Offtopic

A New Challenge – Effectively Marketing a Local Website

by Melvin · Aug 20, 2012

Despite of me being totally busy with work and other stuff, I decided to launch a new website purely based on it being a hobby (or maybe not even really). ‘Passion projects’ aren’t really the best thing in life because aside from the fact that it doesn’t give you assurance of making money, its also a time sink and something that could hinder you from doing other things that are more “worth it” financially speaking. But life is all about being happy eh? 😛

Getting Back to ‘Basketball Blogging’

by Melvin · Apr 7, 2012

I mentioned many times in the past how I got started with blogging, and it was through blogging about basketball, particularly the NBA. Ideally it was my plan to blog about other areas of basketball like local basketball, European leagues, collegiate basketball, etc. however it was pretty obvious that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with it due to my lack of knowledge on other areas and time constraints as well (was a student at the time).

Anyway back to ‘getting back’ to basketball blogging, I used to own a personal basketball blog called Basketball Nonsense that I started 2007. It was nothing really eye-catching as its just a ramblings blog about basketball (NBA) where I just rant about players that I don’t like and write about my own analysis on things. Long story short, it started getting popular and started making money although it was never massive. I sold the blog for 300 some dollars which at the time was amazing for me. I was so thrilled with the amount that I accepted the bid right away.

Even with the sale, I still wrote for the blog as a paid writer for the next 4-5 months. And even after that period, I would still normally write or comment about an article there just because I needed a place to write something regarding my thoughts about basketball. Offline, I usually have friends who I talk to about basketball almost every single day. I guess anyone who follows basketball know that it isn’t really out of the ordinary to talk about basketball 24-7.

Back to Blogging about NBA Basketball

It was a long story and even now I don’t still have the complete ownership of the blog. But since I’ve hosted the site for perhaps over a year now for free, I decided to take on a more active role regarding writing content on the blog.

Basketball Nonsense is not an amazing blog at all and in fact, it gets less than 50 hits a day for the past 1.5 years. My goal is to write more content again on that blog however I’m not really too keen on monetizing it or making it like Slam Online or something. If it gets traffic and comments, fine but right now, I just want to write my thoughts about basketball on some web property. And since there’s a property that I used to own, why not write on that existing one?

All in all, this is ‘blogging for passion’ in action. I’m just so glad I can write once more about basketball and offer my ‘scholarly’ thoughts about what’s happening and engage to the community once again. And to start with, I made some minor revamps on design and will still continue to enhance its look and then later focus on writing more.

But that’s it for now. Visit the blog and let me know what you think!

Resurrection of my Blogging Life + Drastic Changes Ahead…

by Melvin · Feb 29, 2012

So what’s up? It’s been almost 3 months since I last posted here in this blog and the last two posts didn’t even seem like “real” posts from me. 🙂 Overall, I just posted less than 40 posts for the past year and just 4 in the past 4 months. Oh yea!

I’m sure you’ve heard me before coming up with a lot of alibis and excuses for the lack of posts and today, I would still do the same by saying that I’ve been busy the past year with my work primarily and other client tasks. But the difference is that I will not come up with a list this time of what to expect from this blog. But rather I would discuss some drastic changes going forward.

Reverting back to casual posting

One of the things that I’ve done in the past 2 years (more evidently the past year) is that I moved slowly from being a casual blogger that has passion for internet marketing and blogging to a blogger who wants to build expertise and strictly cater to that expertise. I started to “act” like a guru on something and thus wanted to connect to my audience as someone who knows A LOT about something rather than just simply being myself. Obviously this has burned me out to the point that I hated writing here anymore.

When I was just getting started about 4 years ago, I idolized Shoemoney because he’s just so ‘plain’. He writes something useful about our industry but he also writes a lot about ‘personal crap’ or things that he’s interested but most of is audience are not. And I used to post like that. I had a lot ‘childish’ posts about having a bunch of mouse for my PC, receiving gadgets from companies, and even love life posts. It’s not really “so professional” but its enjoying.

Going back to what I was doing the past year, it became clear that its “unfulfilling”. I started to work on things like capturing more newsletter subscribers, strategizing on funneling prospects to buyers, writing bait posts that will eventually get readers to get my incentives and all of those ‘Frank Kern’ type of ninja things. Of course, no offense to Frank, but I was not built that way.

And last but certainly not the least, Robb Sutton’s post about ‘Blogging needing to get back to its roots‘ made me realize a bunch of things as well. So props to you Rob!

What will change & what will not

Does this mean I’m not going to monetize this blog anymore? No of course! Ads are still there and will always be there forever. I haven’t really made that much money from ads recently (probably less than $1500 for the past year) however I still see a lot of value in the “spaces” of this blog. I’m not going to push this too much but ads will remain. 🙂

How about the usual ‘marketing’ shit like capturing email leads, funneling them, selling info products to them, upselling etc.? I will probably still however this will never ever be a priority. In fact, I don’t even think I’m going to do anything aside from getting some newsletters out. I don’t see myself putting out any product today, and in the future. 😉

How about the posts? As mentioned above, I will do more casual posts. More of “I feel good about writing this today” kind of thing. Maybe not so much as say posting cat pictures, or ranting about neighbors and colleagues and stuff. But it depends on how I feel. I’m sure I’m going to lose out some readers along the way but hey this is my blog.

I will probably be doing some massive changes to some pages to reflect the shift of focus for this blog. Sure, pages like Freebies, Why Subscribe to my Blog will remain unchanged but as mentioned, the blog will not revolve around showcasing those things anymore. I’d be happy if I get more and more readers however, as long as I’m feeling good about what I’m doing, then I will just continue it. 🙂

So whats next?

I don’t know! I’ll probably write next about the version 4.0 design of this blog and then some ramblings here and there. The one thing to keep in mind is that MelvinBlog will still continue to be an internet marketing /blogging blog however I wouldn’t be pressuring myself too much about coming up with guides and rich-content type of posts. I may put out some posts about a marketing strategy that worked well for me but that would be few and far between.

As I’m writing this, I’m actually getting more and more excited about this ‘rebirth’ in blogging. I haven’t really written anything on ANY other blogs of mine but that FOR SURE will change in the coming months. Either for the good or the bad, not much that I cared anyway. 😉

Officially Back in the Blogging Business. ;-)

by Melvin · Aug 23, 2011

Yohoo! Looks like I’m back for real! lol.

Shortly after the May 21 fake doomsday blog entry that I made, I gave a hint that I should be giving more effort in my blogging career or whatever it is you may want to call it. In fact a month before that, I wrote a post where I said that I was going to revive this blog.

If you’re a loyal reader of this blog, you’ll spot that the reason for my lack of activity (only 16 posts in the last 6 months) in blogging is work. Since June last year, I got employed and late last year I started taking consulting clients (regarding SEO and online business). That has pretty much made me indisposed up until early May.

But Where Have I Been?

If I got free since early May, why haven’t I been posting so much? The honest answer is:

“I got tired of blogging”.

Fact of the matter is when I started getting lots of free time, I replaced that with a).playing b). hanging out with friends and c).spending more time w/ family. I did so many things that teenagers usually normally do and it’s fun. Obviously it had some effects on the stats and profitability but who cares? I wanna enjoy life eh! Also aside from that I still have my normal day job w/c at times is labor-intensive.

Anyway I couldn’t believe I would say these thing considering that I have been blogging since my early college days and have been workaholic since then. But I guess I got hit with the infamous line ‘you might be missing a lot of things that you should be enjoying at your age’.

Plans

Strange enough, I should’ve posted this type of post a long ago. The reason and logic behind opting not to post this earlier is that I want to write content first on a continuous basis before claiming that I’m back with blogging. Prior to this entry, you can look at my archives and see that I’m back with my normal posting frequency. I don’t want to do the annoying mistake of writing a comeback post and then not post again until a month after which is pretty much what I’ve done in the past few months.

As far as plans, I don’t really have new plans yet aside from just regaining back my momentum in blogging. I would also like to recoup the lost traffic (lots) that I got for not posting and being active that much. From there, I’ll just see where it goes.

I’m also planning out on releasing some free materials that I’ll give out to my newsletter subscribers. Like with the blog, I haven’t been sending that much to my list that they might have gotten cold already. So its also a top priority for me to get my newsletter going as well.

Those are the things new to me, how about you?

The “Other” Things that You Can Enjoy in Blogging

by Melvin · Jul 31, 2011

So before I start everything else in this post, I just want to (proudly) let everyone know that I make money from most of my blogs and its one of the reasons why I really love blogging.

I said financial benefits is one of the reasons, the other half is the happiness and the satisfaction that it brings to me. It’s always been my mistake to write blogging and internet marketing tips to bloggers as if everyone is aiming at making money and being famous. It amazes me (and I’m thankful) when someone goes out in comments and says “not all people have making money on their minds and I’m one of them”. That gives me a very good realization that blogging for money like we do is just less than 10% of the whole blogging community.

I figured out that most people blog because they’re happy with it and it fulfills them greatly. That’s something that I’ve realized late last year and in this blog post, I’m going to tackle how you, as a make money online blogger can still be happy with blogging even though you’re not making that much money or not meeting your expectations financially.

1. The “intrinsic love” for blogging

When I started my blog MelvinBlog.com (see I’m not linking to it), I was very sure that I can do this forever AS LONG as I could make money with it. Its tricky but when I had hard times late 2009 and the blog wasn’t making that much money, I thought I would lose my interest in it but I was wrong.

The reason for that is the intrinsic love that I have for blogging for the topic. I do internet marketing since late 2007 and every time I talk about it in my blog, I really, really feel that great satisfaction for doing so. And that should be the case for most of us. People who have been blogging forever that aren’t getting compensated are the ones who have that “real love” for what they do and as a result, they don’t bother with the money that they make. That’s how I equally feel, how most of my blogging peers feel and hopefully that should be how you look at it as well.

2. The community

This second factor does not come immediately and it may take a while for you before you realize it.

The community is what makes a blog alive and without it, a blog is nothing but a plain static web entity. It just so happened that our blog community is one of the reasons why most of us stay and feel fulfilled. Imagine having tens of people, if not hundreds, commenting on our posts. Imagine thousands of people daily visiting our blogs even though its written by a simple person like us. Isn’t it self-fulfilling?

That does not even stop there. I know most of you here have received personal emails from your own audiences on how they’re so thankful for one of the things that your blog have done for them. It sounds corny, but that’s sweet right?

3. Friendships and relationships

While its very rare to see an occasion where two bloggers end up being into a romantic relationship (lol), forming friendships through blogging is a very frequent case. How many of you here have actually treated a blogger as a good friend of yours without even seeing or talking to that blogger in person? Yes, I know the feeling.

It doesn’t end with friendships. Most of the times, it leads to fruitful partnerships and joint ventures that can later on pay off for both of you.

You see, I could take 20 friends any time over 20 rotating 125X125 sidebar banners on my site. 😉

4. The Experience (with a big E)

Consider the following: I wrote a blog entry and got over a hundred comments. I got in front page of Digg, I got a thousand pageviews just this day for this post.

I can’t stress enough for myself how blogging has given me so much unforgettable experience in life. I was told that people don’t crave for things, they crave for experience and I can say that’s 100% true based on my experience.

All the things I mentioned above, the love for blogging, the community and the relationships. It all leads to a superb real-life experience on something. And I’m not just talking about good experiences that make us happy, I’m also talking about experiences that are a bit negative. No one actually forgets them and its equally memorable for us just as with the good ones.

5. The rewards (outside the money)

Every time I look back on what blogging has brought to me except the money, I usually end up smiling because it has brought me a lot more than I expected.

One of the best rewards that you can get from blogging is the increased expertise and brand that you get. “Who would think that by talking about this topic people would see me as an expert in this niche?” Is it not nice for us to realize that?

Another unsung reward is your personal learnings from it. I mentioned above that I learned blogging isn’t just about making money and we are just a minority of the blogosphere. That’s just one of the myriads of things that I’ve learned from blogging. I consider these learnings as a reward since I don’t really need to study something (formally) to gain those things.

I got tired of putting a heading called conclusion because not all blog entries have conclusions like this one right? I’ll let you put your own conclusion on this post. What do you think about blogging minus the “making money” part? Do you think its still as fulfilling?

Image credits to Smemon

Reviving This Blog & Some Updates

by Melvin · Apr 14, 2011

For the past 2-3 months or so I have been not that active in the blogosphere and that’s very evident with the lack of posts here in this blog. I have just 12 posts so far for the entire year and this is very different from the previous years that I had with this blog.

What I’ve been up to lately?

I’ve been up to so many things for the year and obviously you can never do so many things at a time. I have my normal day job taking still most of my time (8 hours). Then I have consulting and client work w/c is something that I have been doing since late September last year. That amounts to something like 12-14 hours a day of work. The remaining time is usually spent on some of my properties online that I try to maintain once in a while. Now do take note that’s just for work time and we all know living a life is not all about working if you know what I mean.

And that leaves to very little to no time at all for blogging. This kind of like sucks for me because I recently just published a post about maintaining your blog when you’re busy, yet its me who can’t maintain the blog while I’m busy. 😀

The original plan was for me to do blog-related stuff every weekend but that is often sabotage since I have to fill up some time during weekends for some of my clients in exchange for an added compensation. Sometimes, I do not work on some days during weekdays so I have to compensate during either Saturday or Sunday.

I gotta tell you that doing client work and consulting is so lucrative (especially for me who’s living here in Philippines). You can pretty much just do it for a couple of hours yet make more money than what you usually make in a day or 2 for your day job. But the drawback is its not as fulfilling as blogging and doing your own stuff. You could be enjoying it for first two months until you realize that your passion isn’t really there.

What’s Next For Me?

Believe it or not, I dropped consulting and client work. 🙂 I have a couple of reason for doing it. The first one is to revert back to me living a normal life (not a workaholic life) and the second one is for me to focus on doing what I really want which is blogging and doing my own stuff. That’s why I realized that maybe this is the right time to start doing what I have been doing for most of my life.

This means that I will be posting occasionally again to this blog, while interacting and being active on the blogosphere once more. I sure missed out a lot of the things that I’m doing like commenting, going to social sites and interacting, doing guest posts, lurking in forums and so on. Hopefully the free time that I will get will enable me to do these things again.

So that’s it. For some of my readers who were pissed off with my lack of activity, I would like to ask for an apology. Make sure you follow me up, and you’re hooked up with my newsletter so you don’t miss out things that I announce. 🙂 See ya!

Reviewing Year 2010 – Just Another Year End Post

by Melvin · Jan 2, 2011

Time flies really fast, isn’t it? Just few more hours and Its already year 2011. So for that, I’d like to make a recap post about things that happened for this year. I’ve never done this before so I thought its exciting to do one now.

Year 2010 overall has been good to me. At the start of the year, I went back to my college university after two painful stints of OJT on some companies the past year. It was exciting because that happened to be my last term in college which means goodbye school. Here’s the summary of my 2010.

Early 2010

Everything started with the Advance English kind of like training for us. I live in Philippines and although people here speak better English than some other Asian countries, our school felt the need for this so that we’re more prepared when we go out and find/get jobs.

College-wise, its kind of like one of the most challenging trimesters for us because of the pressure of being a graduating student. There were some tough software development projects but overall it was just fine.

As far as my online stuff is concern, I decided to focus on growing this blog more and it did. I tried engaging to more bloggers and putting up better content. Luckily, this blog grew and obviously the income increased mainly because of increased number of ads.

Summer of 2010

I also held the best blog marketing contest and it had about over $2000 of real prizes from real people at stake. I was so glad that sponsors helped me out in this. The contest got good popularity around, a lot of people have joined but the best thing was it benefitted bloggers themselves.

In return I joined some contests as well and won some. It was always good and challenging for me to go out and try to win these contests.

Aside from that, I attended two blogging conference for this year. The first one was iBlog which is THE biggest blogging summit in the Philippines and it was a good as I met a lot of new friends and got to see people that I admire in the industry. The other conference was Wordcamp 2010 in which Matt Mullenwegg flew down to grace the event. It was equally a nice event and I was able to see Matt in person.

Getting Employed, & Starting New Stuff

Then June onwards became a really busy month. I got employed in a software development company as their online marketing guy and later I was also assigned as a software tester. From there on, I started spending lesser and lesser time in this blog and other of my web properties. I found that a day job really sucks time.

It didn’t prevent me though from pursuing other of my online businesses. I founded Killerlogodesigns late July (although we’re kind of like in beta) and got some good clients. I also started some sites in the sports niche just to increase my visibility in that space. Lastly I opened doing client work and consulting for clients. I used to do a lot of that couple of years back before I got bored with it. Late this year, I opened it up again.

Because of those things and my job, I was able to make tons of money in a very short period of time. Consulting and client work rakes in the most, then I still have passive income from ads from my blogs and then the day job. But then a good portion of it was spent to hospital when one of my family members got confined.. I also helped out my parents in paying some stuff.

Year 2010 in General

All in all, 2010 is a good year for me. I feel blessed to be given with these opportunities and feel equally elated that I was able to deliver and satisfy people that I’m working with. There were some challenges along the way, most are minor ones and some are tough ones but what’s important is that I was always given this opportunity to prove myself as a interim father of the family and the eldest son.

So to conclude in a long sentence, in 2010 I was able to grow this blog and monetize it well, was able to finish college and land a job, was able to make good amount of money in my first 6 months outside college and on the other side I was able to surpass most of the problems for me and my family.

Looking forward to 2011

So to be straightforward, I know 2011 is going to be a much more exciting year for me obviously equally full with challenges and obstacles. I’m not fazed with it and I want to continue improving myself and maximizing my potentials. How about you?