MelvinBlog

A blog that chronicles my journey on online marketing, blogging, social media, technology and life.

Melvin

Q and A, Round 4

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Hey people, it’s been a long time since I have last done the question and answer thing. To be honest, I am really missing it as the whole thing is enjoyable even though not so many people care to ask question/s. 😀

Anyway, so now is the round 4! This is now you’re chance to spam me with your questions related to internet marketing, blogging, making money online, or just plain personal questions. What’s the thrill? Well nothing really thrilling. 😀 One lucky person would win a sidebar banner for one month ($15 worth, seriously!). Two other persons would get a free text ad from me as well. Fire away!

Blogging And Facebook

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Ok, we all know that (probably) all people who are aware that the internet exists do have their own facebook accounts. But not all are concerned on having their own blog. I’m all fine with that as I really don’t recommend blogging to everyone and it depends on one’s interest whether to enjoy it or not. Although blogging and facebook (alongside Twitter) seemed to be somehow connected with each other, we can all agree that both can be time-waster’s as well. Here’s my take on their advantages and disadvantages:

ADVANTAGE

The good advantage of having a facebook account and an own blog is that it already sets your own stage online. It gives exposure to who you are and what you do best. Some may think its retarded but the truth is when you meet people or when you are applying for a job or a position, a company will always do a Google search for your name to see who you really are, yep its so true! Having both accounts (or even just one) is already a big plus if you’re trying to carve out an online reputation for yourself (or even just a personal brand).

DISADVANTAGE

Ok, like the ones we’ve talked about lurking in forums a couple of weeks ago, both can also waste your time. Most people that have their own blog and do online business would waste it by ‘blog-hopping’ or maybe by caring too much about the looks, designs and metrics of it. While facebook on the other hand has a ton of applications/games embedded into it that could mesmerize one, hence it’s easy to get distracted, just enjoy it and neglect other responsibilities. Those who don’t have an online biz or stuffs can also ‘lurk’ in facebook too much (w/c is harmful as well). I have talked with a lot of my friends and they shared to me that facebook takes 90% of their time in the internet (by playing third-party games and taking stupid quizzes and stuffs). I really don’t have anything against it but if you’re a student or someone who does something , then probably you can be better doing your own stuff. Oh well, maybe just my 2 cents.

As for every online property, entity or whatever, they have their own disadvantage for their use. Sure facebook is fun and so is blogging but at the end, it’s not really hard to figure out whether either of them is hurting your productivity. Or maybe its just me. If you agree w/me then add me on Facebook. 😀

This Thing Pisses Me Off With Bloggers

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Bloggers can either be amiable or despicable, no doubt about it. In my 2+ years in blogging I can say I have seen all types of bloggers. While most of them are really nice and great to be with, there are certain portion of bloggers (or qualities of them) that really make me pissed off. What is it? read on…

For some reasons, some bloggers piss me by commenting on posts while not reading it. Ok, we all know that most ‘guru’ bloggers would suggest you to comment on as many blogs as you can for two things, 1). to get traction and traffic and 2). for backlink purposes. I don’t oppose that. What I do oppose is the fact that a lot of bloggers overdo that and the result is that they actually don’t really read the content of the post and their comment is totally unrelated. That is what pisses me off.

I know that ‘maybe’ I, myself have somehow done that but I think I have never ever commented on a post w/o understanding (worst, reading) it. Most of the times I skim the content but then i always grasp the concept first before actually putting my piece into it. If you’re a serious reader of my blog then probably you might have found some totally douchebag unrelated comments. Much more if you’re an avid reader of famous blogs in the industry like johnchow.com, shoemoney and etc. A lot of comments there are just junk comments (different from spam ones), ones that were created for the sake of futility. 🙂 It even pisses me more to learn that those comments are actually legit and not trolls, just totally unrelated…

Oh well, just my opinion about it. Again its your own blog and there is a whole lot of freedom of expression within the blogosphere. Just make sure you don’t hurt yourself and the image of your blog by being a douche. Remember, the real value of comments in blogs is not about the quantity or the proper use of anchor text, it’s the quality and image that can make your blog standout.

Monetizing Your Local Traffic

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Just a quick post today, I need more rest. 🙁

It’s so easy to monetize a local traffic from a website or blog if your country is in US or Canada. But if you’re like me who’s country resides on an unpopular Asian country, squeezing out something from your local traffic can be hard. If you’re trying to use Adsense and you have a ton of say, Asian traffic then I would say that is not a good idea. There are really few Adwords advertisers who target traffic outside US. why? Because the money is really inside the US (and countries close to it), sounds unfair? No.

Well the short answer is by selling your own product. The thing about local traffic is that they are usually more loyal than international traffic. It can be an info product, consultation or whatever, just make sure you are well-reputed in your country first before implementing it. Luckily for me, US is my largest referrer of traffic, followed by Australia, some Asian countries and then Philippines. At the start of this year, I really worked hard on getting more loyal followers that are Filipinos and so far I am seeing the benefits of it. Back on monetization, the second next option is direct ad sales, although it can be real hard since most local advertisers are also advertising international products targeted at bigger countries.

Any other ways you can suggest?

Losing Interest On Monetizing This Blog

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So today marks the last day for about 4 ad placements in this blog and obviously they wouldn’t want to renew anymore. Many people who buy the book I created about monetizing make money online blogs usually ask me how I manage to make that amount of money with this blog. The truth is I do have *other* make money online blogs that have lesser readership, yet makes more money than this one. As always, I do believe this blog is more of a personal blog rather than a niche site so I monetize it depending on my mood. Btw back to those other blogs, I believe I have purchased them a couple of years back (some are last year), and had a great deal with a superb freelancer w/c happened to be also a great friend of mine. To keep it short, I do basically outsource everything as much as I can.

Back to this blog, when I started this I always dreamed of like kinda making $1000 with it someday. But as time goes on I did realize that blogging is more fun when you use it spontaneously rather than pressuring yourself trying to maximize its potential. Luckily, letting the flow go natural still made this blog earn three figures a month. Honestly I really I don’t care that much (unlike before) if this blog earns or what or not. I’m just more elated to have a couple hundred of readers reading this blog everyday, happy to have people commenting, glad spammers keep on spamming me and for me it’s what makes me keep blogging despite all other profitable projects I have currently (and the fucking intern as well).

Anyways just sharing, I know some of you can connect with me. Who knows? Maybe after quite some time, I would realize what direction this blog is going profit wise. And to consider, who doesn’t love passive income? 😀

Is There Such A Thing As Overrated Blogs?

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When blogging started almost a decade ago, no one really perceived it as something ‘useful’. Since blogs are just diaries that convey confessions and love stories, a lot of people don’t pay too much attention to it. Fast forward, blogs now have become a source for useful informations, a must-read if you’re going to make a decision or going to do something. Because of its evolution, people are now putting a high expectations in it. If you started a blog the right way, then all of a sudden get stucked with stuffs and started posting those ‘oh so personal’ posts, then people would now call you and your blog OVERRATED. Nowadays, people always EXPECT something.

Over the years a lot of what used to be good blogs are getting started to be labeled as overrated blogs. Name it, techcrunch.com, time.com, icanhazcheeseburger and plenty more others… The criteria for them is simple for ruling out that a blog is overrated. If a blog is well-trafficked, has a ton of good press around the internet yet its not really showing up good content for what it gets, then it’s easy to label the blog as overrated. For example shoemoney.com is a famous blog for this niche. It gets a ton of comments per post, sold out ad spots and humongous rss list. But it hardly (varies for different type of people) gives out helpful tips that are related to internet marketing (maybe except now, because he started the x thing membership).  Does that make it overrated? You judge!

I have a mixed take on these so-called overrated blogs and the whole concept of this overrated thing. After all they are only blogs. And blogs aren’t required at all to post useful/helpful content right? It’s also not their problem that they got famous for posting personal stuffs or pictures of cat.s After all it seems like blogging goes back to what it really is before content-wise. Just play w/the game of blogging… My piece of advice as always is that never ever claim to be an authority. Unless you can commit to it for life..

How bout you? What are the blogs that you think are overrated? You think yours is overrated? or mine? 😀

How to Kill Yourself in Internship

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Well probably a lot of you guys know that I have not posted for over a week because I am having an internship for the final school year of my college life. And to be honest it’s so toxic that I cannot even go out and tweet my balls in twitter and do facebook stuffs. To make it worst, I forgot that one of my test campaigns have almost ran for a week, getting me no conversion and over $50 in clicks!

Well if you don’t know, I am taking my intern (surprisingly) here in one of the biggest hospital in the country. I (and a friend named Kat) were associated with the IT-tech department in w/c we do techy stuffs (instead of doing programming w/c is what my course was really about). Actually its kinda scary because its been said that there are a ton of a(h1n1) cases in the hospital. Sometimes we were asked to pullout a computer from an infection control department and sometimes from the ER w/c is sick. But that doesn’t stop there, the hardest and most stressing  part of the intern is the travel. It takes about 3 hours for me to arrive to that place and all in all 6 hours. As I arrived home, the only statement I can express is ”rest”.

GUEST POSTERS

Nuff said, as you see I can’t even make a post in a week so I am looking for quality and quirky guest posts over the week. The requirements are literally almost non-existing. As long as you think your post can please me then go ahead send it to me. Thus far I get 200+ uniques a day and 600 pageviews. I do also get an average of 16 comments per post. For those who are interested kindly save the wordpress html version of your post in notepad, then send it to my email melvin[at]melvinblog.com or by using the contact form. That’s it for now gotta take my rest.