\n<\/p>\n
On the 1st of December 2023, ShoutMeLoud had its 15th anniversary, and I wanted to share my journey that could help you and others to take up niche blogging as a serious career choice. I\u2019m revealing a lot of my secrets in this write-up. <\/p>\n
This is going to be long, yet interesting\u2026<\/p>\n
So grab a cup of coffee \u2615\ufe0f and join me for this ride\u2026<\/p>\n
In this story, you will learn how a back-bencher turned his fetal accident into the opportunity of a lifetime.<\/p>\n
The best place to learn about me is by reading ShoutMeLoud about page<\/a>.<\/p>\n Many of you might not know me, I\u2019m Harsh Agrawal<\/a><\/strong>, Founder of ShoutMeLoud<\/a>. <\/p>\n This was me back in 2016 :<\/p>\n I\u2019m an accidental blogger and an engineer by education.<\/p>\n 15 years back, I never imagined that I would live a boss-free life and would be speaking at international conferences such as Las Vegas, Slovenia, Milan to name a few. <\/p>\n I have dedicated my good 15+ years to learning the nuances of Blogging and marketing, just because I find this industry to be very exciting. Helping others grow has always been my biggest driving force, and this story will tell you about the important time period of this remarkable blogging journey.<\/em><\/p>\n Getting back to my educational background, I completed engineering (Bachelor of Technology), and I was placed in one of the most reputed I.T. Companies: Accenture<\/em>.<\/p>\n However, destiny had something else planned for me, and you will discover it in the upcoming part of this story\u2026<\/p>\n I started blogging as a passion project in September 2008 and started writing about technology hacks. I began my blogging journey on the\u00a0BlogSpot platform<\/a>. I was very interested in gadgets and computer security, and my first blog was about technology. <\/p>\n I started with the domain name virgintech.blogspot, and at the end of three months I was getting appreciation from my readers and I thought of becoming more serious and investing more time in my blog. By that time, I was unaware of the money-making possibilities of a mere blog. <\/p>\n I bought Web-hosting and a domain name from Dreamhost hosting<\/a> and migrated my BlogSpot blog to WordPress<\/a>. As I was just passed out of college and had no access to a credit card for buying the domain name and hosting, I took the help of a friend and borrowed his credit card. <\/p>\n Moving to WordPress turned out to be a great decision, as it put ShoutMeLoud into the world map of bloggers who were blogging on the WordPress platform. At that time WordPress was not as popular as it is now, and since it was one of the fastest growing yet misunderstood blogging platforms<\/a>, I took the opportunity to help other bloggers to learn and master WordPress.<\/p>\n On June 28th, 2009, I had a terrible accident that changed my life forever<\/strong>. The doctors told me I could never walk again, and I nearly lost all hope and faith for a good life.<\/p>\n It devastated me for days, but when I saw my parents crying, the strange realization of \u201cAm I the only one with the problem?<\/em>\u201d<\/strong> changed the course of my life.<\/p>\n This is where I had a strange realization that I\u2019m not the only one with the problem<\/em>, and this is where I should focus on how I can make things better for me and for people around me.<\/p>\n I was only 22, but this powerful realization has given new strength and direction to my life which is continued until now.<\/p>\n Since I had nothing else to do in those bedridden months, I dedicated myself entirely to blogging and SEO. I spent almost 14 hours a day in front of my laptop, most of the time writing and learning new things.<\/p>\n Those seven months of being stuck in bed changed everything in my life and gave me a new direction. I read as much as I could and implemented them on my website. That non-stop incremental growth made me a learning machine. More on it later\u2026<\/p>\n Anyhoo, a note of gratitude to the excellent surgeon, I ultimately could walk and run again after that life-changing accident.<\/p>\n By the end of three months, I was aware of the importance of branding<\/a>. Initially, I was thinking of some domain name with a keyword containing \u2018Tech\u201d but chose \u201cShout-Me-Loud\u201d for its uniqueness and for better branding.<\/p>\n For hosting, right now, ShoutMeLoud is hosted on Kinsta<\/a>.<\/p>\nMy Blogging Journey: How it all started<\/h2>\n
The first three months of blogging:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
How did an accident change my life?<\/h3>\n
Selecting a domain name + Hosting<\/strong><\/h3>\n