Showing posts with label BLOGGING. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BLOGGING. Show all posts
Thursday, October 31, 2013
HOW I GOT MY FIRST GOOGLE ADSENSE CHEQUE – BLOGGING IN SOUTH AFRICA
Sometime in 2009, my brother practically begged me to see
the ‘website’ he had created for his stepson. Eventually I clicked on the link
and to my surprise I saw something that I liked and this piqued my curiosity. I
then asked him question after question on how he did that, was it easy, could i
do it?
For years my passion has been movies and TV shows. Movies, I
guess because it always felt like family bonding moments whenever we rented
movies. Movies, as I’m sure the feeling is for everyone, is really escapism
into other worlds or realities, away from the dreary day to day life.
So naturally my first
blog was going to be about movies. I found a template and immediately started
learning to navigate Blogger until I became accustomed to it. Any help I
needed, I consulted my brother or Googled it. I posted reviews about movies I
had seen, expressing my opinions for the world to see. Everyday after work I’d
come home and check my stats. Were there any pageviews? What else could I write
about?
I wasn’t obsessed, but rather excited at the fact that
anything I wrote about could be expelled onto the net for the entire world to
see. I wrote on and off and in 2010 my life changed a bit with a new job and
baby girl. It was then that I created a blog for my daughter also, documenting
her birth in photos.
I blogged until around October 2010 and never touched it
again until July 2012! In this absence, alot changed in the world of blogging.
I needed to change my template again. There were now literally hundreds of
sites with them and codes for all kinds of widgets. I also found Google Adsense
and Google Plus which I now used. It didn’t hurt of course to add some social
networking in the form of Twitter and Facebook pages which automatically
updated whenever I posted something new.
Due to an unfortunate turn of events, I stopped blogging
again as life took it’s toll once more. I then started blogging again in April
2013. Here’s where something changed. To my surprise when I logged in, I found
that my pageviews were in the tens of thousands, that I had followers on
Facebook and Twitter and that I was actually earning money even though I hadn’t
touched the blog in months.
I once again changed my template to update with the times.
There were even more templates to choose from across the web. I fixed my blog
to look more professional and kept watching as my blogs pageviews multiplied.
Then around the beginning of October 2013, I was ecstatic to have received my
first cheque from Google for my work on my blogs.
You can imagine my amazement because what started out as a
hobby and a passion had actually turned into money. From life experiences, I’ve
found that money and passion seldom agree with each other. As I write this, I
see my next cheque is already on the way. I really enjoy blogging and look
forward to doing it for a very long time.
So if you’ve found something you’re passionate about, write
about it.Who knows, your passion could also turn into some welcomed cash.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
CAN YOU MAKE MONEY BLOGGING?
Like with so many of the options you have in life or
different careers or even money making schemes, there are people who sit on top
and have made it. You hear success stories like a video goes viral on Youtube
and suddenly someone becomes a celebrity with million dollar contracts, a girl
gets noticed in a restaurant and becomes a big Hollywood star and so these
stories go, well the same can be said for blogging.
People are looking for the “make money from home” scheme ( and
boy there are many ) using the least amount of effort and time. It’s only
natural that blogging would become one such thing. Google “how to make money
blogging” and see how many results there are. There are literally millions of
pages on the topic. Somewhere inside you, you should realise that if there are
so many people with so many answers then there must be a catch. Why are there
so many people that know how to do this, yet you and I don’t really personally
know anyone in our immediate circles do we?
Ok, admittedly, I’m sure there are people out the making
cash from blogging and probably good money but for you and me, are these things
out of reach? Globally there must be
hundreds of millions of blogs, each with it’s own personality, writing styles
or lack thereof and so many platforms to use, so what chance do the rest of us
stand to make even 1 single cent?
You get told that you need to bounce off social networking
platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pin It etc
etc. People will even tell you your posts need to be no longer than 300
words while others encourage you to write till you feel you’re done. Some will
tell you to add pictures to your blog posts to make your writing attractive and
again the lessons carry on and on. There are even people that will help you for
a small nominal fee ( that’s their get rich scheme I guess ) with advice to
make us all multi millionaires.
I believe like with so many other things in life that money
shouldn’t be your primary concern but rather your second or maybe none at all.
Whatever you choose to write on should be honest and from your experience and
most of all should be sincere and something you’re totally passionate about.
Write from your knowledge and from your heart and if you actually make money
from it, good for you.
Good luck and remember, if you’re not having fun doing it
then you probably shouldn’t be doing it at all.
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