Do take note of this, Yaro Starak and Darren Rowse are from Australia, John Chow is from Vancouver Canada, Daniel Scocco is from Brazil, Chris Garrett is from UK, Murray Newlands is also from UK I believe and my friend Carl “KidBlogger” Ocab is from Philippines and etc.
Ok now from outside this niche. Alborz Fallah of CarAdvice.com.au is from Australia (arrgh, again), the ever famous Danny Choo is from Japan, Lhong Zheng was from China (although he resides in Mulgrave), and again fellow Filipino tech blogger Jehzeel Laurente lives here in Philippines. And yea you’re right, I probably have missed a ton of other people still either because I did my research poorly or didn’t do research at all. Anyway, lols. 🙂
Whew, that was quite a long list! I was watching NBA (w/c is one show I always watch no matter what) and they have this segment called Basketball without borders where they usually go to places outside US to have campaigns on basketball. They even play official ball games there sometimes. It’s refreshing to think that you can play basketball no matter where you are.
Thinking of that, I kinda relate it to blogging. You can easily notice that all bloggers I mentioned above live outside the United States. Most people who are just planning to get started blogging worry a lot on whether they can even get attention, relating it to the fact that they live outside big and profitable countries like America and Europe.
To make it worse, most bloggers even do recommend bloggers to target bigger countries mentioned above if they are considering making money from blogging. As a result, bloggers are discouraged even before they get to have a chance.
I would tell you this one straight to your face, successful blogging has no borders, geographical location is NEVER a limitation! Whether you are blogging just as a hobby or using blogging as a business tool, you should never ever get discouraged just because of where you live. Remember that in any country there is always a (profitable) market for something. There are always things where people want to spend some money to learn and educate themselves.
If you’re just going to get wet or in the middle of that (very slow) learning curve and you’re feeling discouraged, I feel for you. I was once like that. When I started my past blogs and websites I basically plastered them with Google Adsense. My neighbor is reading it, my classmates are reading it, and they are clicking the ad. And it sucks to realize that those clicks even with a good quantity totals to just a very small amount (since most clicks is from my country).
And then as I was signing up with other different ad networks I was a bit disappointed to learn that some networks rejected me just because of the fact that I live outside the US. It can really be depressing but having the proper mindset, here I am today.
It’s important to always look at the big picture, not get discouraged by all those cons and instead work on things you could care more. I myself live in a third world country, Philippines. As I was looking at my Analytics and logs, I was seeing the most of my traffic comes here in Asia, and I can say those readers are big factors why I make money from this blog, why I’m somehow read by people.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter where you live from or where your target market is. The only thing that matters is your dedication. Sure, you can count the disadvantages of living in your place at your fingertips or you can elaborate the advantages of living a big country but that’s not a legitimate reason, in fact it’s not even a reason.
As I end this, I do hope you can look at those bloggers I mentioned above and use them as an inspiration. Inspiration not just as big and successful bloggers, but also as bloggers who live in different parts of the world. Yep, blogging doesn’t have any borders, just like basketball.
That is so true Melvin! I am another Australian blogger and I have met other bloggers from all over the world. As you have said, it all just comes down to your passion and the time and effort that you put into making your blog a success.
.-= Tom´s last blog ..What Is Geoarbitrage? =-.
you know what dude….that is the best thing about blogging…no boundaries and no restriction of the language, caste, color….i am from india and i have interacted with bloggers all around the world and everybody was more concerned about my blog & content rather than my nationality
.-= Tushar´s last blog ..Higher Visits = Higher Popularity!!!! Not Always Dude…. =-.
Melvin Reply:
April 29th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
yes its always one of the benefits. It’s good to see we asians, have made friends with people all over the world, established connections just because we are blogging.
Hey Melvin, it’s true that borders and boundaries plays no part in how big or how much you’d like your blog to be, as it’s up to you (it can be as high as the skies if you’d like). You said in this post that it all boils down to dedication – perhaps we can also consider passion too (as out of passion dedication will stem out not vice versa) as well as expertise (this one can be classified under dedication – as you can be dedicated to building expertise).
In one of my posts, I blogged about “On being able to work (blog) from anytime, anyhow – what I like about it” I touched base on this aspect as well. It’s not about dedication for the now (eg making money etc) but also on what is to come (an expectation) that will also influence our dedication and consistency to attend to tasks we set for ourselves.
Keep the good posts coming. =)
Dude dude..!! Well said. Really Blogging has no limitation, boundaries. I’m from india and have made some great friends… all around the world . As you said the only thing that matters is your dedication. 🙂
Keep up the good work bud. thanks
Cheers,
Dev
Blogging is beyond boundaries indeed.
We might know that blogging has no borders but it is a limitation to others. I applied for a US job as a blogger (am based in Australia) and the owners were worried about me being on the other side of the world. Even through extensive conversations of the pros about being outside US (eg time zone would suit someone outside the US) they were still worried because the company was new to blogging and social media.
.-= Ainslie Hunter´s last blog ..How can the Social Media Experts help Education =-.
Melvin Reply:
April 29th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Certainly there are always be limitations, just like in anything but I must say are you just gonna let that limitation limit you? When I was getting started I signed up with a lot of these ad networks and I got rejected just because I live outside US. So that motivated me to do something that would overcome that limitation and compensates myself well.
And also that makes us independent.
Well said – Filipinos should read this especially since most of our fellowmen always think that they are inferior to “foreigners” for some weird reason.
And even though we can’t apply to some affiliate networks, especially to online credit card gateways, we have our advantages – like hiring local programmers here, it’s darn cheap 😉
.-= Carl Ocab´s last blog ..The Ultimate Blogging Theme 3.0 =-.
Melvin Reply:
May 1st, 2010 at 12:40 pm
I agree Carl. I think Filipinos are probably the best Asian folks in terms of you know, blogging and internet marketing and stuffs. Of course I am very biased, lols.
Hello Ainslie
That’s the other end of the stick, on the cons part, but I believe that can be addressed once you really share and educate on the pros part of it. Some pros include increased productivity by decreased travelling and unnecessary clutter and socialising, as well as the saved time and expenses on just being outside of the home.
Well said Melvs…I think blogging has even cut the borders that separates people and more importantly, blogging has leveled the playing field.
.-= elmot´s last blog ..My Brute Cheats Master Codes for Ipod, Iphone and Ipad =-.
Too true Melvin – no borders on the web.
I’ve never actually thought of it but as you say…
“successful blogging has no borders, geographical location is NEVER a limitation!”
I comment on blogs all around the world and have comments on my blog from all over.
Got to be a good thing, just think of the size of the market!
BTW – Didn’t know that “Daniel Scocco is from Brazil” – but I do now. LOL
.-= Keith Davis´s last blog ..Flying in formation =-.
Great post Melvin,
Truly said, Blogging has no location limitation. I am a Nigerian blogger and thousands of people read my blog every week. I think it is all about your content.
Thanks a lot for the great post,
-Onibalusi
You should never allow borders to limit the reach of your experiences and blogging. In fact, you should actually be able to find greater inspiration because you’re outside of your comfort zone and networking with people that are in a completely different mindset.
In the states, everyone is striving to make money while in smaller countries, people put more emphasis on taking daily holidays and enjoy a slower life. We’re all so stressed that it puts us into a different money mindset.
The fact that we have so much reach as bloggers is amazing because we can show people the lifestyle of our different countries.
.-= Murlu´s last blog ..Minimal Lifestyle For The Online Entrepreneur =-.
I think any online website and blog go beyond a particular country or state, in as much as you are on internet you can transact business world wide, which is the meaning of www “world wide web”. One important point that I will like to emphasize is that domain name used to limit location sometime. For example some people may want to advert on a website or blog with .uk or .us domain name in other to rank better in that location, but that not withstand if you have .co.uk or .us domain name, you can still sell advert and ad across countries. But when it comes to selling thing online, .com domain name sell better than any other domain name extensions.
Melvin I totally agree with you. I never thought of the boundries in blogging when i started and this was mainly because the inspiraqtion I got from bloggers from mu own country Pakistan.There are number of bloggers here who are driving trsffic from US and many other countries.It is just a matter of what you have to offer to people and how you market that.