It’s not too bad for somebody who started blogging only in 2006 to be included in the Philippines’ Top 100 Blogs. Although he writes mostly about Search Engine Optimization, he also blogs "about food, travel, web development, graphic design, fine arts, technology, online gaming and other bloggable events in my daily life." He shares his blogging lessons in the following interview:

Q. What good things has blogging brought you so far?

A. Blogging brought me new online and offline friends. Through blogging, I learned a lot of geeky stuff like CSS, XHTML, Photoshop, PHP, Open Source Software and the like. I also improved my english writing skills and grammar.

Blogging also opened my eyes that there’s money in the internet. I really never thought that I can earn online by just blogging until I received my very first Cheque from Google last year. From there on, I hunted for more ways to monetize my blog and I found a lot. I started reviewing products and services that is related to my blog and was happy of the outcome. A lot of individuals also contacted me to advertise on my blog even if I didn’t put a notice that my blog is open for advertising. That made me quite happy and proud with my blog as well.

Lastly, blogging brought me more social activities. Because of it, I’m receiving a lot of invitations to come to a launching of a specific product, store openings, free food tasting, blog awards, and other social life activities.

Q. What tips can you give to newbies on getting started with blogging?

A. Be careful in choosing a blog name. Your blog name should be about you, related to you or your interest. If you want to buy your own domain, opt for a shorter and easy to remember address so that people can easily remember and memorize your blog’s domain. If you’re not ready of having your own domain, you can start blogging in websites that offer free blog hosting, blogging platform, and subdomain such as blogger.com, wordpress.com, i.ph and vox.com.

Don’t blog just to earn money. Money will slowly come to you if you’re patient enough to wait. I’ve been blogging for two years before started to earn from it.

Copying content is evil. Blog even if you think that you’re not that good in writing. Abstain from copying one’s content and pasting it to your blog. Be unique, be original. I know a lot are just copying contents from other blogs because they are not that good in writing and are too lazy to write about something. Always put in your mind that you’ll never learn if you cannot make a mistake. A lot learned from mistakes, a lot learned from failures. Even great scientists committed thousands of mistakes before perfecting their experiment. Always remember that failure is not the enemy of success, it’s a teacher, a very harsh teacher, but the best.

Be honest. Blog about what you think is right. It’s your blog, don’t let anyone control you about what you write. If you think that what you are going to blog is not from the dark side, then don’t hesitate to blog about it.

Always read comments. If someone left a comment in your blog and you think that it’s right, apply it to your blog and yourself, and learn from it. If it’s wrong, defend yourself at all cost. Don’t let anyone put a dirt in your blog. Your blog is like your home. Do you want a stranger to visit your place a leave a dump of trash?

Q. In your own opinion, what can other people do to earn from blogging?

A. There are many ways to earn from blogging. You can write reviews for specific products such as antivirus softwares, PC tools, laptops, cars, jewelries and many more. You can also do a review about specific services such as web hostings, online dating sites, flight charters, online flight bookings, hotel reservations, etc.. You can register to websites such as ReviewMe.com, Smorty.com, PayPerPost.com, and SponsoredReviews.com and get review assignments from them. Once you’ve made a review, you can submit it to them, and you’ll be paid by the end of each month. Payments range from .00 to 0 per review. Other websites pay every weekend, such as Smorty.com.

If you don’t want to write reviews you can also opt to accept advertisements in your blog. There are a lot of advertising mediums out there that is waiting for you. Provided that your blog has enough inbound links (links from other websites to your blog), traffic (your daily visitors), and popularity. Most of the advertisers always consider your blog’s Google PR (this is the most-used standard to measure your blog’s worth) before they decide to buy advertisement slot from you or ask you to review a certain product.

You can use PPC, PPI, PPA advertising systems in your blog. PPC stands for Pay Per Click. This system allows you to monetize your blog once a reader clicks on the advertisement that is displayed in your blog. A very good example of it was Google Adsense. PPI stands for Pay Per Impression. This system pays you whether the visitor click that ads that was displayed in your blog or not. Once the ad was displayed in your blog, you will be paid. A very good example of this advertising medium was blogbank.com.ph.. PPA stands for Pay Per Action. This system pays you whenever a product that was displayed in your blog was bought by a visitor. When there’s an item sold because of the advertisement from your blog, you will have a revenue from it. A very good example of this system was ShoppingAds.com

Blogging is not an easy job to pursue. It takes a lot of time and perseverance before you can start earning from it. Don’t expect an immediate income once you started blogging.

Q. What do you think are the requisites of a successful blogger/ blog site?

A. You need to be optimistic, creative, and active. Be positive because other bloggers tend to quit blogging because nobody reads their blog. Readers and Subscribers will come slowly if you’re not pessimistic that no one will read your blog. Creativity is another factor to become a successful blogger. Let your creative juices flow while writing your articles. If you think you don’t have enough juice, try to squeeze harder. Be active, by attending blog events, blogger meet-ups and the like. Through these activities, you can meet more online and offline friends based on my experience. You will also gain more readers and subscribers.

Q. What are the blogging rules and principles you live by?

A. Stay away from plagiarism. Don’t blog if you don’t feel to. Others write even if it’s unnecessary to, like posting useless articles everyday that will turn your blog into a spam haven. Be creative, think of something that is interesting and blog about it.

Q. What are your plans for yourself and for your blog?

A. Create more blogs with different niches. Improve my writing skills. Learn more and more things everyday through blogging. Inject more words in my brain and expand vocabulary. Make more friends both online and offline. Cover more topics and write more interesting articles, tips and tutorials that will help anyone who wants to learn about web development, graphic design, SEO, and other things that interests me.

--

View my blog: www.annalyn.net