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Welcome Notes to Visitors from Mel & Joey

I’d like to welcome my new visitors and readers coming from MSN Live, Yahoo! & Google looking for my blog after watching the feature at Mel & Joey last night. I was surprised that for a 2-hour footage, they managed to squeeze it in a 2-minute feature.

Just to guide our new visitors, I’d like to point you out to some readings. I wasn’t really anticipating to be inundated with emails so apologies if I didn’t come up with a welcome page to guide all of you along and answer the more obvious questions beforehand.


First, a disclaimer.

  • Before we started with the interview, I asked the crew what the story will be about and they informed me it was a feature “on ways to make money online or thru the internet”. It wasn’t just about blogging but looks like the feature ended that way. Just to complete that line-up, I also suggested digital photography, webmastering, web copywriting, running forums, e-mail marketing, doing paid reviews, article writing, among others.
  • When I was asked to give out an advise, my tone was a little discouraging and I explicitly said it was not an overnight gig. It took years before I got any significant returns and it wasn’t just thru a single income stream. I had to stress that because I didn’t want to give out a false impression that it was easy. They also failed to mention how many blogs, websites, and forums I own.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s move forward and answer all those frequently emailed questions:

  • How to start a blog?
    The easiest way to go about this is by signing up with free hosted blogging service. Try WordPress.com and Blogger.com as they are two of the most popular ones. Signing up is easy and should be a breeze if you have basic internet skills (I usually add that if you knew how to create a fee email account, signing for a blog should be much easier). Blogger.com is more advertising friendly and new sign-ups are also encouraged to open an AdSense account so go ahead with that too. You can also go to a full blown blog and get yourself a nice domain and hosting — but that will cost you too.

  • What should I blog about?
    A lot of things! But, focus more on the topics you are most passionate about or something you think you have good knowledge of. Topics could range from gardening, pets, to food, traveling, gaming, cars and toys (so much more actually). A newly turned blogger I helped recently put up a blog about finches (a certain species of birds for breeding).

  • How do I earn from my blog?
    The same business model applies to most other websites — advertising. Some are self-service and pretty easy to get into while others take time and patience. For self-service advertising, check out TextLinkAds, Google AdSense, ReviewMe, PayPerPost, AdBrite, Kontera, Amazon Associates, etc. To get direct ads, you will need to have a fairly established blog with sizable traffic to get noticed. The getting noticed part will be a little hard depending on the topic you blog about.

  • How do I get paid for it?
    It depends on which ad platform you use but most of the time, it’s thru cheques at the end of the month, quarter or after you reach a certain amount (e.g. $25). Others thru Paypal, direct deposit and other money remittance services (Xoom, Western Union, etc).
  • How long before I start earning?
    Now this is the hardest part to answer really. Based from experience, it could be as quick as 3 months to as long as 2 years. So, you need to be very patient and passionate about it, otherwise you’ll only end up getting disappointed. Sometimes, you won’t earn a cent at all. It’s not a fool-proof formula.

  • What else do I need to know?
    I’ve compiled a number of posts about problogging here. I also did several interviews with fellow Filipino probloggers here. You can contact them (esp. the network bloggers) for more leads in getting a part-time blogging gig at their respective blog networks.

  • What’s the easiest way to start?
    You can join a blog network. It’s one way of getting into problogging without a lot of the hassles since the network will help you out a long the way. A local blog network you can approach is Bayanihan Blog Network (which I co-founded). J Angelo (the other blogger who got featured) is also managing a blog network. He can hook you up with some writing/blogging jobs too.

There are other ways too of earning money on the side thru the internet. I wrote some suggestion about that before (More Ways to Make Money Online) with a more local twist. Will be publishing an addendum to that later.

Hope this helps. Once you’ve gone thru all the readings, you can get back to me thru email for additional questions.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

54 Responses

  1. Avatar for Gsas Gsas says:

    wow yuga, thanks. i guess this is one of your “lessons” for me.

    yep, Abe helped me a lot with my site. i’ll go as far into saying that it would not have been possible without him. so if you guys have any crazy ideas for a website, Abe’s the right man to go to.

    btw abe, i know you’re quite busy right now, but i still hope to catch you in YM one of these days. hehe.

    thanks again!

  2. Avatar for junie junie says:

    I think it’s not so complicated. Here’s how to earn money in blogging:

    1. Domain/web hosting (www.web.com.ph)
    2. download a blog script (wordpress is free)
    3. Sign up for google adsense
    4. Market your blog- make your blog something interesting to make many visitors in your blog.
    5. and if there’s an advertisers see that your blog is exposed with many visitor. the advertise will be the one who contact you to advertise them in your blog.
    6. then you make money online.
    7. or contact me i will build a blog for you

    romban****@****.***

  3. Avatar for Emily Emily says:

    Thanks for the information.

  4. Avatar for elmer elmer says:

    Watch out those tax dudes they might go after you.

  5. Avatar for ApplesH ApplesH says:

    An officemate of mine actually approached me with wide eyes saying… “really?? you can earn that much blogging?” He wanted me to confirm because he knew I blogged. I said yes but not in one day (as Abe said).

    And just as Andre mentioned above – “blogging” has been brought to a lot more Pinoys because of the show. The reach can only be considered as good, right?

  6. Avatar for Andre Marcelo-Tanner Andre Marcelo-Tanner says:

    Well lets just look at the good side of this besides abe’s fame :) More people in the masses will gain more knowledge about the internet and blogging, the more our industry is publicized the better it is, except for bad press ofcourse, but sometimes any press is good press.

  7. Avatar for Joe Taroogs Joe Taroogs says:

    yup, i saw the M&J portion about how to make money from blogging and was blown away by the amount of money earned by the featured professional bloggers. kongrats!

  8. Avatar for minor minor says:

    youtube clip

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=m6O6qzpiZkM

  9. Avatar for marvin marvin says:

    wow! congrats! that’s big money,btw, i think you really need now a body guard.

  10. Avatar for marvin marvin says:

    wow! congrats! that;s big money,btw, i think you really need now a body guard.

  11. Avatar for dennis dennis says:

    $6000/month while playing Desktop Tower Defense?

    Abe,may prizes ba ang DTD group ‘yugatech’ top scorers? Tagal na nasa top name ko and nobody is contesting it

  12. Avatar for ralphot ralphot says:

    crap! di ko napanood. “family-oriented” kami sa bahay instead of “love-struck”. hahaha.

  13. Avatar for charcharq charcharq says:

    i saw it on mel&joey… hehehe… lucky for you, with mel&joey you’ll have more visitors… hehehe/// BTW. thanks for the information. it really helps me..

  14. Avatar for aldrin aldrin says:

    i’ve watched the episode and it was very encouraging indeed. especially when Joey said, ‘Tumataginting na $5,000 kada buwan’. over 1 MILLION PESOS in five months. Wow.

  15. Avatar for Dino Dino says:

    That’s what TV is all about – False information. More TV means more people living in fear. That’s why I don’t watch TV. Congratulations Abe.

  16. Avatar for noemi noemi says:

    after dealing with them in 2 shows, I felt they were not accurate and were too sensational. It’s not the assistant’s fault. It’s their editor.

  17. Avatar for The Filipino Entrepreneur The Filipino Entrepreneur says:

    I agree with the postings here about the Mel&Joey show making it appear that earning online looks easy. Maybe the easy part is when you are reaping the success after years of hard work, patience and skills that you devoted on blogging.

    And in addition to it, if you are lucky enough to choose the right niche.

    Anyway congrats Abe, I was really curious about who this famous Abe Olandres is and I’m lucky that I have a chance to watch the Mel&Joey that featured about blogging.

  18. Avatar for manou manou says:

    master Abe! you look different on TV…..astigas! lupet!

  19. Avatar for Jazzy Jazzy says:

    The program try to show what most people want to hear, “Easy Money”. Unfortunately, there’s no such, unless it is illegal.

    Who will watch it if flat-out they say it is difficult, time-consuming, requires a skills?

    Still, it is good exposure for blogging industry though. Congratulations Abe, Angelo, and the rest.

  20. Avatar for karla karla says:

    di ko napanood abe
    i was on the road when it was shown :)

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