Blogging for FUN or PROFIT?

If you can express yourself pretty well in writing, then I'd say that you shouldn't pass the chance to create your own blog and start blogging.

I have learned thru the apprenticeship program that I am in right now that blogging should not be treated as a vehicle to rant and rave. Yes, you can rant and rave and do your musings too but it would be a lot better if you start creating your site with a definite goal in mind: are you doing this just for fun or you'd like to earn some bucks.

Always have the end in mind.

I know I really am guilty of this big time! I mean I started this blog all fired up and ready to receive that windfall of cash. Guess what? It didn't happen. Why? I really didn't have the end in mind and have not put in the needed time and attention to make this blog profitable.

So how do you do it?

Before pounding those keys and creating your postings, think first.

If your blog is just a means to vent up all those pent up emotions and views, then do away with placing stuff that let you earn from it like Adsense and those Affiliate Marketing Products. However, if you want this as a source of income, then you should decide how much you want to earn, how many blogs are you going to create and how much time are you willing to devote to it. There are also tons of available info online on how you can increase traffic to your site. You need not spend a dime.

The real secret to profiting from your blog is to get tons of traffic. Let the whole blogosphere know that you deserve to have a place here. Let them "listen" to what you have to say. It really would not hurt promoting your blog to every Tom, Dick and Harry who happen to have internet access. Don't be shy!

Remember too that you need to have content, lots and lots of new content for you to rank high in the search engines. And that means at least 2 new posts every week.

So are you blogging for fun or for profit? Wouldn't it be better if you do both?

On Ways to Earn Online

There are a lot of different ways on how to earn online. The past year was, for me, a good year where I learned and earned in different ways.

Like most who started earning online, I got myself project based jobs. I had Data Entry and Writing projects.

The longest Data Entry project I had lasted for more than two years (that is if my memory serves me right). It was a simply cut and paste job, just updating and submitting the daily excel document of a client. I felt a bit sad when my US based client terminated the project. I felt sad not because he found a better, faster and ultimately cheaper way to do what I was doing but because the client was such a nice person to work with who paid in advanced and went the extra mile to make sure I got my money.

I also did technical data entry where I was introduced to HTML. It was basically a cut and paste project too but it was coded with all those HTML gibberish. It was actually an outsourced work from a Pinoy middleman.

Another data entry project I did was encoding captchas. Captchas are those letters and numbers that you sometimes have a hard time deciphering that you need to copy in order to be given access to the next step. It is just the online world's way of making sure that the person they are transacting business is a real person and not just an automated program.

The writing projects I did were articles of less than 500 words, about 1 page of a legal sized bond paper. The articles had to be written in such a way that certain keywords are incorporated, meaning you have to use the keyword in the title, opening sentence or paragraph, in the body and closing.

I also dabbled in HYIP (High Yield Investment Program) where my investment earned 12% daily or 144% after 12 days. HYIP is a very risky type of investment program where scammers abound. The minimum investment was just $6 and I entered the company when they were barely a month old and had a promo where they offered a $3 incentive for signing up. The company didn't last long though but I was wise enough to have kept my investment to a minimum and just used some of the profit when re-investing.

I also did PTC or paid to click. Here you get paid to either manually click on or automatically view ads for a few seconds. This is really time consuming and on hindsight really isn't worth it because I was just paid $0.01 per click. What was good about that online earning episode was I was able to be part of a team who really did their due diligence and we usually were able to bail out before we got further ripped off. PTCs are a haven for scammers.

I don't recommend though that you tread the same path that I did if you want to earn online. My purpose here is to just give you an idea that, yes, it is possible to earn online and it is not confined to just getting a job.

Mama's Online Helper

You know, Mama works in the computer almost everyday. She always click here, click there, type here, type there, e-mail here, e-mail there, imagine if you work like that!

So, I decided about helping Mama at work from now on.

Though my Kuya is Mama's perfect helper, (Kuya is a computer wizard) he's only interested in downloading and playing computer games with Papa, which are making Kuya's so called "microchip nerves" alive.

It's so hard to do Mama's kind of work. She has to listen to instructions in videos, then do it in a website, then listen to another video, then e-mail Joel or someone else, yadda, yadda, yadda.

It's hard for me but Kuya says it's as easy as a chicken-flavored lollipop.

I kept on thinking if I have to ask Kuya if he would do the role of being Mama's online helper or if I could do this role myself. I asked Kuya if he wants to earn money by helping Mama but he said "Maybe, maybe not. I like to earn money by playing games or something."

The way I like to earn money is by selling some of the stories I make

AND by helping Mama do her blog (Mama said I get Php25 for each article). I really love writing articles in Mama's blog, but I have a lot to do so sometimes, I have no time to write in here, because Kuya kept on begging me to play with him, Mama asks me to look after my baby bro, I get too bored so I watch TV, etc.

The way I help Mama is by writing some articles here and telling Mama tips on how to advertise her blog. But even though that's just a little way for helping Mama, I know that way means a lot.

Pinay Work at home Mom and Joel Christopher

As a Pinay work at home mom, it really is a struggle to find ways on how to earn online. Like I mentioned in a previous blog entry, I started to scour the net for a money making opportunity way back in 2000. Got really frustrated because during that time, being based in the Philippines meant that I cannot get a Paypal account or Clickbank.

I tried to be on the list of most of the professed guru and when I wrote to them about my dilemma, their response was usually not favorable.

I really wanted to give up!

But part of me still wanted to believe that it is possible for a Pinay to work at home.

I know that I need to have a mentor in order to succeed online. Not just any mentor, though. I need a Pinoy mentor.

Finally while browsing through some forum I saw someone commenting that Joel Christopher is a Filipino. I've encountered his name before through the newsletters and I knew how successful he is in his niche and even heralded by most as the masterlistbuilder. With such an American sounding name, I didn't have a slightest clue that he is a Pinoy.

Part of me knew that my quest for a Pinoy mentor has ended and yet another part doubted if he would even respond to my email.

Joel Christopher finally responded and I was ecstatic! That was in 2007.

He subjected me to lots of tests - most of which I never even had an inkling that I was being tested - before he agreed to be my mentor.

Learned a lot but not enough yet to succeed. Not that it was Joel Christopher's fault but it was mine alone. I drifted in and out of his mentorship program and lacked one important thing - FOCUS.

Right now I have already completed Phase 1 (yehey!!!) of Joel Christopher's Apprenticeship Program. Five more Phases or Levels to go...