Fanextra.com (https://psd.fanextra.com) is a hugely popular web design blog edited by its founder, Tom Ross. In this interview Tom discusses how he drives traffic to his blog, how he motivates himself to keep blogging and his plans for the website.

Could you provide a bit of information about yourself and fanextra.com?

Hey, first of all thanks for having me! My name’s Tom Ross, and I’m the founder of the FanExtra network of blogs. I originally worked as a freelance web designer, but then took my passion for design to the blogging medium. The network’s first blog, PSD.FanExtra has been running for over 3 years now, and is read by around 250,000 creatives every month.

What inspired you to start a web design blog and what were your plans for it when you first began?

Originally I started PSD.FanExtra as a creative outlet. I felt that I’d accrued a reasonable amount of knowledge from my years working as a designer, and wanted to try my hand at sharing this information with the public. Whilst it was a nice thought to earn some additional income, that wasn’t the early plan for the blog.

Getting people to actually read your articles is so often the hurdle where many bloggers fall. What did you find to be the most effective methods of getting people to visit your website?

Well as the age old saying goes ‘content is king’. However, of course promoting articles via directory sites and social bookmarking has a huge impact. Lately we’re looking at diversifying our promotional efforts, looking into email marketing and other ventures.

In the 3 years since you launched, have you had any moments where you thought about quitting, and if so, what stopped you?

Yeah, I think all bloggers have those moments. For me it’s sometimes been a struggle to constantly think up new post ideas, and also some aspects blogging have felt mundane at times, especially when dealing with a lot of repetition. To get over these hurdles it’s really best to think up interesting post topics, and post series (for example our 30 minute redesign series). These help to inject some life back into your blogging efforts.

Based on the success you’ve had what are your top 5 tips for aspiring bloggers?

Hmm, tough question. Off the top of my head:

1.Keep going, you’ll thank yourself in a years’ time.

2.Be as original as possible, it helps you stand out.

3.Don’t wait to iterate, you should constantly strive to evolve/improve.

4.Just do it! Half the battle is putting yourself out there.

5.Don’t forget to be personable, networking and people skills count for a lot.

You are getting ready to add a new site to your network covering the topic of blogging, what other plans do you have for the network in the short and long term?

Yeah, we’re really excited about this one. I’ll withhold details on this new sister site for now, but will say that it’s launching soon and should be awesome. We’ve definitely got big plans for the network as a whole, and have some other great sister sites lined up, including a programming tutorials site.

What WordPress plug-ins do you use for your membership area/ management? On top of these, which others do you use that you would recommend to fellow WordPress users?

Amember all the way for members area! They’ve got pretty decent support, and an intuitive user panel.

How do you currently use social media to promote yourself, and how do you see this developing in the next couple of years?

Twitter and Facebook are the big ones, although we get quite a lot of StumbleUpon love too. To be honest our social media presence has been a little neglected as we’ve been focusing on content more. However, it’s definitely something we’re looking at expanding at this time.

Are there any resources on the internet you use that you would recommend for beginners and advanced designers?

Well I hear PSD.FanExtra is a pretty outstanding resource for designers ;). Otherwise WebDesignerDepot and 1stWebDesigner make for some consistently good reading.