INNOVATORS VS COVID 19

Umer Idrisi: From Blogging to a Search Engine Founder

Published

3 years ago

04/22/2021

Kossi Adzo

Umer Idrisi, founder of AllBlogThings tells about content blogging and Covid-19.

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times?

Umer Idrisi: Before I share the insides and my story, I am thankful for your opportunity to let me write about my passion and business. We are doing great in these tough times, while I can say millions of people are suffering to get the food on their tables. My passion for working online and staying near to my loved ones let me sequence the harshness of COVID-19.

Tell us about you, your career, and how you founded AllBlogThings?

Umer Idrisi: I am from Pakistan and currently living in Mandi Bahauddin, a city of Punjab. Hailing from a humble background, I know how it feels when you don’t have enough money to buy yourself a drink or clothes. However, I am not pointing to poverty here. My father did everything that he could to lift us up and raise his kids like the richest in the town. He used to work abroad to make sure we complete our studies, and I am the one who hated it. I was never a bright student and used to fail in every class test. However, somehow I completed my school studies with science subjects as my father told me that I have to become a doctor. At the same time, I was totally a fan of computers. I asked my father to give me some funds for opening a mobile shop so I can bear my school fee and the rest of my expenses. He believed in me, and that’s when I got to know about the internet and its uses. This was the time when I discovered blogging and its benefits. Following some of my country’s known names in the blogging and after creating hundreds of failed blogs, I started AllBlogThings on a blog that I bought from a Facebook friend for 1500 PKr. Yes, I started my first blog on a .com domain with my first online acquisition. I never looked back from that time, it was 2014, and now I am here writing about it. After 2 years, in 2016, I discovered that people have been earning handsome income from freelancing and many other verticals of working online. So, I did my best by selling a few accounts, doing freelancing jobs, doing content writing jobs with a number of clients on long-term projects. After that, in 2018, I figured out that blogging is by far the best option for making money online, and I should make my mark in this industry. So, I started a few blogs and did my best to perform SEO best practices, do content marketing, and make blogs that can generate money for me even when I am sleeping. This is how some big publications and professional bloggers recognized me and listed me as one of the top 10 bloggers of Pakistan, and the story continues as now I am working on my startups with a digital marketing agency named Kayi.Digital. Besides all of this, I am working on the first search engine project of Pakistan, and one can check the progress here, where I am doing my best.

How does AllBlogThings innovate?

Umer Idrisi: At kayi.digital, I do my best to not just deliver quality work and make my clients happy. I don’t rush for clients by fulfilling the needs of current clients. How do I do that? I simply make them my partner, not just paid clients. I accept projects that I can do or those projects I think will be fun to work on. After my clients start generating some revenue, I ask them to sit back and let me handle everything, and I do it by asking them to be my partner, so they don’t have to pay a monthly fee without generating any revenue. It’s a win-win situation for my client and me. As I mentioned, I don’t rush for clients, I also don’t force them to be my partner, but most of them tend to take the ride.

How does the coronavirus pandemic affect your business finances?

Umer Idrisi: Honestly speaking, I don’t have any issues with my finances. Indeed, I am doing better in this pandemic time, and I am a proud work-from-home guy.

Did you have to make difficult choices regarding human resources, and what are the lessons learned?

Umer Idrisi: Mostly, my outsourcing is limited, and I don’t hire any freelancers as frequently as some bloggers do. I am working with a team of professional writers who work for me on a per-project basis and 2 of them on a per article basis. So, human resource for me is not a hard job. I know how to use freelancing platforms for this.

How did your customer relationship management evolve? Do you use any specific tools to be efficient?

Umer Idrisi: I use Gmail, Notes, and Reminders. As a blogger, that’s enough for me, and while working on a project for clients, I use their favorite software and tools. Most of the time, clients use Trello, Asan, or Workzone.

Did you benefit from any government grants, and did that help keep your business afloat?

Umer Idrisi: The government and the ministers did their best for small businesses. However, the digital workforce got nothing from the government, and I think we can survive without government grants. But, the government is doing good for educating youngsters about online working and giving them free training in different fields such as blogging, graphic design, and more.

Your final thoughts?

Umer Idrisi: I think we all should have a social media presence, if not our own personal blog or website. We should be online, too, as we live in this physical world. We should leave our footprints in the offline world and fingerprints in the online universe. We need to do it to make sure we live longer even when we are gone from the earth, and we can do it by having a strong online presence that will last forever.