for from a design aspect, which is what pulled me in. And on top of that, I loved how easy it was to setup the themes. I’ve bought a lot of themes that take hours to setup, and require you to read through long tutorials. If people read my blog, they’ll know I like simplicity.
E. Which MyThemeShop theme/plugin are you using and why?
I’m actually using a few of your themes and plugins for different sites at the moment. But I’ll stick to just what I use on my personal blog, since it’s my main focus right now:
Schema Theme: I like the “classic” blog style the theme has, and the customizable fonts. The size of the featured images was a big selling point for me because it helps my posts really POP.
WP Shortcode: For a non-coder like myself, shortcodes are a huge benefit.
WP Subscribe Pro: I needed a way to capture emails on my site that looked good. The crappy forms they give you with MailChimp, Aweber, and a lot of other autoresponder services just don’t cut it. I liked the ability to customize the forms to match the look of my site, and place them anywhere I want.
WP Review: I just wrote my first review on my site, and wanted a plugin to help create an actual review post with ratings. I also wanted to make sure my reviews have the correct markup so that the review stars show up in the SERP. Your plugin definitely delivered. Here’s a screenshot of my post on the first page of Google.
Even though I’m not in the top 3 spot yet (this screenshot was taken the first day I posted published the post and it’s already on the first page!), my post already stands out more than the sites ranking above me.
I also recently purchased the SteadyIncome theme, and plan on using it for another site that I have.
F. One thing that would make MyThemeShop better?
More customization options would be nice. One of the worst feelings for a blogger is to stumble across other sites that look identical to yours because they’re using the same theme. Having more control over customizing the home page alone would be a nice addition to help each individual’s site seem more unique without having to hire a developer/designer to customize it.
G. One tool or website you can’t live without?
Hootsuite. I mention it all the time on my blog, and it’s the one tool I use on a daily basis to manage my Twitter account. It’s the best thing since sliced bread.
H. How would you rate MyThemeShop on the scale of 10 for
- Support: 10
- Coding: 10
- Design: 8
- Usability: 9
I. Share a brief testimonial about your experience with our products:
Overall, my experience has been great. MyThemeShop has become my go-to source for WP themes now. I used to use one of your competitors, but the designs weren’t as good, and they didn’t release new products often enough. I haven’t had to deal with issues like plugins not being compatible or anything like that, so that’s a definite plus too.
Thanks a lot Dominique, for sharing with us.
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