156 Things I did to survive one year of blogging!
Saturday, January 20, 2007
This is basically the blog story, presented in days, of how I started and what I exactly did, to make it to January 26, 2007 – the day I’ll turn one year old as a blogger.
1. It started with my friendster blog. This is a social site similar to myspace.
2. It didn't last long after I found out about blogger.
3. January 26, 2006, I signed up for a blogger account after reading this article of why I should go for blogger.
4. I do not have any html expertise nor any idea how my template would look like. All I wanted was to start a blog.
5. The first template I used.
6. My first post was about a Civil Engineering student, who was under me in a couple of years ago, and was beaten to death by a gang of males after his night class. It generated 2 comments from 2 of my closest friends. Not bad.
7. Happy of my first post, I re-posted one of my articles that was published in a local weekly magazine...got 2 comments from 2 other friends. Not bad again.
8. Each day I posted one article and never cared much what they were about.
9. What a Mother Cannot Do was the first entry that encouraged me to write more. It was about a colleague of mine whose son is suffering from an unknown disease.
10. February 2006 was the month I began to take blogging seriously. I cannot leave my desk without posting anything.
11. I wrote about a stampede that killed 80 people - people who risked their lives just to make both ends meet and to survive the adversities of living less than a dollar a day.
12. Wrote how I wanted to win a Million Pesos!
13. Even posted the piece which won for me the Grand Prize in the Water Remind Essay Writing.
14. My Valentine's Day post created a stir.
15. So I had a follow-up post.
16. Created a post how to survive lonely days.
17. And posted the names of all the girls I loved before. One commented why her name wasn't there. I realized late that I forgot to place hers. She cut our friendship after that.
18. There were times that I couldn't think of anything. I wrote about Mom and her singing prowess.
19. I had an article about PEOPLE POWER - how former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown through a gun-less revolution just to stop his 20-year dictatorship.
20. In between the postings and reading and answering comments, I browsed through other blogs.
21. I found out that I could actually monetize my blog.
22. Read, read, read and read more and landed on the Google Adsense site.
23. Signed up for an account and few days later I had Adsense displayed on my pages.
24. First, I didn't change the location of the Ads and completely accepted the blogger's default for Adsense. It was on top.
25. I blogged in the office for a couple of hours (after my classes in the evening).
26. Continued blogging at home.
27. Slept at around 2 AM.
28. The month of March was a month of tragedies in the Philippines. I wrote something about it.
29. An article of my addiction to blogging.
30. Wrote my first poem.
31. Three days after the Ads were placed, not a single cent was generated.
32. Extremely frustrated!
33. However, the fourth day changed my mood 360 degrees. I earned my first few cents.
34. During the first month, I only had less than 100 page impressions (I suspect, most of the impressions were from my own visits).
35. In March, it went up to around 200 to 300 impressions due to some side comments I did in class. Students started to read my blog.
36. Adsense earnings at times went back to nothing a day. There was even 10 straight days of $0, even if the blog got 300 daily impressions.
37. Never surrendered the will to become a blogger. That's the attitude dude!
38. I read more online and found out that I could have more blogs and more Adsense placed on them.
39. Second blog came up. It wasn't impressive. Nah! I stopped posting after few months.
40. Even with my two blogs, Adsense wasn't so good to me.
41. Became frustrated again.
42. Browsed for more online articles and took notice of other bloggers' advice "Enlist your blog in online directories."
43. Started with Topblogsites.net.
44. Then blogrankings.com.
45. Then blogtagstic.com.
46. Then web.blogranking.us
47. Then bloggersblog.com.
48. Then blogroll.net.
49. Then worldblogrank.com.
50. Then blogtopsites.com.
51. Then addurlblog.com.
52. Then dir.blogflux.com.
53. Then internetlisted.net.
54. Then top100bloggers.com.
55. Then a local ranking site, pinoytopblogs.com.
56. I know I listed to more than 50 directory sites around the world. Now, I don't even remember the sites. I deleted many of the links on my pages after they started to look like a carnival with all those colorful buttons on my sidebar.
57. Earnings were negligible. A dollar a day was not enough.
58. Read 5 Surefire Ways to Increase Google Adsense Earnings.
59. I followed the steps and observed the results.
60. It worked. Earnings increased to few more cents.
61. I posted articles about American Idol, just to invite traffic.
62. Thought of posting lots of popular song lyrics and mp3 downloads.
63. I downloaded and used PICASA to manage my photo postings.
64. Posted some funny pictures and invited visitors to contribute. No one did.
65. Then started posting about sex.
66. Someone suggested I should place a counter on my site.
67. I did post comments in other blogs to invite traffic.
68. The first 4 blogger friends I met online: 1, 2, 3, 4
69. Signed up for Blogmad.net
70. Then Blogarama.com.
71. Then Blogexplosion.
72. Then Blogclicker.
73. Then Blogsoldiers.
74. Then after a couple of weeks, I read something about the Adsense fraud clicks due to manual surfing sites. I wrote about it.
75. Confirmed by many, and confirmed by Google, I immediately took my blogs out of the rotation.
76. To all those who managed to read up to this point, do not -- yes, do not-- enlist your blog in sites like no.69 to no.73 just to increase your traffic and Adsense earnings. Doing so would lead to cancellation of your Adsense account.
77. I posted love letters.
78. Enjoyed my 35,000th visitor!
79. Placed a chatbox for visitors to leave a tag.
80. In April 2006, I started the Filipino Blog of the Week, to keep the Filipino blogging community always alive (and to gain traffic too).
81. I joined pinoyexchange.com. A Filipino forum.
82. The Sex Education post was the most commented one.
83. Started to chat with bloggers from the Philippines.
84. Links were exchanged.
85. Changed to a new layout - this layout - but with different colors.
86. Experimented with banners.
87. Learned how to use Photoshop.
88. I thought of earning through some other ways, like Adgenta.com.
89. Enlisted myself in technorati.com. This site generated so much traffic to my blog.
90. I even tried to have an account at travelpost to promote my site.
91. I created a Blue-Blooded Blogger (BBB) badge for everyone to use. As of now, a number of bloggers are displaying it on their blogs. Thank you!
92. Got an account from Chitika.
93. I wanted to trace my visitors and had a neoworx. My account expired so I had to remove the code.
94. I was (still is) listed in bloglines.
95. I created a poll for some of my blogs.
96. Google search engine started to index my pages.
97. Site statistics showed google and yahoo as the main generators of traffic.
98. Joined feedburner and invited visitors to my feeds.
99. I began to have email subscribers.
100. Posted about Vida Guerra, FHM's Top 100 Sexiest Women
101. Learned some blogger hacks.
102. Learned few html strategies.
103. Signed up for an Amazon account.
104. After months of blogging, I realized there were also some other blog platforms around.
105. Signed up for wordpress.
106. Didn't push through with the transfer to wordpress because of this.
107. I moved to the USA and continued blogging.
108. Discovered "submission sites" like netscape.com.
109. ...and Digg.
110. Monetize more my blogs via Adbrite.
111. ...and bidvertiser.
112. I created a new blogger account, forgot the password and left the account unattended.
113. I tried blogshares.
114. I tried blogadvance.
115. I tried fastweb (i do not even know what this is).
116. At this point my blog became a "kind of" commercial blog.
117. Still posted personal experiences, mostly derived from my daily reads.
118. Created an FAQ for my blog, which eventually became a blog for all my daily rants.
119. I thought I could come up with 1 million links in 3 months. I failed. It was an ambitious idea. See my million linky.
120. Few more months, this blog was already enjoying a place in the Technorati's Philippine Top 100 Blogs.
121. I added lots of blogs to my own blog rotation (see top portion here). You can add your link if you like.
122. Joined performancing.com. Another way to earn money.
123. The first post submitted to digg.com. Nobody dugg it. There is only one digg after 173 days (which was mine).
124. The most number of diggs I got was 8. This was the post.
125. The same first post was submitted to netscape and was soon deleted from the list. I don't know the reason why. Anyway, nobody voted for it though.
126. I tried submitting posts to Shoutwire, a community based internet news website. Nothing happened.
127. Tried care2.com too.
128. What about the myweb2.search powered by yahoo?
129. There was one more submission site I tried: grupl.com
130. I have banners reserved for different occasions: banner 1, banner 2, banner 3, banner 4.
131. For color contrast, I used this site and this site.
132. I discovered I could embed html videos from youtube, google videos, dailymotion to my blog.
133. I ran across an Adult Advertising Network that pays publishers like Google Adsense. But I didn't sign up for it.
134. Discovered more blogger hacks.
135. I also tried how to video blog with blogger.
136. I bought a new digital camera and tried its video capabilities. My first video posted (an ice skating adventure).
137. Installed Google page rank and I got a PR of 5.
138. Ran into blogger problems, like publishing errors and image uploading issues. Online forums were big help!
139. More visits to other blogs revealed techniques like Search Engine Optimization for Blogs - SEO.
140. I also followed this.
141. As I watched my blog going up the Philippine rankings, I was also taking note of one post from basangpanaginip that was dugg. Really dugg that his blog rose to no.2 spot in days. I wished that time it was mine :-)
142. Other blogs that are constantly giving me inspiration: no.1 spot -- Rickey and SEO Philippines Founder, Marc Hil Macalua.
143. My biggest earning from Amazon in one week was $160. That wasn't bad for just placing a little code.
144. I started using Google Analytics, rather than only trust data stats from sitemeter.
145. With the new blogger version in full action, I shifted all my blogs. No problems encountered during shifting so far.
146. Online friends suggested I should get my own domain.
147. I said no, for now. Blogger is doing good in all my postings.
148. I have been inspired at how "blogger" blogs like postsecret and xiaxue are faring so well in the Technorati Popular Blogs.
149. Boing-Boing's idea is simply awesome.
150. As of this posting, my visitor count is 141, 575 since January 2006.
151. This week alone I have over 10,000 unique visitors and over 23,000 pageviews. Not that much though, but I am very happy with it.
152. January 26, 2007 will be the day that I'll become a year older as a blogger. No regrets for the sleepless nights tinkering on html hacks.
153. January 18, 2007: I started this post by making a draft of all things I did for the past year.
154. January 19, 2007: I wrote and wrote and wrote.
155. January 20, 2007: Published the post and submitted to digg (hoping this time, it will be dugg), or approved by care2 news, or shoutwire, or myweb, or netscape.
156. I will now wait for January 26, 2007 to celebrate my blogger anniversary!
1. It started with my friendster blog. This is a social site similar to myspace.
2. It didn't last long after I found out about blogger.
3. January 26, 2006, I signed up for a blogger account after reading this article of why I should go for blogger.
4. I do not have any html expertise nor any idea how my template would look like. All I wanted was to start a blog.
5. The first template I used.
6. My first post was about a Civil Engineering student, who was under me in a couple of years ago, and was beaten to death by a gang of males after his night class. It generated 2 comments from 2 of my closest friends. Not bad.
7. Happy of my first post, I re-posted one of my articles that was published in a local weekly magazine...got 2 comments from 2 other friends. Not bad again.
8. Each day I posted one article and never cared much what they were about.
9. What a Mother Cannot Do was the first entry that encouraged me to write more. It was about a colleague of mine whose son is suffering from an unknown disease.
10. February 2006 was the month I began to take blogging seriously. I cannot leave my desk without posting anything.
11. I wrote about a stampede that killed 80 people - people who risked their lives just to make both ends meet and to survive the adversities of living less than a dollar a day.
12. Wrote how I wanted to win a Million Pesos!
13. Even posted the piece which won for me the Grand Prize in the Water Remind Essay Writing.
14. My Valentine's Day post created a stir.
15. So I had a follow-up post.
16. Created a post how to survive lonely days.
17. And posted the names of all the girls I loved before. One commented why her name wasn't there. I realized late that I forgot to place hers. She cut our friendship after that.
18. There were times that I couldn't think of anything. I wrote about Mom and her singing prowess.
19. I had an article about PEOPLE POWER - how former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown through a gun-less revolution just to stop his 20-year dictatorship.
20. In between the postings and reading and answering comments, I browsed through other blogs.
21. I found out that I could actually monetize my blog.
22. Read, read, read and read more and landed on the Google Adsense site.
23. Signed up for an account and few days later I had Adsense displayed on my pages.
24. First, I didn't change the location of the Ads and completely accepted the blogger's default for Adsense. It was on top.
25. I blogged in the office for a couple of hours (after my classes in the evening).
26. Continued blogging at home.
27. Slept at around 2 AM.
28. The month of March was a month of tragedies in the Philippines. I wrote something about it.
29. An article of my addiction to blogging.
30. Wrote my first poem.
31. Three days after the Ads were placed, not a single cent was generated.
32. Extremely frustrated!
33. However, the fourth day changed my mood 360 degrees. I earned my first few cents.
34. During the first month, I only had less than 100 page impressions (I suspect, most of the impressions were from my own visits).
35. In March, it went up to around 200 to 300 impressions due to some side comments I did in class. Students started to read my blog.
36. Adsense earnings at times went back to nothing a day. There was even 10 straight days of $0, even if the blog got 300 daily impressions.
37. Never surrendered the will to become a blogger. That's the attitude dude!
38. I read more online and found out that I could have more blogs and more Adsense placed on them.
39. Second blog came up. It wasn't impressive. Nah! I stopped posting after few months.
40. Even with my two blogs, Adsense wasn't so good to me.
41. Became frustrated again.
42. Browsed for more online articles and took notice of other bloggers' advice "Enlist your blog in online directories."
43. Started with Topblogsites.net.
44. Then blogrankings.com.
45. Then blogtagstic.com.
46. Then web.blogranking.us
47. Then bloggersblog.com.
48. Then blogroll.net.
49. Then worldblogrank.com.
50. Then blogtopsites.com.
51. Then addurlblog.com.
52. Then dir.blogflux.com.
53. Then internetlisted.net.
54. Then top100bloggers.com.
55. Then a local ranking site, pinoytopblogs.com.
56. I know I listed to more than 50 directory sites around the world. Now, I don't even remember the sites. I deleted many of the links on my pages after they started to look like a carnival with all those colorful buttons on my sidebar.
57. Earnings were negligible. A dollar a day was not enough.
58. Read 5 Surefire Ways to Increase Google Adsense Earnings.
59. I followed the steps and observed the results.
60. It worked. Earnings increased to few more cents.
61. I posted articles about American Idol, just to invite traffic.
62. Thought of posting lots of popular song lyrics and mp3 downloads.
63. I downloaded and used PICASA to manage my photo postings.
64. Posted some funny pictures and invited visitors to contribute. No one did.
65. Then started posting about sex.
66. Someone suggested I should place a counter on my site.
67. I did post comments in other blogs to invite traffic.
68. The first 4 blogger friends I met online: 1, 2, 3, 4
69. Signed up for Blogmad.net
70. Then Blogarama.com.
71. Then Blogexplosion.
72. Then Blogclicker.
73. Then Blogsoldiers.
74. Then after a couple of weeks, I read something about the Adsense fraud clicks due to manual surfing sites. I wrote about it.
75. Confirmed by many, and confirmed by Google, I immediately took my blogs out of the rotation.
76. To all those who managed to read up to this point, do not -- yes, do not-- enlist your blog in sites like no.69 to no.73 just to increase your traffic and Adsense earnings. Doing so would lead to cancellation of your Adsense account.
77. I posted love letters.
78. Enjoyed my 35,000th visitor!
79. Placed a chatbox for visitors to leave a tag.
80. In April 2006, I started the Filipino Blog of the Week, to keep the Filipino blogging community always alive (and to gain traffic too).
81. I joined pinoyexchange.com. A Filipino forum.
82. The Sex Education post was the most commented one.
83. Started to chat with bloggers from the Philippines.
84. Links were exchanged.
85. Changed to a new layout - this layout - but with different colors.
86. Experimented with banners.
87. Learned how to use Photoshop.
88. I thought of earning through some other ways, like Adgenta.com.
89. Enlisted myself in technorati.com. This site generated so much traffic to my blog.
90. I even tried to have an account at travelpost to promote my site.
91. I created a Blue-Blooded Blogger (BBB) badge for everyone to use. As of now, a number of bloggers are displaying it on their blogs. Thank you!
92. Got an account from Chitika.
93. I wanted to trace my visitors and had a neoworx. My account expired so I had to remove the code.
94. I was (still is) listed in bloglines.
95. I created a poll for some of my blogs.
96. Google search engine started to index my pages.
97. Site statistics showed google and yahoo as the main generators of traffic.
98. Joined feedburner and invited visitors to my feeds.
99. I began to have email subscribers.
100. Posted about Vida Guerra, FHM's Top 100 Sexiest Women
101. Learned some blogger hacks.
102. Learned few html strategies.
103. Signed up for an Amazon account.
104. After months of blogging, I realized there were also some other blog platforms around.
105. Signed up for wordpress.
106. Didn't push through with the transfer to wordpress because of this.
107. I moved to the USA and continued blogging.
108. Discovered "submission sites" like netscape.com.
109. ...and Digg.
110. Monetize more my blogs via Adbrite.
111. ...and bidvertiser.
112. I created a new blogger account, forgot the password and left the account unattended.
113. I tried blogshares.
114. I tried blogadvance.
115. I tried fastweb (i do not even know what this is).
116. At this point my blog became a "kind of" commercial blog.
117. Still posted personal experiences, mostly derived from my daily reads.
118. Created an FAQ for my blog, which eventually became a blog for all my daily rants.
119. I thought I could come up with 1 million links in 3 months. I failed. It was an ambitious idea. See my million linky.
120. Few more months, this blog was already enjoying a place in the Technorati's Philippine Top 100 Blogs.
121. I added lots of blogs to my own blog rotation (see top portion here). You can add your link if you like.
122. Joined performancing.com. Another way to earn money.
123. The first post submitted to digg.com. Nobody dugg it. There is only one digg after 173 days (which was mine).
124. The most number of diggs I got was 8. This was the post.
125. The same first post was submitted to netscape and was soon deleted from the list. I don't know the reason why. Anyway, nobody voted for it though.
126. I tried submitting posts to Shoutwire, a community based internet news website. Nothing happened.
127. Tried care2.com too.
128. What about the myweb2.search powered by yahoo?
129. There was one more submission site I tried: grupl.com
130. I have banners reserved for different occasions: banner 1, banner 2, banner 3, banner 4.
131. For color contrast, I used this site and this site.
132. I discovered I could embed html videos from youtube, google videos, dailymotion to my blog.
133. I ran across an Adult Advertising Network that pays publishers like Google Adsense. But I didn't sign up for it.
134. Discovered more blogger hacks.
135. I also tried how to video blog with blogger.
136. I bought a new digital camera and tried its video capabilities. My first video posted (an ice skating adventure).
137. Installed Google page rank and I got a PR of 5.
138. Ran into blogger problems, like publishing errors and image uploading issues. Online forums were big help!
139. More visits to other blogs revealed techniques like Search Engine Optimization for Blogs - SEO.
140. I also followed this.
141. As I watched my blog going up the Philippine rankings, I was also taking note of one post from basangpanaginip that was dugg. Really dugg that his blog rose to no.2 spot in days. I wished that time it was mine :-)
142. Other blogs that are constantly giving me inspiration: no.1 spot -- Rickey and SEO Philippines Founder, Marc Hil Macalua.
143. My biggest earning from Amazon in one week was $160. That wasn't bad for just placing a little code.
144. I started using Google Analytics, rather than only trust data stats from sitemeter.
145. With the new blogger version in full action, I shifted all my blogs. No problems encountered during shifting so far.
146. Online friends suggested I should get my own domain.
147. I said no, for now. Blogger is doing good in all my postings.
148. I have been inspired at how "blogger" blogs like postsecret and xiaxue are faring so well in the Technorati Popular Blogs.
149. Boing-Boing's idea is simply awesome.
150. As of this posting, my visitor count is 141, 575 since January 2006.
151. This week alone I have over 10,000 unique visitors and over 23,000 pageviews. Not that much though, but I am very happy with it.
152. January 26, 2007 will be the day that I'll become a year older as a blogger. No regrets for the sleepless nights tinkering on html hacks.
153. January 18, 2007: I started this post by making a draft of all things I did for the past year.
154. January 19, 2007: I wrote and wrote and wrote.
155. January 20, 2007: Published the post and submitted to digg (hoping this time, it will be dugg), or approved by care2 news, or shoutwire, or myweb, or netscape.
156. I will now wait for January 26, 2007 to celebrate my blogger anniversary!
Labels: Blogging
8 Comments:
You can find more information at ....
BUY NOW AMBIEN,
BUY NOW ADIPEX,
BUY NOW ALPRAZOLAM,
BUY NOW ATIVAN,
BUY NOW BUTALBITAL,
BUY NOW CARISOPRODOL,
BUY NOW VIAGRA.
THE END :)
21 January, 2007
Happy Anniversary! Found your site via digg.
Looks like you're site is doing quite well for only 1 year old. Congratulations!
Nathan
http://www.nathanrice.org/
27 January, 2007
I'd be happy to exchange links with you. I don't do the "sidebar link" thing though. How about a story post link exchange. If I post a story on Monday about your "156 things" story, will you post a short post about my blog?
You don't need to publish this comment. Please email me at nathan@nathanrice.org
Nathan
27 January, 2007
Great! I'm publishing the story with the link tomorrow.
Thanks for stopping by!
Nathan
27 January, 2007
this is very inspiring post though iam 2 years older in blogging you are great
ramana
vilekhari.blogspot.com
16 October, 2008
I'll try some of your tips.
13 January, 2009
I am new in blogger…this post inspires me ^-^
My site is www.graciasdisenyo.com
12 March, 2009
omg.. this is really inspiring! been blogging for a year or so but it was only now that i thought i should monetize my blog and be serious with it.. thanks for this post. nakaka inspire talaga. hehe!
27 May, 2009
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