Ever since I read an issue of Entrepreneur Magazine in 2003, it has been a personal goal of mine to be featured in it (primarily for this specific business). Didn’t know it’ll take me 5 years to hit that little milestone.

In the September 2008 issue of Globe Masigasig Magazine (an insert of Entrepreneur Magazine), Anton, Noel and I were featured as professional bloggers. We had to schedule a visit to the Summit Media studio for a photoshoot. So, when I had another interview from a writer for Entrep Mag, I told him about the recent feature.

I thought they’d scrap the new one since it was almost the same feature so I was surprised to see it went thru all along. Anton was also included in the story.

Anyway, it’s no biggie. Just wanted to share this one in case you happen to read the December Issue. For my US readers, there’s also the issue of Filipinas Magazine with an article that included my predictions for 2009.

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1. T3 Philippines Magazine officially shuts down Last month, I posted the news about T3 Philippines scaling...

paidContent was among the group of blogs founded and authored by former journalist Rafat Ali under the ContentNext company. Ali used to be the managing editor of Silicon Alley Reporter (owned by Jason Calacanis) which was eventually sold to Dow Jones in 2003.

Rafat Ali founded paidContent.org in 2002. He won’t be retiring any soon — he will still run the blog independently of GMG. The blog is said to be earning about $1 annually from ads.

Earlier this year, another huge blog, Ars Technica, was also sold for an estimated $25 million. Big bloggers are cashing in on their exit strategy.

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My approach is simple. Set a target based on your existing stats and plug in your ideal figures to see how much you ought to be earning from your blog.

Total Monthly Revenue = total daily page views x CTR x CPC x 30 days

* CTR – click through rate
* CPC – cost per click

So, in his case, our target is a CTR of 1% and a CPC of $0.10 (all figures here are hypothetical and does not reflect any of Rickey’s actual Adsense stats). That gives us 100,000 x 1% x $0.10 or $100/day which gives us $3,000 a month. (Note to Rickey: Sorry my original computation was wrong when I said it was $900/day. My math failed me there.)

How to increase CTR?

1) Ad-blending
2) Increase ad relevance by using section targeting
3) Changing ad layouts or positioning
4) Using ad channels for tracking

These are very basic methods but if you use them very well and by tracking your ad performance, you could hit that good mix which will yield you the highest possible CTR. After just a day of tweaking (if you have 100k page views, a 24-hour experiment is enough), we increased his eCPM by 50% and his CTR by close to 90%.

How to increase CPC?

1) Reducing total number of ads
2) Positioning the first ad to get the highest CTR
3) Targeting higher paying but relevant keywords

This is a bit tricky and more risky to experiment with but once you hit the sweet spot, the returns could be two or three-folds.

So, when Rickey mentioned that we probloggers don’t share the secret sauce like them SEO guys (put name here), I’d like to prove him wrong by inviting bloggers to send in their blog for an AdSense Makeover. Of course, I will not guarantee that I could increase your earnings but I will try my best. Again, I think it’s easier to do this if you have a sizable traffic already (say 1,000 pageviews or higher). And yes, we will also discuss here how we did it and what changes we’ve made and how much we gained from the make-over. Anybody up for it?

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You can also read another write-up of him here.

The rest, we can just read from his personal blog. Now, we’ll learn how this prolific writer/editor got into problogging.

• How would you define problogging?

  Problogging is the term used to describe online publishing as a legitimate source of income.

  As a corollary, problogging also means using your blog as an online reference for certain topics of interest. It is your own “personal wiki” if you may call it that.

  In sum, problogging may be the combination of two things – it is making money directly from your blog through different revenue sources, or making money indirectly using your blog as a self-promotion tool.

• When did you start blogging? When did you get into problogging and how did you realize that there’s some money to be had from it?

  I have been blogging casually since the 3rd quarter of 2003.

  I got into problogging in August of 2005 – and as most bloggers will tell you, by accident.

  I wanted to utilize my writing skills to make money online so I surfed for possible writing gigs. Turns out I was at the right website at the right time – I discovered The Blog Herald, owned by Duncan Riley, who is now one of the directors of b5media. At that time, he was looking for writers for an existing technology blog and I immediately expressed my interest.

  A few weeks later, I found out that the position was filled but Duncan told me that he found something “more suitable and more exciting for my style of writing” so I kept my fingers crossed and next thing you know, Cellphone9 was served to me on a silver platter.

• Which blogs are you writing for and which blog networks are you affiliated with?

  My main blog where I concentrate most of my efforts is Cellphone9, the b5media blog on mobile technology. I also write for The AfterMac, a lifestyle blog on Apple products. I co-blog with Dickoy Magdaraog of Fight Pompe and Adel Gabot, the current EIC of m|PH magazine.
  
  A Bugged Life is my personal blog.

• Are you problogging part time or full time? Do you see this career as a part time gig or you are looking into going fulltime problogging?

  I see problogging as a part time gig. This is because I cannot guarantee that problogging will yield a consistent stream of income to pay for everything – at least not yet.

  Darren Rowse of Problogger.net once wrote about how “going pro” should and will NEVER happen overnight. You can’t just decide to make blogging your life, quit your job tomorrow, blog like crazy, and then earn a few hundred dollars from Google the next week. It doesn’t happen that way, unfortunately.

  Ask me again a year from now and I might give you a different answer. There are many variables in the blogging world that may affect how income streams are generated or cut off.

• How do you monetize your blog? Which ones bring in the most revenues?

  It should be known that the ads are carefully chosen by the b5 network and not me. Right now there’s Google AdSense of course. But other than that there’s BlogAds, TextLinkAds, TextLinkBrokers, Kontera, AdBrite and BizRate. We used to subscribe to Chitika but not anymore. Feedback was that it wasn’t that great.

• What are the requirements to go into problogging for a network? Flat fee or profit sharing? How much is the salary range?

  We follow the “you make your blog work for you” system. Although we don’t have a “fixed salary” I can sort of predict how much my sites make just by looking at the PageRank-based ads that pay a fixed rate. Getting your site’s PR up a few notches increases the value of your blog to advertisers.

  Increasing your PR means blogging like crazy, linking to people and getting links from relevant sites.

• How much time do you spend on problogging?

  On the average I give around 30 minutes to an hour a day. Sometimes two hours, when I get all giddy on the keyboard. I go really slow on weekends because I believe that bloggers need some “fresh space” every now and then to recharge on ideas.

  One of the pitfalls of problogging is when you turn it into a boring routine. You’ll start to notice that your post quality goes down and your level of enthusiasm depreciates. And that’s a big no-no.

• What other benefits do you get from problogging?

  People start to recognize you from your blog. Your blog becomes a legitimate source of reference for future jobs as fellow b5′er Aaron writes in Technosailor.com.

  I also get insider knowledge about the blogging industry and get to interact with the b5 family from around the world. It keeps lonely nights happy.

  As a “company benefit”, b5 hosts our personal blogs for free.

• What’s the most significant event/moment you had in your entire problogging career?

  Too early to tell as of this moment. But so far, it would be when my site got mentioned in Gizmodo, giving me over 2,000 unique hits on that one post – in one day. In the long run, my site stats doubled in one month just because of that.

  Money-wise, the most significant moment was when I went over the $100.00 mark in income, which happened over two months ago. If you put that in perspective, people from the Philippines won’t even believe me if I tell them that I make money out of blogging. The ‘blogging industry’ here is unheard of.

• What personal tips can you share with bloggers who want to try out problogging?

  Blogging, just like journalism, the publishing industry, and the arts is a passion-based type of job. You gotta love what you’re doing – and be knowledgeable with your field of interest. It can be as niched as knitting, flying an airplane, gaming, or following the latest celebrity gossip.

  Without the passion for something, no one will read you. Passion markets itself, and that’s where you should begin. Find your niche, blog about it and really “own” it.

No related posts.

• How would you define problogging?

  Weblog as work: regular production of written online content, directed at a specific audience, with the purpose of profitably filling a specific topic-focused niche.

• When did you start blogging? When did you get into problogging and how did you realize that there’s some money to be had from it?

  I started writing my personal weblog, “How Now Brownpau,” in September 2000, and added Google banners to it sometime in 2004. I didn’t really think of it as being “professional” while the ads were on HNBP; it was just a way to offset some of my web hosting costs, and also provide context-based external content to some of my entries for people arriving by way of nonrelated search terms.

  Later on, realizing that I had bought several little low-end electronic devices, I decided to try starting a site on these same electronics to see if it would attract any interest — and profit. I had originally intended to make Cheap And Tiny a static clump of affiliate product pages with a few ads, but I then decided to see if the Gizmodo/Engadget way might not be a better route.

• Which blogs are you writing for and which blog networks are you affiliated with?

  On a professional basis, just Cheap And Tiny, though there are a few other projects in the pipeline. I’m not affiliated with any particular weblog network, and I like my independence.

• Are you problogging part time or full time? Do you see this career as a part time gig or you are looking into going fulltime problogging?

  Part time — very, very part time. I don’t think I’ll ever take it beyond that, because I’ve discovered that I find much more happiness and fulfillment in my day job as a graphic designer.

• How do you monetize your blog? Which ones bring in the most revenues?

  Google Adsense, Chitika ads, Amazon affiliate links, and Thinkgeek and Macmall affiliate links via Commission Junction. Adsense and Amazon bring in the most money.

• What are the requirements to go into problogging for a network? Flat fee or profit sharing? How much is the salary range?

  Definitely a flat fee to start. I’ve found out the hard way that profit sharing means there’s not much to share for the first couple of years, and that in turn means less motivation for your writers, who produce less content, which means less profit. Hence, a flat fee to provide incentive; you really need to spend some money at the start to gain more later.

• How much time do you spend on problogging?

  Not much, and I haven’t been counting. The original aim, however, was to make one post a day to Cheap And Tiny, with not more than an hour per day devoted to each post.

• What other benefits do you get from problogging?

  Aside from the [still-meager] income, you get a nice cross-pollination of interest. People who wouldn’t normally find your less popular sites or projects can discover them via links in your more interesting ones. Keep at least a few links in your sidebar for that purpose.

  And if you’re not just duplicating links from the big pro weblogs, you find a lot of interesting content all on your own.

• What’s the most significant event/moment you had in your entire problogging career?

  Probably the time I got a link from Matt Haughey, of Metafilter fame. Sadly I haven’t really capitalized on the popularity I got from back then, so the flood of inbound clicks from that day have sunk back to a trickle.

• What personal tips can you share with bloggers who want to try out problogging?

  Keep at it. It takes a long time to become a popular, widely read, much-linked online cultural flashpoint — I’m talking years. You can’t be “ningas-kugon” about it; if it’s pro, you have to act pro, and actually work at it consistently for a long time, investing the same time and effort over the months and years as you did in the heat of excitement on the first few days.

  Don’t attack other weblogs, don’t plagiarize, and for crying out loud, DO NOT SPAM. I know you’re impatient to get the word out about your wonderful site and become famous, but DO NOT SPAM the link all over email, weblog comments, and message boards. Spam will only establish you as an annoyance to be avoided, shunned, and blacklisted.

  Also, be ready to adapt, and don’t be too enamored of the latest buzzwords. We say “blog” and “problog” and “Web 2.0″ and “AJAX” now, but remember that five years ago, “push” and channels” were all the rage. Things change fast in these modern times, and your medium — and revenue sources — may transform to something else entirely before you know it. Be ready to react.

No related posts.

Glo is originally from Gubat, Sorsogon and came to Los Baños in 1989 to study Chemistry. She never got to leave LB since then. At present, Glo is a proud single-mom to Raine (Rainier Brando: born 29 December 2002), a task she juggles with being a Researcher but has already resigned from her work to become a fulltime problogger this month.

• How would you define problogging?

  When you are earning because of blogging. Otherwise, blogging is a hobby or a passion that is being pursued.

• When did you start blogging? When did you get into problogging and how did you realize that there’s some money to be had from it?

  I started blogging sometime in August/September 2004. A year after, august 2005 i started a blog under one network. That’s when i realized that you can earn from it through advertisement and affiliates.

• Which blogs are you writing for and which blog networks are you affiliated with?

  Currently, I blog for the following:
  Know More Media: The Pharm Voice
  Creative Weblogging: Straight From The Doc
  B5media: Filipina Soul

• Are you problogging part time or full time? Do you see this career as a part time gig or you are looking into going fulltime problogging?

  Starting next month (April 2006), I’ll be problogging full time. If you are a risk taker and has bumped into the right network that really pays big time and on a fixed monthly payment scheme, then you can say that problogging can be a career.

• How do you monetize your blog? Which ones bring in the most revenues?

  I have Adsense and some affiliate on my personal blog but it’s hardly earning. Well, if you consider 0.01 cents per month. On the networks that I am blogging, I get monthly fixed payment.

• What are the requirements to go into problogging for a network? Flat fee or profit sharing? How much is the salary range?

  Depending on the network, most common is revenue/profit sharing but the really big ones give monthly fixed payment. I am not allowed to divulge the exact rate let’s just say that the range is $200-1,000 USD per month (per blog).

• How much time do you spend on problogging?

  Average, 4 hours a day currently. But that may change soon when i go full time.

• What other benefits do you get from problogging?

  The only thing i could think of is that because I reside in the Philippines, what i currently earn may not be enough to sustain a family if i were based in Europe or US, but because I live in the Phils, the amount I get is always times 50 so i guess that’s the advantage. It’s not the only reason but problogging gave me enough “strength” to quit my current regular job.

• What’s the most significant event/moment you had in your entire problogging career?

  The most significant event was being connected with Creative Weblogging because it paved the way to getting another big science blogging gig.

• What personal tips can you share with bloggers who want to try out problogging?

  I feel that I am not in the position to give any peronal tips on problogging. I just happen to be at the right place at the right time. Knowing the right people helped a lot beacuse they lead me to the networks where there’s money. But of course, you have to be equipped too with the right blogging/writing knowledge.

No related posts.

• How would you define problogging?

  Problogging is the synergy of blogging and earning a living. Basically, it is the more current form of “writing for a living.” Professional blogging is writing with the desire to earn, usually by providing services for readers. Most of the time, this means making information readily available for those seek them, in a concise and straightforward way.

• When did you start blogging? When did you get into problogging and how did you realize that there’s some money to be had from it?

  I got into writing online around 2001, maybe earlier, though my oldest documented entry was written August 2002.

  Back then, blogging was not as mainstream as it is now and I was just someone with a thing for writing and web design.

  I got into problogging by accident a few years ago, intrigued by Google’s Adsense program. I was writing solely for my weblog and felt that putting song lyrics into my daily entries tarnished its readability, so I started a lyrics weblog. It was conceived as a repository of lyrics for songs I find interesting. After several months, I was happily surprised to see that it was suddenly earning quite well after I placed the lyrics of Bamboo’s first album, “As The Music Plays.”

  From then on, it was a matter of getting the next OPM lyrics that readers would soon be looking for.

• Which blogs are you writing for and which blog networks are you affiliated with?

  I consider myself an independent blogger, though soon I will be linking with the best Filipino bloggers to produce a network of quality weblogs providing for every Filipino netizen’s needs.

  Right now, I still write though irregularly for my personal weblog rebelpixel productions and post on lyrics! I run a few other weblogs on other topics like photography, problogging, and web 2.0 development, though most of these sites are in still in their infancy.

  Of course I have others in my sleeves, though some may never see public consumption.

• Are you problogging part time or full time? Do you see this career as a part time gig or you are looking into going fulltime problogging?

  Though I’d love to do problogging full-time, I’ve come to accept that this career is not for everyone. I know I can lean on my weblogs financially if such desperate times do come, but I’d rather keep it on the side so I can pursue other interests.

• How do you monetize your blog? Which ones bring in the most revenues?

  The ones I use now are Google AdSense, Text-Link-Ads and Adbrite. I used Chitika before but I’m very unhappy with the way they treat their publishers, especially those from countries similar to the Philippines.

• What are the requirements to go into problogging for a network? Flat fee or profit sharing? How much is the salary range?

  For problogging to be a viable occupation, it should earn as much as other journalists in the print media. Otherwise, the quality of writers will be very poor.

  Blogging for a network should be a two-way relationship for the writers and the network itself. Everyone should benefit one way or another. For network bloggers, there should be a guaranteed flat fee with incentives for hard-workers.

• How much time do you spend on problogging?

  I spend at least three hours a week to write for my weblogs, though this is a mix of personal writing and problogging. It fluctuates a lot, as there are days where I put in more hours than I’d put in in a month.

• What other benefits do you get from problogging?

  It’s nice to have a little extra to support other pursuits, and in my case problogging has helped me take my photography hobby seriously.

• What’s the most significant event/moment you had in your entire problogging career?

  Nothing beats the time I bought my own laptop, all of it from my blogging income.

• What personal tips can you share with bloggers who want to try out problogging?

  You can’t write for a topic you know nothing about, and pretending could only get you so far. Focus on the primary gains of blogging, which is open communication, and make it work to your advantage. More often than not, blogging itself should not be your source of income. Use it to show your strength and skills, like a photographer running a photoblog, or a web developer teaching the new tricks of the trade.

  For those insistent on jumping into the problogging bandwagon, then go ahead and try. There isn’t much to lose, just make sure you do it with passion and determination. Lastly, enjoy it while it lasts.

No related posts.

He will be speaking at the iBlog Summit on the 18th about his journey to being a full time problogger so I’ll leave the more juicy parts until then.

• How would you define problogging?

  For me, problogging basically means deriving some form of income from your blogging activities, whether it be through ad revenues, as a salaried writer/blogger, or as part of your day job.

• When did you start blogging? When did you get into problogging and how did you realize that there’s some money to be had from it?

  I signed up for a blogger account late 2003, but only got to updating and maintaining it mid 2004. My first problogging stint was as a corporate blogger for my then-employer, dotPH. We had a blogging service and I was one of the “blogging evangelists,” then eventually part of the development team.

  Since then, I’ve always wanted to also earn from ad revenues on my blogs, seeing how some Pinoy bloggers (i.e. Sassy Lawyer, yourself) were able to do great at it. But it seemed quite difficult even to get that monthly cheque from Google AdSense and other affiliate programmes, so I thought of career pro-blogging (that is, blogging for the networks). And I think I’ve found my luck here–though I still get cheques from Google every couple of months or so. However, there was a couple of months’ lag from the time I quit my dotPH post to starting blogging for money. I was in the middle of a big project the time I stumbled upon this great content company that paid Filipinos to write and blog.

• Which blogs are you writing for and which blog networks are you affiliated with?

  Aside from my own the J Spot and the J Spotter, I write for PinoyTechBlog, PinoyUrbanBlog.com , Sun Star Blog Chronicles, Pinoy Teachers Network and the Man Blog.

  I used to write for tech.erati.com (now Gadzooki.com) and Mobileherald.com under the BlogMedia banner, as well as wifiwireless.com, newsoftwaretitles.com, voipwebsites.com, cupidsblogs.com, visitlawyer.com, ukcompanyblog.com, bloggyaward.com and googletutor.com under WordContent, Inc.

  Now I write exclusively for BloggyNetwork, with forevergeek.com, bmonitors.com and btelevisions.com as my main blogs. I sometimes write for bcellphones.com, blaptops.com, bplaystation3.com and bdigitalcameras.com.

  The J Spot is also a member of Bluefishnetwork.

• Are you problogging part time or full time? Do you see this career as a part time gig or you are looking into going fulltime problogging?

  I professionally blog full-time. Though I do have some other projects on the side, some related to blogging, some not at all.

• How do you monetize your blog? Which ones bring in the most revenues?

  For my own blogs, I use Google AdSense. Not really great income there, but good enough to pay for hosting fees and to fill in some minor household needs.

• What are the requirements to go into problogging for a network? Flat fee or profit sharing? How much is the salary range?

  First and foremost, one has to write well. And since your audience is usually international in scope, you have to consider the tone and nuances of your writing. You can’t always write from a Pinoy point of view or tone. Also, having connections would be helpful in your getting into blog networks.

  Some networks I’ve been in give a share of ad revenues. As for the amount, I’m not at liberty to disclose the exact amount, but it’s upwards of one hundred dollars each blog (the writer gets first cut, and then you share 50-50 with the network after that).

  Some content companies I’ve worked for paid on a per-word basis, but this was fixed during a month’s blogging campaign–say, 250 words per blog per day. The pay for maintaining six blogs was upwards of PhP 20,000 monthly (yes, they pay in Pesos).

  As for flat-fee schemes, I believe blog networks usually pay something in the range of US$ 200 to $300 per blog per month. You do the math. Some, like BloggyNetwork, do give incentives for being DUGG.

• How much time do you spend on problogging?

  I spend about five to six hours a day researching on topics to write on and writing the blog posts themselves. I spend a shorter time coming up with posts when citing reviews and news. If I come up with an interesting original writeup to compose, then that takes about an hour or two, including the research and posting. But my time online eats up about eight to ten hours of each day–that includes email, casual surfing (which sometimes ends up in my blogging), and blogging on my own blogs.

• What other benefits do you get from problogging?

  Well, aside from the funds, you tend to get renown among your peers if you’re a fulltime pro-blogger. As for me, I get to stay at home and look after the kids. I don’t have to spend on gas or fare. I don’t have to contend with traffic. I don’t have to endure office politics or an overbearing boss. And I can work anywhere I please (as long as there’s an Internet connection/WiFi). My laptop is my office. My desktop PC is, well, my bigger office!

• What’s the most significant event/moment you had in your entire problogging career?

  Of course, receiving the first pay was great. With each blog network/content company I’ve dealt with, that always hits the sweet spot.

• What personal tips can you share with bloggers who want to try out problogging?

  First, establish yourself in the blogosphere as a good blogger and writer. Find your niche and develop on that. Have a keen eye out for interesting stuff, and try to give your two cents’ worth on any piece of info you stumble upon. It would also be great if you can hook up with people into similar interests, especially those who are already pro-blogging. They can give you good leads to possible problogging gigs.

  Also, don’t quit your day job just yet, as you are likely to get a lot of leads and interesting things to write about from your workplace. Problogging is great, but also risky, as all entrepreneurial endeavors go.

  Then once you’ve had a taste of problogging life, you’ll sometimes love it, and you’ll sometimes hate it. It’s great to be able to work at home or anywhere, but it’s also good to have colleagues you can actually see and talk to everyday.

  Definitely, problogging is not for everyone. It doesn’t entail lazing around at home everyday–problogging definitely requires discipline and talent, and of course some investment in computing equipment, Internet connectivity, and electricity expenses.

No related posts.

The rest of her personal details are still unknown to me but I’m very glad to also have her on board our Philippine group travel blog.

• How would you define problogging?

  Professional blogging is getting paid to blog, writing a blog with a purpose of generating revenues.

• When did you start blogging? When did you get into problogging and how did you realize that there’s some money to be had from it?

  I started my personal blog in Feb 2004. I started dabbling in problogging in July 2005, but it was more of a hobby, rather than an income generating move.

  It wasn’t until late in 2005 til I started to realize my blogs’potential to be monetized. I received my first significant paycheck in January this year.

• Which blogs are you writing for and which blog networks are you affiliated with?

  I am the sole author of
  The Biotech Weblog , of Creative Weblogging (CW)
  Let’s Visit Asia, of b5media

  I have also just launched the Allergizer, also of CW, this week.

• Are you problogging part time or full time? Do you see this career as a part time gig or you are looking into going fulltime problogging?

  Part-time. As of the moment, I see it as a part-time gig. While the potential revenues can be lucrative, there’s just no saying how long the opportunity will last.

  I am hoping to earn not only from my blogs but also BECAUSE of them: other writing gigs, other jobs.

• How do you monetize your blog? Which ones bring in the most revenues?

  Since my professional blogs are part of a network, I myself don’t deal with the revenue schemes. What ads goes into my blogs are decided and chosen by the network administrators. I know both uses adsense and text link, as well as direct sponsors.
  CW also offers other forms of ads.

• What are the requirements to go into problogging for a network? Flat fee or profit sharing? How much is the salary range?

  Since my professional blogs are part of a network, I myself don’t deal with the revenue schemes. What ads goes into my blogs are decided and chosen by the network administrators. I know both uses Adsense and Text Link, as well as direct sponsors. CW also offers other forms of ads.

• What are the requirements to go into problogging for a network? Flat fee or profit sharing? How much is the salary range?

  Main requirements, I guess are passion and expertise on a topic, as well as the ability to blog regularly, possibly more than once a day.

  CW has both payment models (fixed payment or revenue sharing). CW also invites creative reporters who are paid on a per post basis upon publication.

  With b5media, blogger gets the first $100 (?) and then splits the rest.
  Other networks pay on a per-post basis.

  Salary range can be from a few cents to more than $1,000 a month, especially with those models that pay per post.

• How much time do you spend on problogging?

  About 4 hours a day, 20 hrs/week.

• What other benefits do you get from problogging?

  I have personally benefitted from my blogs, because they are all educational. I blog about the topics that personally interest me so I personally profit intellectually from my blogs.

  My time online becomes productive, instead of simply randomly surfing the net. Problogging keeps my day structured.

  Because I am a part of a network, I have also gotten to know several great probloggers, some of them even A-listers, in the process, and have learned a lot from them. I have also developed stronger relationships with blogging “colleagues”, some of them I already ever regard as friends.

• What’s the most significant event/moment you had in your entire problogging career?

  It’s a toss between the launch dates, the first comments, the first link back, but I guess nothing can compare to the adrenaline rush as I cashed in my first considerable paycheck.

• What personal tips can you share with bloggers who want to try out problogging?

  Before even contemplating problogging, think how much time and effort you are willing to dedicate into problogging. This is not a fly-by-night get-rich-quick scheme.

  Next, pick a topic you really know a lot about and can CREDIBLY blog about on a regular basis.
  Make sure your blog is different from the hundreds, or thousands of others that may already be tackling your topic.

  Problogging is a job, treat it as one. Learn the ropes and tricks from the pro’s. Problogging takes more than just writing and producing posts. It needs a lot of time and therefore, patience, to acquire recognition and to establish readership. One has to be ready to learn to build and sustain a successful blog.

No related posts.

Along with Rain Contreras, he co-founded the group photography blog, Litratista.org.

• How would you define problogging?

  Pro-blogging is all about being an opinion leader, meaning you write quality articles and link to the hottest items on the web before everyone else does. Also, pro-blogging means optimizing your site to maximize the effectiveness of your ads.

• When did you start blogging? When did you get into problogging and how did you realize that there’s some money to be had from it?

  I started blogging august 2003 when I was hired as the university webmaster for BYUH.edu. I realized that a lot of people were earning from adsense so I jumped right into the band wagon and started earning… slowly.

• Which blogs are you writing for and which blog networks are you affiliated with?

  I have one personal blog/work portfolio that i nuked and rebuilt as a photoblog. I also write for Litratista.org, a blog for pinoy amateur photographers by pinoy amateur photographers.

• Are you problogging part time or full time? Do you see this career as a part time gig or you are looking into going fulltime problogging?

  I blog at least once a day on my personal blog and I still have to get more inspiration for my group blog. Earning money from blogging is a part time gig for me, I definitely earn more from my day job and from photography than from blogging.

• How do you monetize your blog? Which ones bring in the most revenues?

  I used to have adsense on my site, then I switched between Adsense and YPN, I discovered that I earned more from Adsense. It took me a year before I broke the $5 a day mark. but when I got busy with my family and my day job, it went back to a few cents per day.

• What are the requirements to go into problogging for a network? Flat fee or profit sharing? How much is the salary range?

  I have never been part of any blogging networks, but I have really wanted to belong to one, though currently I have been really busy with a lot of family and work related agendas.

• How much time do you spend on problogging?

  I spend at least one hour a day posting to different sites.

• What other benefits do you get from problogging?

  the Benefits of problogging would be the extra income earned from just posting an article on the web.

• What’s the most significant event/moment you had in your entire problogging career?

  That would be the time when I bought a filter for my Canon 20D using the money earned from Adsense.

• What personal tips can you share with bloggers who want to try out problogging?

  Make sure your topics are unique and worthy of discussion.

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Her other online involvement reflects her passion in life. She is the founder of PINOYexpats, an ezine for Filipino Expatriates. She is also a professional blogger for Creative Weblogging’s Travel and Parenting sites. When everyone else is asleep and her eyes are still wide awake, she blogs over at Aboutweblogs’ Budget Travel Europe & SnowboardingMOM and at her personal site, Pinayexpat in Deutschland.

• How would you define problogging?

  One is a professional if one engages in an activity as a source of livelihood or as a career; One is a professional if one gets paid for what one does; One can also be called a professional if one shows great skill or if one is an expert.

  Pprofessional Blogging is just about the same. If you earn from it, well and good; if you are good at it, even better.

  I cannot understand people who try to make it sound as if it’s something to be put in a pedestal. It should be treated the same way other professions are treated.

• When did you start blogging? When did you get into problogging and how did you realize that there’s some money to be had from it?

  I’ve had Confessions of a Coke-Addict since 1997. I used it as a repository of my travel pictures and to keep my friends and family updated of my life abroad.

  Back in 2003, Julie Moos (Managing Editor of Poynter) invited me to join one of her personal online blogging projects, DotMOMS. That was where it all started. I saw the potential and started looking around. After which I applied and got accepted over at CW. It was in April 2005 when I started to really earn from blogging. After that, sunod sunod na.

• Which blogs are you writing for and which blog networks are you affiliated with?

  Escape Blog (Travel/Culture) – 9rules

  Europe String (Budget Europe Travel) – b5media

  Flyaway-Weblog (US/Europe Travel) – Creative-Weblogging
  
  Road Gladiator (Business Travel) – KnowMoreMedia
  
  Parenting-Weblog – Creative-Weblogging

  I am currently undergoing PREP and Training over at About.com for another travel site. It’s pretty tedious but I am crossing my fingers (and toes) that I “graduate” and become an official About Guide.

• Are you problogging part time or full time? Do you see this career as a part time gig or you are looking into going fulltime problogging?

  I am a part-time problogger. And I do not think that I will ever give up my career to become a full-time blogger.

  However, my present condition is going to allow me to get a taste of pseudo-full-time blogging. Since we are allowed to take 3 years of maternity leave, I will now have the chance to stay home (temporarily), spend more time with my kids AND earn on the side. Thanks to ProBlogging.

• How do you monetize your blog? Which ones bring in the most revenues?

  My contract for 2 of my blogs is on a fixed-payment scheme. I get a fixed amount per blog per month and they get their money through Direct Ad Sponsors and Adsense.

  Network #2 contract is set on a per-blog entry. They have a big VC behind the blog so they can afford to pay a lot. Basically, I can decide how much I would like to earn per month. We do have a minimum & maximum number of entries per month.

  Network #3 is based on Adsense, BlogAds and Text Link Ads.

  Network #4 is based on Adbrite, Adsense and Text Link Ads.

• What are the requirements to go into problogging for a network? Flat fee or profit sharing? How much is the salary range?

  It all depends. Some networks (like CW and KMM) prefer those with the right background. CW needs a sample blog entry, in addition. Others, on the other hand, only need bloggers with passion.

  Segurista ako so I prefer flat fee. I only work on revenue-share IF I believe in the project.

  Note: Though I can’t publish AnP’s specific earnings, she is basically earning in the four figures per month (i.e. $USD x,xxxx).

• How much time do you spend on problogging?

  Including reading my rss feeds and looking for photos, I spend around 3 hours per day and produce 8-12 entries per day.

• What other benefits do you get from problogging?

  I am learning from the other pros.

• What’s the most significant event/moment you had in your entire problogging career?

  Making the B-list of Blogebrity. I know that a lot of people say that it is BS but, hey, it does help get me more problogging gigs.

  When I was invited (last week) to cover a Travel Event/Conference in New York, with an all expenses paid plane ticket, hotel and stipend. Unfortunately, I am heavily pregnant and flying from Frankfurt to NY is not possible.

  This May, I have been given 2 different Press IDs to cover another travel event. This time, it is possible because IMEX will only be held 5 minutes away from my home.

• What personal tips can you share with bloggers who want to try out problogging?

  Unless it is for your personal blog, do not blog about everything under the sun. Blog about what you know and like. It will be obvious if you are bored or pilit with the topics you have chosen.

  Develop a niche. It is easier to get problogging gigs if you can show archives from other blogs that belong to the same niche instead of having lots of blogs but with different topics.

  IMHO, more pinas-based bloggers should try and get a problogging gig. It will be more financially “meaningful” if you earn $1500 in Manila. For us who are based abroad, it does not really amount to much kasi ang mahal dito!

The first time I personally met her was during the 2004 PinoyBlog Christmas Party. She practically introduced me to most of the expat bloggers I know nowand am very glad she was part of the PTB group blog we started July last year.

From the blogs she handles, we can see that she has found a strong foundation and identity as the ultimate travel blogger. AnP is surely one pinay power blogger!

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