blogging

Monetizing Your Blog (Musing)

Ho Sim Lang

Monetizing Your Blog (Musing)

I am sure everyone who is a would be blogger would be asking this very question the day that they decided to start their own blog. It doesn’t matter which step that you take. If you consistently produce good or great content, you will one day find it very easy to monetise your blog and potentially make a lot of money. Of course it takes hard work, and sometimes hard work alone might not even cut it for you.

I guess monetising your blog from an overseas site context would be a lot easier than if we were to do it locally. The variety of keywords that would make your blog rank high are often times quite limited. Most blogs arising from Singapore are really personal blogs with one or two blogs that have international appeal. Otherwise the content is largely localised in flavour and prose. It’s not easy to say the least.

Most bloggers go the route where when their blog has significant traffic, they are likely to take on blog assignments and blog on products. I am thinking if this is where I want to go as well. I think my problem is, if I don’t know the product, I find it a little difficult to write about it. I think it is the same with anyone. I tried, but I think I fail miserably at it. I am better at blogging about stuff or products that I have used before and if the product is a great product then I think it would add value to my readers.

So after saying so much, it sounds like I have said nothing? You are right. It’s hard to monetise your own blog, if you want to do it the way that I am thinking of doing it. I tried using Adsense before, but I realised that I don’t know Adsense well enough to continue to keep it on my blog. Plus I don’t have enough traffic to get Adsense. So if Adsense is out of the picture, then I will only have affiliates that makes sense to me, and that’s Blue Host web hosting company. I have a leaderboard banner smack right centre of every page. That is my monetisation strategy. It’s not much, but I like it that way.

So if people were to be inspired by my blog and would want to start their own blog someday, they can, and they can sign on via Blue Host through my affiliate link. Of course they can also opt to go directly to Blue Host to start their web hosting and thereby discrediting any affiliate commissions to me, but that’s fine. It would be nice of course, but if people are not comfortable with that, it is fine with me as well.

The whole monetisation of blog strategy in a Singapore context is much tougher than we all think. It’s like digging for gold (my favourite illustration) and the fact is, the gold rush is already pretty much over, and only the passionate will eventually find anything beneath all that dirt.

 

 

The Business of Blogging (Musing)

Ho Sim Lang

 

The Business of Blogging (Musing)

I want to write about the business of blogging and how we should approach it in this information age that we live in. These are indeed exciting times I should say. With social medias complementing our efforts, blogging in today’s context has never been easier. We are no longer like a fast food outlet opened in the middle of the desert anymore, everyone can see our posts virally through Twitter, Facebook or Google+ in a matter of seconds as soon as we publish our posts.

In fact, blogging is no longer just about personal anecdotes or quirky quotes as most bloggers would tell you today. It used to be just an online diary of our daily musings but these days blogging is a business. People have taken on blogging assignments and have in one way or another promoted products openly or subtly via affiliate marketing. Blogging in fact has developed into a very serious business that commercial entities with products to introduce to the masses have adopted the social media approach as a significant equal to print media.

Business today see social media almost on par as mainstream media, and that significance is unlikely to go away anytime soon. So are you ready to jump on the bandwagon of blogging hoping to strike it rich? Well, the truth is, blogging is hard work. In fact there is a saying, the harder I work, the luckier I get. I think that applies to anything that we do, especially blogging.

These days a blog is created in a matter of seconds around the world, each breathing air and fresh ideas into its online existence. Each trying to scrap off a little of that online gold rush. If you had started your blog early, and if you had timed yourself right, you would be an authority today, garnering traffic that is comfortable for your business. But for the rest of us newbie bloggers, there is still some fine grains of gold left over amidst the dirt, and if you sift through enough dirt, you will eventually find your niche, and find your fine grains of gold nuggets, and build yourself a suitable authority site in the topic that you have chosen.

If you’re exploring or thinking of starting a blog, then perhaps you might want to consider the cheap web-hosting that I am with, and that is Blue Host. You can literally start a blog in a matter of minutes, faster than you think.

Providing Good Content (Musing)

Ho Sim Lang

Providing Good Content (Musing)

That is the challenge of any newbie blogger, and I say that because naturally everyone wants to eventually become a blogger with authority and become someone that is an expert. That is however, easier said than done. Providing quality content means you need to do your research and you basically need to know what it is that people out there needs to know and would want to know.

But first, if you’re contemplating of going into the business of blogging, you would really need to consider how to ensure that the information that you put out will eventually find its way into the eyeballs of those that you’re intending to target. It might be a little bit easier these days with social media. All you really need to do is to write a blog and then share it with your Facebook friends for example, and then hope that they will read and find some semblance of meaning in your ramblings.

Or they may read and then have no basic inkling as to what you’re on about and subsequently dismisses your every sharing on your Facebook timeline. That would be tragic especially if you have something of value to share with them. So what key strategies would newbie bloggers need to know when they post material online or write a blog.

I think it is important to go back to first principles. Detail what it is that you’re hoping to achieve in your blog and state the reason why you started this blog and brought it into existence. That is important to both yourself as well as your readers because it sets the compass for the journey that you’re about to embark upon. Knowing why you started this blog will somewhat ensure that you will always have something to blog about and that you won’t run dry of content.

That said, content is king. Providing good content and content that is of value to your readers will go the furthest distance and will eventually set your site to become an authority site. You want to eventually become the subject expert of your niche and I can’t emphasise this point enough. You the blogger, need to rethink your mission and objective. For me, my purpose is clearly because I need a proper place to store all my recipes that I have tried and tested. For me, posting the recipes on Facebook just makes it difficult for me to track or refer. So having all my content published and located in one place helps me call out the recipes that I need to use really fast.

Of course besides being a storage place for my home cooked recipes, I would also want to provide content that is somewhat meaningful for my readers. Maybe some fun facts or little known facts or just generally on topics that interests me. So this blog is basically all abut what I want to do and what I would like to say.

It is like my own personal journal, and a chronicle of my thoughts and expression. One of the things that I really hope to do is also find out some ways where I can make an income online. That has always been a mystery to me, but I think it might not be that impossible coming to think of it. I mean I have seen friends who successfully earn an income online, and at the same time, passively. I think that is a powerful model to emulate and to think about since I am taking this step forward.

I used to write a blog way back in 1995 back at university. Back then the term blog wasn’t all that popular as it is now. It was more like a bunch of people writing content and then placing them up on the Internet. So much has changed since those early days of blogging, but essentially, the genre of blogging and the intent remains the same.

It is about the sharing of good content. I hope that I can also share good content, and become my own authority through my thoughts and writings.