Archive for the 'Blogging Life' Category

Feb
05

Wayne Liew Dot Com is all about simple blogging tips, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to get yourself free blogging tips updates.

I started blogging at the age of 16, with a Blogger blog and every first experience of mine is still fresh in my memories. My first time of setting up link exchange deals, my first time getting all the dunks from the blogosphere, my first and last time trying to game Google Adsense and of course, my first time knowing bloggers of all sorts from all around the world.

Cute Girl Blogging Computer
Photo by: cambodia4kidsorg

Blogging is attractive for minors even though only few that will eventually step on a success route. Carl Ocab, the 14 years old make money online blogger is the leading idol for kid blogger wannabes and statistics on How Old Are ProBlogger Readers? Poll Results also shown that young bloggers own a big piece of the blogger’s demography.

Blogging at a young age has never been easier than blogging when you are halfway through your lifetime or when you are an experienced corporate figure.

Blogging Difficulties That Young Bloggers Must Brave Through

Discouragement from parents

Most parents on Earth want their children to pursue a Degree or Masters program rather than becoming an online entrepreneur or blogger. Most of their excuses are such profession will not secure a fixed income and it is risky.

Continue reading Blogging Difficulties For Young Bloggers

Jan
21

When we face problems in blogging, the first thing we know is to ask for help. We go to everywhere that we can think of to seek for the solutions which may or may not help us.

The downside about asking the whole world for blogging solutions are:

  • Time wasting. Instead of knowing for sure where to ask, we spend our time typing, or copying and pasting our questions here and there!
  • Inadequate follow up. If everyone is providing you with an answer, you will need to reply and once the solutions are in your hands, you often forget to thank or to follow up on the solutions provided.
  • Degrading professionalism. Have you ever seen a great leader or someone in authority panicked about something and seek solution from everyone? No! This is because their credibility and reputation will be at tarnished.

Blogging Q&A Stations and Usage Guidelines

Search engines

This is the place I turn to first for troubles that I came across in blogging. The problems that we faced in blogging or in every aspects of life are mostly gone through by others and it is very likely that they will be documented on the Internet.

Major Search Engines Logos

Search engines nowadays is capable of providing answers to nearly everything. The best of finding answers with this method is that no one will know you are facing problems and if you are patient enough to go through page after page of search results, you will gain a lot of related knowledge along the way.

Downside: An urgent problem such as inability to load your blog or a spoilt modification to your blog theme will require a faster method as going through page after page of irrelevant search results will only delay your seek for the crucial solution.

Continue reading Ask Your Blogging Questions At The Right Place

Jan
01

Happy new year 2008
Photo by Mykl Roventine

I have reminded all my readers to write out and post your blogging resolution for Year 2008 on your blog. Have you done it? If you have not, try to draft it out now since it will not be too late to set goals for your blog and make yourself a blog performance management tool.

2008 Blogging Resolutions for Wayne Liew Dot Com

Wayne Liew Dot Com will be a more targeted niche blog in 2008. I expect it to cover blogging extensively, right from how to make money from blogging to blog readers psychology.

300 RSS Feed readers

When I am writing this, my number of RSS readers stands at 104 (broke my own record), which is very low in this niche. Getting 300 RSS readers will mean hard work on contents as well as marketing. If you have not subscribed to my RSS feed, you may now do so via feed reader or via e-mail.

50 newsletter subscribers

After some readings on Internet marketing, I learned an important lesson - The main aim of a web site is to get e-mail addresses. I will be collecting e-mail addresses from those who wanted to receive my newsletter this year, after I have finished my e-book (blogging-related) which is to be given out for those who subscribed.

300 daily unique visits

The traffic for Wayne Liew Dot Com has been lingering from 30 unique visits to the highest of 381 unique visits daily over Year 2007. The traffic goal that I have set for this blog for Year 2008 will be at least 300 daily unique visits. Traffic is one very important measurement of a blog and of course having large stream of traffic is the dream of every blogger.

2007 Happenings New Year
Photo by woodleywonderworks

Blog design makeover

After being challenged by pablopabla from Blogsreview.net, I will try my best to get a blog redesign next year. This is not a measurable goal, it might be a complete makeover if I am lucky to make that much money or received donations from my readers or it might be the same design as now for the whole year. :mrgreen:

20% of traffic from search engines

Out of the 300 daily unique visitors that I aimed, 20% of it must be coming from search engines. The larger portion of such traffic will mean lesser efforts needed in prolific marketing which demands a lot of time and productivity. It will also help stretching the recognition of this blogging tips blog.

Top 30 Marco Richter’s Top Blogs About Blogging

This blogs about blogging ranking, although not official, has been my reference for how well is my blogging tips blog doing compared with others within the niche. It would be a pleasure for me to break into Top 30 as I am outside 50 at the moment I am writing this.

2008 Blogging Resolutions for Wayne Liew

Happy new year 2008 fireworks
Photo by Daniel Voyager in TSL

The above is what I hope to achieve with my blog in Year 2008 and this section I will outline what will I expect from myself to contribute to the improvement of this blogging tips blog.

Continuous quality contents

Contents have always been the most important element of a blog. Some readers might have arrived at this blog because of the time I have spent on marketing via commenting but I do get complements for the contents and I want more of it since it makes me feels good! :-P A more mature but simple writing style is what I am eager to have on this blog as well.

Having an Editorial Calendar

This is one thing that I will implement on this blog in Year 2008. For those who don’t get what this means, an editorial calendar is a fixed sequence on types of post to be published over a certain period. I will be publishing blog post according to the categories on this blog. This means that it will be a post on blog improvement tomorrow and blog monetization the day after.

This will ensure every topic is adequately covered and also grab visitors to come back on certain days, expecting certain topics, indirectly getting more readers with different blogging tips needs. However, I have to admit that I am not brainy in certain field and might skip in the sequence. Hopefully, this can be accepted by you all.

Prolific Marketing Strategy

I will continue with my marketing strategy that makes this blog getting most of its readers - commenting skillfully on blogs within the same niche. It takes a lot of my time with over 100 blogs bookmarked and subscribed (aiming to increase the numbers) but all I can say is that it has been rewarding with this move.

Giving Away Rewards

There is no doubt that giving away prizes or rewards in other forms can reap in a lot of publicity in the form of linkbacks, traffic, exposure to potential new readers and participation from readers. Yes, expect cash rewards or prizes from Wayne Liew in Year 2008!

Wider Networking

I have to admit in shame that whenever I write to another blogger, the mail is to attempt a linkbait. This will certainly not the case in Year 2008. I will write to bloggers for various reasons to build up the relationship. This will help me to know more about my niche and what tips that bloggers need to improve their blogging feat.

More readings

Reading blogs has been my hobby ever since I started blogging. I hope to read more books relating to marketing, psychology and writing skills in Year 2008 so that I can learn some extra skills and at the same time, sharing it with my blog readers (of course after linking it to blogging).

Blogging Resolution Spoiler in Year 2008

Happy new year 2008 fireworks gone wrong
Photo by FAファ

Second year of tertiary education

I will be in the second year of my tertiary education this year and this means a whole lot more assignments and syllabus to be covered. My life, online and offline is mainly about blogging and academics. A push in both of them will make me keep my productivity in tip-top condition.

Competition

Competition is something you cannot forget especially in a saturated niche like this. I would have to make provisions for new and talented newcomers to this niche. Networking with them or creating myself a new space without competition would create a win-win situation instead of a bloody war.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is something new for me to try out in Year 2008 which I have been continuously collecting information in Year 2007. I will start this off rather aggressively in this field this year so I might be busy with it, taking the risk of forgetting my blog. :lol:

Conclusion for Year 2008

2008 will be a year full of challenges and only the hardworking and talented ones will win the race. Even if you are not talented, work harder! Everyone has a fair chance this year. Although it has already started after I have nervously anticipated it for long, I wish my readers all the best in Year 2008, in blogging as well as all other aspects in life.

Do you have any questions or points to add to my resolution (maybe some points that you have seen in resolutions of others but not in my resolution)? Have you posted your blogging resolution? What will be the success rate of me achieving my goals (be honest here ;-) )?

Subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com RSS Feed for more juicy blogging tips in year 2008.

Nov
25

Many of us blog on a part-time basis which means blogging is just another part of our routine since we will have other aspects, such as academics or work for us to be taken care of.

As a part-time blogger myself, I find difficulty in seeking the balance in my online and offline life. I often face the following problems:

  • No time for people around me
  • No time for extra entertainment
  • No time for my main aspects, academics
  • No time for researching blogging topic research
  • No time for planned blog marketing strategies

Do you face any similar problems? I have to agree that many people have either abandoned their blog or other main aspects in life to focus on only one thing. Having a dual-focus lifestyle is hard and proved pressurizing, especially you still have interests in both of them.

Clock

As you can see from my list above, the phrase “NO TIME” is the key. Will you say 24 hours is not enough for you? I wouldn’t say so especially after reading Skelliewag’s Time is Something You Make.

Remember my list of what to do to fill up blogging idle time? How much of your time has been spent on something productive? Whenever you get online, how much time that you have actually spent on your blog, for contents and for marketing? Whenever you get offline, how much time that you have spent on gaming, movies and entertainment?

The main distractions when we are online that kept us from blogging productively are:

  • E-mail inbox – I have subscribed to 8 newsletters and I can say at least one mail will come in every one hour. I checked it, read it from top to bottom but I didn’t realized that my blogging activity is left hanging.
  • MSN Messenger and Skype Logo

  • Instant messenger – I should admit that IM softwares such as Windows Live Messenger and Skype really kills my time. I can spend up to one or two hours by chatting with over 5 different people.
  • Social media and forumingSocial media and foruming are great ways to market your blog and to search for yourself blogging ideas. The problem with these platforms is that we tend to end up reading unnecessary stuffs and posting replies to junk discussions.
  • Non-related sites – What a betting site got to do with your blog on food? Why are you watching online porn when you don’t have an adult site? Kill the intentions of accessing sites like porn sites that are extremely sticky once you have access to them. They can really be time consuming.
  • What If? Worry Pic

  • Offline worries – Some people have the focusing problem whereby they can’t focus on what they are doing but instead, they think of other things. When you are blogging, think about your blog and don’t think about what will you be eating for dinner.

What are the other distractions you can think of?

On the offline side of life, I should say that entertainment is the killer of productivity. When we are entertaining ourselves, we are doing nothing productive. After we have finished the “entertaining activity”, we normally laze around before getting our engines kicked off again.

You have all the distractions above bothering you? I will have a few ways which you can try to apply to your life so that you can free yourself from all of it.

  • Timetable and scheduling
    Seriously, you need a daily timetable to plan out your activities by hour. If you are always having your computer with you, you can try putting your planned activities into your time slots by using softwares such as Windows Calendar or Google Calendar which are free of charge.
  • What is your focus?

  • Focus
    When you are doing A, just think of A. Don’t think about blogging during a class or at your workplace if they have nothing to do with blogging. When it time to blog, blog hard and when it is time for you to study or work, study and work hard.
  • Review
    When you are doing something, make it a chore to write down the time spent on a particular activity. Comparison can be made wth the one planned and it will be clear to you of which non-productive activity is consuming much of your time.
  • Man and Woman Working Together

  • Multi-tasking
    I know many out there have this wonderful ability to multi-task. Instant messaging at the same time while you are studying and for some who are even better, blogging while studying. This is definitely wrong and it has a high possibility that you will end up accomplishing nothing!
  • Make the time
    God is fair by giving 24 hours to everyone. Many people became successful by just having 24 hours in life but there are also some who did not manage to get any thing done with 24 hours daily. It is all about how you use the 24 hours and there is always more than enough time. Don’t sleep that much, rise early and sleep a little bit late is one way of making time for yourself.

I am posting this today because you will be experiencing a brand new week tomorrow – a productive week that everyone, including you will be amazed with what you can do with 24 hours a day.

What other ways that you think will boost your productivity, for both your online and offline goals? Do you think that you have been a productive person all the while? How productivity has killed of many of your aims in life?

If you think that this article is inspiring, please subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com RSS Feed.

Nov
02

“It Is Not Absolutely Necessary To Reply Comments” by Ah Pek inspired me to write this (I didn’t mean that he is ignorant of his readers but it is his post that made me think of writing this post). I am sure if you have been around the blogosphere for some time, you will notice that some bloggers go against the rule of blog marketing, which is setting up their blog and all they do is just posting. They don’t comment on other blogs, they don’t reply to their commentators and they sometimes don’t even care who their readers are.

These blogs are like the once China which run the “close-door” policy which they don’t interact with other bloggers and their readers. One thing that might make you thing is that sometimes, these bloggers have visitors which are twice or maybe five times more than yours. Why?

Style Of Writing

Black and White Writing With A Pen

Some people have the flair of writing and I must agree that not many have the talent to write. People who are really good can twist your mind or even switch your standpoint when you read through their articles. Some writers tend to have the magic to make people read and continue to read what they wrote. With this magical skill, you don’t need any marketing any more or you can go against all the things that blogging guides had taught you as people will come to you no matter what as if you are a magnet.

Quality Contents
Yes, you see this once again. You might not have the skills like I previously mentioned in Style Of Writing but you have the facts and thoughts that will make people follow you. Some contents are so powerful they don’t even need to market it to be known. Once people found the article through search engines, they will start linking to it and if it is really good, more links and visits will follow.

Reputation or Status

Concert Fans

If you work as an algorithm engineer in Google or Yahoo or you are a celebrity like Tom Cruise and you started a blog, I am sure the moment your blog is known by someone, the monsoon flow of traffic will come in. You will get thousand of comments in the form of questions, fan messages, criticism, yells and swears that might be targeted to you or your company. You don’t need to reply to them, all you need to do is keep on posting and these visitors will be back!

Not Visitors Centered
Some bloggers just have their own issues and don’t expect attention but somehow people are interested. Many people posts about their love experiences and conflicts they faced in their teenage life but only a few of such blogs can get thousands of readers a day. Life of some people has been quite interesting for the people on the Internet. Also, even if these bloggers don’t get visitors, they will survive because their objective to blog is only for themselves.

Choosing Friends
Sometimes being cool with their visitors doesn’t mean that they don’t have friends. They might be picking who to respond to. If you have been cool all the time and a big time blogger drops by and comment on your blog, will you reply to him or her? I am sure you will right? This is why these people succeed. They save their time for quality, not quantity and they make sure the quality will indirectly increase the coverage of their blogs.

The ‘Cool’ Personality

Boy Acting Cool

Sometimes the cooler you are, the more people that will come to you. I am not sure what is the reason because I am not cool but maybe people are just trying to make the blogger respond. Can anyone tell me why cool people sometimes get all the attention? Did people think that they need help? :mrgreen:

These are the reasons why I think cool bloggers succeeded in the field of blogging. Despite all the advices on marketing your blog, these people don’t need to do a thing but posting to get people coming. Will you ever become a cool blogger and don’t entertain your readers? Do you read a blog by a cool blogger? What are your views on a blogger who has a cool personality?

Oct
25

10 Ways To Fill Up Blogging Idle Time [Part 1] received a good response from you all but there’s no suggestion to the list so I guess everyone is waiting for the [Part 2] to be out before making any suggestion.

With this post I will share with you the remainder five things you can do during your blogging idle time.

Social bookmarking
Do you know what are Digg, del.icio.us, and Reddit? These are social bookmarking sites where you vote or bookmark the contents you like and the most popular contents often appear on the home page of these sites for a period of time.

Social Bookmarking Site List

When you are free or during your bloghopping session, you can actually submit articles to these sites for the blogger. People say that we are selfless when we submit our own contents but with your help in submitting our contents, we will really appreciate it and maybe adding our votes to the submission.

Register for new services
New services such as blog directories that can increase your number of backlinks, advertising platforms that can let you experiment different blog monetization methods, productivity enhancement tools like time management tools, RSS Feed Reader and so on. You might find hat you are always reading posts on great service or directories being promoted but always don’t have time to sign up for. This is it!

Make a list when you always read about these services and when you are free, look at this list and start to sign up! In the end, you don’t only have a try out of the service, if you are a blogger, you can blog about it!

Continue reading 10 Ways To Fill Up Blogging Idle Time [Part 2]

Oct
23

Mercury from Nothing Specific About MerDuriaN recently commented the following in my post “My Traffic Is Gone! My Blog Is Dying!” which inspired me of this post on what to do when you are having nothing to write and don’t know what to do to help raising the quality of your blog.

Nothing to do when you want your blog to be good is something that is impossible for me. I will share a list of 10 things that you can do when you think you are idle in your blogging.

Bloghopping
This is actually a great thing to do. There are nearly 100 million blogs out there and it is impossible for you to tell me that there is nothing to be visited. Visiting other blogs can make you relax, know what is happening out there and upgrade yourself with knowledge.

By applying the 6 Arts Of Commenting On Articles, signing in to your MyBlogLog account and start to bloghop can actually bring in lots of traffic! Do me a favor, try visiting 10 new blogs everyday, in the end you will have a long list of blogs which will keep you busy for sure. ;-)

Continue reading 10 Ways To Fill Up Blogging Idle Time [Part 1]

Oct
10

I hope you didn’t forgot my post, “Priority Besides Blogging” which I wrote about how am I going to suit my blogging routine into my stressful college life. My test is just over and don’t be shocked that in less than two weeks’ time, I will be announcing that I am having my mock examination! The mock will be the examination before my “Examination For Graduation” and you can see how serious things will become.

Smiling Delighted Sun

I used to say that time is always not enough, especially you want to earn extra money through blogging like me and you will need to guarantee your future with such a difficult course. I have a great news to tell all my readers and I hope you all will keep me going and motivated. I managed to pass all my papers once again and I have find the right amount of time for all my routine activities. The marks of my papers are being leveraged, improved, made me happy and I am still blogging everyday!

This is a great feeling and I just can’t describe how I am feeling now. Over my pre-test and test week, I am really pressured. It’s not only because of the test but the week itself is all about Wordpress 2.3 upgrade and all the buzz on PayPal. The most popular posts in my blog are all generated in that one week. The following posts were proudly generated during the busy week:

Continue reading Squeezing Studies And Blogging Together

Sep
27

I don’t know anyone of you faced this. Most of you, guys and girls are here because you blog. No matter how many time you have dedicated to blogging, I am sure there are still some time for your other daily routines and you have other things to pursue for. How high “blogging” is in your daily life activities ranking? You rank it as your top priority or you don’t care about it at all or is it between something and something?

When you look at my blog, how high will you think I rank blogging in my life? I am not sure what you all think but I rank two things high up in my priority, my studies and blogging. Do you think this is possible? Trying to write a “quality” post (if you think it is) everyday and surfing the blogs of all my wonderful visitors, blogging is more than just a hobby for me, it’s like part of me! I don’t call it a job and I don’t like people calling me part-time blogger either because I don’t buy food and pay my hostel rent with the money I earned, my dad is the one paying for my food and shelter.

I admit it is hard to give both studies and blogging the “TOP PRIORITY” tag at the same time and it will be even harder for extra things to join this two blokes in the “TOP PRIORITY” category! My studies was once in risk because of blogging and guess what, the past four days I am having exams and it was the Wordpress 2.3 Upgrade and I am teaching under 18 readers how to verify a PayPal account.

What blogging will cost me this time?

Continue reading Priority Besides Blogging