Recently I had a chance to interview Dean from Mr Cheap Stuff about blog marketing, personal finance as discussed on his site and blogging tips. His answers are below.

1. How long have you had Mr Cheap Stuff up?

“I started Mr. Cheap Stuff in September 2004. The site was created as a place where family and friends could find the best deals, freebies and coupons. Since everyone always used to ask me where is the best deals were online instead of telling everyone I just created a web site to make it easier for everyone. Next thing I knew the site got picked up by the spiders and people started linking to it. Traffic has steadily increased since then.”

2. What is the site about?

“Mr. Cheap Stuff first started out mainly as a coupon or deals type site. I didn’t want to be like all the other coupon sites so I added my own personality by including some of my passions and interests like time savings tips, productivity hacks and some interesting stuff about Hawaii (I live in Honolulu, HI).

I think more and more it is very import to separate yourself or your blog from everybody else. Being the black sheep can really be a good thing.”

3. How much do you think you have saved with your tips?

“Well, one of my most popular post was “5 Massive Benefits of Throwing Out Your TV”. I did the unthinkable about a year ago and threw out my television, that alone probably saves me at least $500/year. Although, I really didn’t do that to save money, I must say it was hard at first but the benefits have been tremendous and do not miss owning a TV at all. I recommend anyone to just try it out for a couple of weeks and see the changes in your lifestyle.”

4. Do you have more than one site? What other things do you cover?

“Yes, I have other websites and websites in development. They cover a variety of niches, I currently have 4 part time workers which really helps me leverage my time. I recommend bloggers out there to “do what you do best and outsource the rest”.

5. What tips do you have for other bloggers?

“For the bloggers out there that feel like there is not enough time I recommend you take a look at what you do on a daily basis and see what you can outsource. How much time do you spend checking your stats, email, responding to comments, troubleshooting and responding to reader emails. Many bloggers or Internet Marketers say they work 60-80 hours a week but I bet most of them really only spend about 10-20 hours actually doing productive revenue generating work.

Many bloggers could really benefit and increase their traffic if they took the “Long Tail” approach. Many bloggers like to go after highly competitive keywords or niches. Try this, next time you are going to write a title for one of your posts simple do a use a Keyword tool to see how many searches the main keyword gets. Try to choose a keyword that gets descent traffic. Then a google that search term, to see if it is competitive. If it look hard to rank on the first page try another keyword. Soon enough you will master the art of writing for humans and the search engines.

One more quickie, I highly recommend the book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen, if you haven’t heard about it, just Google it and you will see a huge cult-like following to high approach on productivity and time management.”

6. Where can someone get a hold of you with questions?

“If you have questions you can submit them on the contact form on my site http://www.mrcheapstuff.com. Or you can send me an email directly to info (at) mrcheapstuff (dot) com. And yes, I actually do respond. I’m also open to partnerships and marketing ideas so send me a note if your interested.”

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