Monetizing Your Blog

My blogs were created 14 years ago as a journal to record my daily life as a stay at home mom with two toddlers. Alycia was only 3 years old and Sherilyn 2 years old. Shortly after my blogs were created, I’d read from my blogger friends’ blogs that they were making money from their blogs, in US Dollars. I jumped onto the bandwagon and have never looked back since. Back in the days, the amount of online assignments/opportunities from platforms for bloggers to monetize their websites were bountiful. I used to earn over USD1,000 a month from writing sponsored posts and commissioned writing in my jammies sitting at home while looking after two toddlers. Then the global financial crisis hit in 2008 and my earnings were affected. Nonetheless, there were still assignments albeit on a smaller scale. The timing of the scaled down assignments came at a right time for me as I had just given birth to Cassandra, my third and youngest child in April 2008. She had a medical condition which required 101% of my time to be spent on her with lesser time to blog.

The earnings I got from monetizing my blogs over the years whilst being a full-time SAHM have given me a little financial freedom and self-esteem. Besides getting to monetize my blogs, I’ve made friends with many wonderful like-minded ladies who are stay at home moms like me. We remain good friends up until today. When we met in the blogsphere 14 years ago, we had babies and toddlers. Our children are now teenagers and some are already in college. Some of us are still blogging actively. Blogging has definitely opened up my mundane stay-at-home-mom life to a world of opportunities and brought me to many wonderful friends. Blogging has always been my passion, my outlet to rant and ramble and a great avenue to earn a revenue to save for rainy days — like the pandemic that we’re in now.

The majority of my clients and advertisers used to come from the US and now from China and other parts of the world, including our own country. But no matter which part of the world they are from, I am always paid in USD, GBP and SGD via Paypal.

While I am just an unassuming stay-at-home-mom who blogs during my free time, some bloggers and influencers have made themselves famous social media moguls. They’ve worked very hard to amass a large following organically and have conquered the social media game with their passion.

It’s never too late to start your own blog (it could be on any topic that relates to you) to monetize it. Or you could dabble in You Tube or Instagram, posting photos and videos of your favorite things or hobbies. If you work hard enough and have a large following and subscribers, you could start to earn. You can also reach out to influencer marketing platforms like Intellifluence to monetize your social media platforms. Influencers can join for free and get free products and/or cash in exchange for their reviews and promoting content.

The sky is the limit and with a little creativity, passion and hard work, you can earn a little extra money on the world wide web.

No. of times viewed = 43

Simple & Wholesome Dishes For Busy Moms

For the past one week, I’ve been sitting in front of my computer typing away from morning till night with short breaks in between to cook and chauffeur the girls. Since early last week, I’ve churned out over 30 articles, most of which must be submitted to the advertiser within 24 hours. On some days, I have to dish out 5 articles in a day on topics that I have no frigging knowledge on like motorbikes, hybrid bikes or truck claws and snow chains  😂  That’s when I have to do a little research and reading. I told the girls that this feels like doing a short thesis  😄 I love it that after I’ve submitted a post, I gain new knowledge as well.

My brain is half fried. I’m burnt out to a crisp and stressed out. But it’s good stress and I’m not complaining. It’s God’s blessings. I am very thankful that I am still able to earn in USD during such times when the global economy is bleak. This is the eleventh year that I’m still blessed with something that I love to do. I love it that at the end of each month, I multiply my earnings by four when I convert the earnings from USD to RM!  Praise God.  The earnings are not a lot but enough for me to buy what I want every month and keep some for savings. And no, I don’t mean Chanel bags and pink diamonds ok.

OK, back to kitchen talk!  Thankfully I now have a Philips Pressure Cooker (PPC) to help lessen my burden and cut cooking time.

Lunch on one of the week days last week ~ minced pork porridge with cabbage, dried oysters, carrots and sweet corns, seasoned with scallions, seasoned Korean seaweed and my favorite Marmite:

Porridge was cooked in our jar rice cooker.

That same night, I cooked braised chicken in soy sauce and Chinese spices in the PPC:

Sauteed organic cabbage with garlic, a dash of English curry powder and eggs:

I love it that while the chicken drumsticks are cooking in the PPC, I can stir-fry the cabbage in the wok on the stove.  More time is saved.

The girls loved the braised chicken drumsticks!

I cooked enough chicken so that Cass could have it for lunch the next day. I just needed to blanch some organic spinach ramen to go with the braised chicken:

Fruits for Cass. Despite having so much to do, for a moment, my hands felt itchy and I started to carve out flowers from the kiwi fruits 😁

No. of times viewed = 45

Tips for Making a Good Blog Even Better

Whether you are thinking of starting a blog or you’re already up and running, there’s always things we can do to improve our craft. Pick one or do all of my suggestions, to make your blog even better.

Blog, Leave, Texts, Blogger, Blogging, Report, Opinion

The first tip you need to do to improve your blog is look at your pictures. It’s critical that they match the topic and the tone of your blog. If you are a lifestyle blogger, focusing on fashion and chic trends, then make sure your pictures are stylish and posed. If you are a travel blogger, intersperse attractive stock images with your own travel pics to give it a more personalized feel. If you are still deciding what to blog about, get some inspiration here.

 

Camera, Olympus, Digital Camera, Black And White

Also, don’t overload your blog with pictures. One good picture that sums up what you are saying is much better that a load of random sort of relevant shots.

Layouts
The next tip I have for you is to get your layout right. The fashion at the moment is for wide screen layouts with scrolling categories and images. They can look more spacious than the traditional column approach, but you will also probably end up paying for a custom site or a hosting service.

The key is to keep things simple, but not dull. A clear but decorative font, good quality images and easy ways for your readership to interact are essential. Have obvious comment boxes and social media sharing buttons. This will improve the look and the interactive aspect of your blog.

Search facility
Another key tip is that you always need a search facility built into your blog. No matter how good your categories are, only the first few posts will show at any given time. So you need a way that your fans can easily search for older posts that they still want to use.

Having good categories also makes it a lot easier for you to keep on top of what you have covered and the type of content you would like to produce in the future.

Personal info
You personal information section is paramount. Of course, you don’t want to share all your personal information with the world, so never give out home addresses or phones numbers. But you do want to give your fan base a sense of who is behind the writing and why they do it. It makes it much easier for people to connect with you and your blog and will earn your a wider readership.

Keep it working for you
Whether you are blogging for income or as a hobby, it’s important to keep your site working efficiently.  Periodically check that you search functions work and your category links are not broken. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to navigate your site.
Man, Reading, Touchscreen, Blog, Digital, Tablet

Also, make sure your front page loads quickly. It’s all very well having some amazing visuals to grab people’s attention. But if they take too long to load, people will get bored and go to the next site on the search list.

 

No. of times viewed = 3

Blogging Marathon

Phew….. I can now finally breathe a sign of relief.  I can’t believe I have finally completed 18 assignments in 2 days!  That’s the reason why I feel my brain can always perform better under stress.  With just 2 hours that I manage to steal yesterday and today to work at hubby’s office, I managed to complete all the assignments.   Now, I have to slot in the personal posts in between the paid posts. 

No. of times viewed = 201

No Opps

I can’t believe I have been unable to grab a single opp from 3P for more than a week now.  I’ve seen plenty of $50 and $10 opps for me in my list of opps but all of them were shaded in grey. I see it as a blessing in disguise as I plan to ditch 3P and resubmit my dot com blog to Google for a consideration to get a PR.  One of my blogging pals did just that and she got back a PR3 for her blog. 

No. of times viewed = 219

HEALTH FREAK MOMMY