Blogging Archives - Page 3 of 4

Ginger Arboleda July 25, 2016

Monetizing your Blog

First of all, I would like to thank all of those who attended our Facebook Live Session about Monetizing your Blog. For those who want to view it, here it is! Thank heavens for Facebook’s embed functionality!

I hope that you learned a lot from what we shared with you. I’d like to add a few more things and stress on parts that we didn’t have time to focus on due to time limitations, but before that, please don’t forget that the offer for Php 200 off on WORDPRESS BLOGGING BASICS for the Early Bird Rate will end on Wednesday. The CODE is WORDPRESS!

THINGS THAT I FAILED TO MENTION

Since I was panicking because I had to be at a meeting, I failed to mention some important points about earning from your blog. First of all, define what your objective is for your blog. Those with unclear objectives oftentimes fail. Also, please do not make earning money an end goal for putting up a blog. The end goal should be bigger than that. We, bloggers or “soon-to-be-bloggers” are given a huge opportunity to change the world — to fix things, to share ideas, to help make the world a better place. Money should not be END, but the means to an END.

Also, think of your blogs as your own personal newspaper or letter or journal. Yes, you can write about anything under the sun, but be responsible. Your intentions may be good, but sometimes, the interpretation of others or how people perceived and absorb the information may be different. I know that whatever action your reader takes after reading your blog may not be your responsibility, but let’s try to avoid starting fights, insulting people, etc. That’s just my opinion.

This is also linked to earning from your blog, because brands, advertisers and possible partners will always partner with bloggers with the same values. If you share the same values with a brand, you will possibly and more likely be chosen as a partner blogger or commissioned to write about their products.

Some of the things that you can Earn From as a Blogger

Advertising Space: You can places ads that are situated in certain areas of your blog. How you earn from these ads are either from a monthly rate booked by an advertiser or through either Pay Per Click or Cost Per Mille. What you get from Pay Per Click (PPC) ads differ based on the amount of traffic your website gets. Check on what percentage of those who visit a site actually click on ads for blogs that are of the same genre as you. This will give you an idea on how much you can earn with the traffic that you have. Cost per Mille advertising (CPM) is when you earn based on the number of impressions (page views) you get. You earn from every 1000 impressions.

Sponsored Posts / Text Link Ads / In Text Ads / Advertising Widgets: Sponsored posts are a thing here in the Philippines. Most of the brands ask for this and pricing again depends on the number of people who read your posts. Text Link Ads are a bit related to sponsored post since this allows you to place text based ads within the text of your articles. Cliking on those words will send you directly to a brand’s page or social media account or a lead page. In text ads are the same as text link ads but are usually more obvious than Text Link Ads. And advertising widgets are widgets that you install in your site and display a mixture of different kinds of ad types (affiliate, PPC, etc.)

Affiliate Marketing: A blogger earns commission for every product sold. There are different ways that a brand can go about doing this: using a code, using a link, a widget, etc.

Audio Advertising where you are paid every time someone plays and ad on your site (Pay per Play or PPP). These ads usually play a video that can’t be stopped or stopped only after a few seconds.

Cross-sell services: We shouldn’t look at our blogs as the “product or the service” that we offer. We can take a step back and see if our blog is actually a tool that we can use to cross-sell other services like coaching, an ebook, a book, a workshop, etc.

The other way that you can earn are through Pop up Ads, creating membership sites, create some kind of listing in your site and earn though listing fees, ask for donations or you can eventually sell your website. Brands sometimes look for an existing site so that they need not build new content.

Please do let me know if you have more questions on blogging and I’ll be happy to answer them for you. Also, again, we are looking forward to seeing you on August 20 for WORDPRESS BLOGGING BASICS. Sign up now and get Php 200 off!

Ginger Arboleda January 30, 2016

What Blogging Means to Me

Last year, as a blogger, I would say that I was pretty successful. And my definition for blogging success for this particular instance is basically purely financial reward. I got a lot of endorsements, I got a lot of advertisers, etc. But the thing is, for some reason, I also realized something more important.

I realized that blogging for me means so much more. Do you know the look that children get when they see a new toy on the shelf that they really want? That’s how I look every time I get to think of a new topic that I want to write about. There are times when I would wake up in the middle of my sleep and wonder why, even if I forced myself to, I couldn’t sleep. And the only thing that could help me get through the night is when I open my computer, and write something – – – something from the heart.

People ask us on what makes a blogger successful, and to this I throw back the question, “what is your definition of success?” I realize that what most bloggers need to see is that there is more to blogging than what people know of it to be. And, it’s not about monetary rewards or the popularity or events. Blogging or writing posts changes you as a person. With every word and with every sentence, you not only present a whole perspective to your readers, but you actually get to know yourself better as you dig deeper. With blogging, you get to understand more and more about yourself regardless of what intention you have set for a particular post.

Whether it be a sponsored post or a unique topic that you have thought about, as long as you write it from the heart, blogging will definitely take you through the process where you honestly think about what and how you feel about certain scenarios or certain circumstances. It’s not easy being a blogger. People think that you just have to grab your laptop and type away. But in reality, with every post that you write, you slowly unhurl pieces of yourself that you have never discovered before.

I think with blogging, I have become a better person. You can be a better person. I think that writing and blogging has made me more sensitive as a person. I think that blogging has made me a calmer, rational-yet-in-touch-with-my-emotions kind of a person. Looking back, I know that I am a better person now and I think I know more about myself now than when I first started writing.

Will I continue writing? Of course, I will. I know that there are still some things about myself that I have yet to figure out. Will you come join me in my journey of discovering the secrets of life and love?

Love lots,

Mommy Ginger

P.S. Check out Manila Workshops Blogging related workshops!
Designing Web Pages
WordPress Blogging Basics
Facebook Marketing Webinar

Ginger Arboleda November 30, 2015

My Personal Journey in My MiB Journal (#LindochinelovesMib)

I was listening to Amy Porterfield’s podcast the other day and she mentioned that one of the things that makes a blogger successful is consistency in coming out with content. I think this is what made me successful, too. MommyGinger.com comes out with fresh content almost every day. Enough though with the technicalities. Thinking about coming out with fresh content every day can stress you out though. Thinking about all of these technicalities WILL stress you out.

Do you want to know my secret?

My secret is (aside from the great love for writing) I consider my blog as a documentation of my life. When I pass away in the future, people will see how fun my life has been, urging them to cherish their life as well. Living is FUN!

#LindochinelovesMiB

Me with my daughter — excited to start Journaling!

Martine of MakeitBlissful.com

My Lovely Daughter holding Hey Kessy Materials

An event that made me remember and solidify why I love blogging is the Journaling event that Make it Blissful and L’indochine came up with (LindochinexMiB). Martine of MakeitBlissful.com invited me and other women for a light afternoon of just coming together to start our own journal. I know a lot of people who want to start a journal, but they think it’s so tedious to start and sustain. Here are some of my tips on how to sustain once you have started a blog or a journal.

1. If you don’t know what you’re first entry will be, notice the first thing that you think about and write about it. It can be a thought about building something from scratch, to your child’s doctor’s appointment, to cleaning your house later today.

2. During days when you feel uninspired, try to walk around and just rediscover the fascinating things that you see around you — how trees grow into certain weird shapes, how the sky changes in color especially during sunrise and sunset. Simple things like that will amaze you and inspire you!

The first page of my Journal

3. Another way to start writing (especially when your mind is blank) is to write down everything you think of. Let me try it now…

I am sitting on a chair here in Coffee Bean and Leaf Burgos circle. I have no idea why I automatically gravitated to this branch tonigh. I could have gone to Starbucks Reserve, which was nearer to the place I live in. It must be this Moroccan Mint Tea Latte. I love this drink. Oh, currently checking out this lovely yellow dress of a woman who just arrived. Thinking that it would be perfect for me, since I love the color yellow. I think this color makes people happy. She’s also wearing pumps. I think I should start wearing pumps, too. I’m always in FitFlops or Sketchers rubber shoes. When I wear my Melissa flats, it’s already an indication that it’s a formal event. haha!

There you go, ladies and gentlemen. You could try this technique. As you can see, there are a lot of topics that you can now discuss or write about further — like how colors affect moods, proximity of places or why location of businesses matter, etc. You get the idea!

4. It doesn’t often have to be your own content (just as long as you quote your source). If a quote, lyrics of a song, a poem, a book, or any other thing inspires you then, write about it. The main thought doesn’t have to come from you. You can give your own opinion on things like these.

You can use pictures like these to tell people about the amazing moments in your life!

5. It doesn’t always have to be written. If you have a journal written in a notebook, it doesn’t always have to contain words. Clippings, doodles, drawings, splatters, pictures, etc. will do. If you have a blog like MommyGinger.com, then entries can be audio recordings (which I have done lately because I just felt like making these), pictures or videos. Just let it go! (Now I’ve got that last song syndrome of Frozen).

6. This is something interesting that you can do if you are going through difficult times in your life. Write about it from a third person point of view. You can write about how you see it from an angle that moves you to be non-partisan and unbiased about it. This will make things clearer!

We enjoyed this event!

These are some of the things that I have been doing for the past years of blogging and it has helped me a lot with consistency. Being consistent has definitely made me successful at what I do. Oh, one more thing to remember and this one is really important.

This is your blog / journal. Don’t let anyone tell you what you can or cannot post in your blog / journal. Remember that this is a documentation about your life. Do you really want people dictating you what you can or cannot do with your life?

We got this beautiful bag from L’indochine’s travel collection

We had fun at the #LindochinelovesMiB Gathering!

This is what I like about the Make it Blissful events and also with the soon to be implemented Beauty Biz Bliss events and other events like the ones of our friends from Wholemom and Pursuit Manila. They make you feel empowered and inspired to take on life’s challenges, knowing that you have friends in the community. Your journey is just happier, brighter and more blissful!

Thank you to Make it Blissful, L’indochine, Gourdos, Stabilo, National Book Store, Hey Kessy, She Dreams Ink, Raintree Restaurants, Shop House Coffee and Hey Jow for supporting the #LindochineLoveMiB Journaling gathering! Looking forward to more gatherings like these!

Ginger Arboleda October 6, 2015

Realities of Being a Blogger

I have my blog to thank for a lot of things that I have now. To be honest with you, I get 50% or probably, even most of my income from blogging. If you want to know about the different ways you can earn from blogging, let’s talk about it in my workshop on October 24 on Blogging 101 for Raket One. Sorry for the shameless plug! But going back to my point, I am grateful for all of the things that my blog has given me — from the free stuff, to having my very first commercial where I actually spoke (haha!), to meeting new people, to giving me a ‘voice’ that I could use to tell people about my advocacy and mission.

But being a successful blogger is not easy. Mahirap sya ha! Success is not achieved overnight. I have been a blogger for 7 years, but to tell you honestly, it was just 3 years ago when I started feeling the success (financially, emotionally) that everyone who wants to be a blogger wants to feel.

So today, while lying in bed with this damn sore eyes, I would like to share with you some of the realities of being a blogger, especially when you want to monetize your blog (since starting a business is my forte’… or I would like to think it is. Hihi!).

Number one. Realize that your blog is a tool for communicating. Look around you. We have so many tools for communication. Phones, chat applications, paper and a pen, newspaper, the television, flyers, printed out pictures (do these still exist?), picture on Instagram, lyrics of a song — see! We constantly communicate with one another using different tools. So, a blog for me is a tool. It’s a tool that you can use to communicate a message. What people don’t realize sometimes is that they are lured into the blogosphere, and they suddenly want to start a blog, not knowing what is it that they really want to write about. This brings me to my second point.

Number two. Communicate a strong message that will spark change. Don’t you want to inspire change? Don’t you want to contribute to the betterment of society? All of us want to make a difference. Yes, believe me. The difference just comes in when we talk about the degree, expanse or scope of change or difference. For example, looking at a blog about creating a greener environment may be impressive, but also reading a blog about a motherhood, especially of a mom who raises a child with Autism is also impressive. It’s all about finding your own personal message. What do you want to tell the world?

Number three. Know your audience and develop content specifically for them. I don’t mean literally, but if you want to meet every single one of them, go ahead (just kidding). What I mean is that you need to have at least an idea of who you want to talk to. Look at it this way. Imagine yourself in a party with different people in a table. Will you start a conversation about menstrual period if they are all men at the table? With your blogs, you need to have a clear picture of who you are talking to in order to write stuff that they would be interested in reading.

Number four. You need to converse with your readers. Yes, I know about it but I am not an expert in SEO. I am not the most amazing digital marketer there is, but there are a lot of marketing tactics that I have used. And these tactics are, to tell you the truth, mostly based on common sense. For example, a lot of the followers that you will have will be people who trust you and believe in you. They will continuously read your blog because they see you as a friend who is willing to help them out. With this, think about how you can gain their trust? They need to really know you, right (either personally or virtually)? They need to see that you are someone that they can talk to and converse with.

See? There are a lot of things that you need to think about if you want to be successful at blogging. What people don’t see is that there is a thought process behind everything that goes behind building a blog.

This is just the beginning. There are other realities or things that you need to think about or even consider thinking about before you start a blog. I’m thinking of creating a part two or even a part three for this post. I have so many things that I want to share with you about blogging.

Do you have things that are boggling your mind about blogging? Feel free to comment and share it with me!

Please don’t forget to vote for me!

Ginger Arboleda July 3, 2015

Why you should Enter Entrepreneurship? Check out this Webinar Series

The buzz word nowadays is Entrepreneurship. It seems like everyone is going that route. Everyone wants to get into it. Everyone’s starting their own businesses. Every one wants to be called an Entrepreneur.

I’ve thought about why people should try to “enter entrepreneurship” and here are some of the reasons why:

1) Control your one time — control your own life!
Being an entrepreneur doesn’t mean that you will have less work. In fact, during the first year of business, you might be the busiest that you’ll ever be. But the nice thing about being an entrepreneur is that you actually have more control over your time. You can move schedules around. This is what I actually love about my life now. If I don’t feel like working, I don’t get up. I just see to it though, that I accomplish things and that I always see results.

2) Unlimited Opportunities to Earn and to Learn
I used to think (especially when I was about to resign from my job) that I would be a bored individual, just going through the daily grind of creating workshops and writing for my blog and other entities. I used to think that I wouldn’t be able to meet a lot of people as the way I did when I was employed. I’m a people person so I love going out and conversing with others. But when I became an entrepreneur, I got to widen my network four-fold. Almost every day, I get to meet a new person, in person or virtually. I receive at least two to three emails from people I don’t know every day. If you multiply that, that’s at least 1095 new people a year!

But what I genuinely love about meeting new people is that I get to learn new things! I see meetings as an opportunity to learn and to widen my knowledge about different things. Being an entrepreneur allowed me to go out there and look for new acquaintances and learn more new stuff!

3) Allow you to do the things that you want so you can leave a Legacy!

I don’t know if you saw this episode for GTV: Love the Leap recently.

I talked about leaving a legacy, which I realized after reading Stephen Covey’s 8th habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. I honestly believe that all of us are meant for greatness. When we pass away, I’m sure that each one of us want to be remembered for something — a loving mom, a great educator, an admirable social entrepreneur, but all of these things stem from the fact that we had a goal of making the world a better place and we helped by using our talents. Everyday, we help make the world a better place the best we know how. Being an entrepreneur makes you think about this every day. With the business that I have, how can I add value?

These three things are just a few reasons why I think people should try to enter entrepreneurship. For those who are already entrepreneurs, they know that there are a lot of things that you need to learn in order to sustain the business that you have. For skills and things that you don’t know about, it’s good to know at least the basics so that even if you decide to outsource in the end, you still have a good understanding on how things work.

With this, Burn Gutierrez and I decided to come up with a Webinar Series called Enter Entrepreneurship with topics that we know you would love to learn about!

Enter Entrepreneurship

This webinar series is composed of 10 topics:

Understanding WordPress – July 18, 2015 with Jerome Esperanza
Basics of Photoshop – July 25, 2015 with Amanda De Ocampo
Setting up an Online Store – August 1, 2015 with Fitz Villafuerte
Product Shots with a Purpose – August 8, 2015 with Shiela Catilo
Basics of Shooting a Video – August 15, 2015 with Dennis Abad
Basics of Video Editing – August 22, 2015 with Jeo Paz
Facebook Marketing – August 29, 2015 with Peter Juan
Digital Marketing – Sept. 5, 2015 with Ros Juan
Content Planning – Sept. 12, 2015 with Rey Baguio
Blog and Creative Writing – Sept. 19, 2015 with Martine De Luna

The cost of all the 10 workshops is at Php 10,000, but if you opt to choose just some, each session is at Php 1999. If you avail of the 10 sessions, you will get access to my Love the Leap Checklist and a free 11th session on Productivity and Management from Sonny Del Rosario.