Calvin's Hub » Blogging Experience

Calvin’s Hub is back, State of the Blog

Calvin — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:04:08 +0000

First of all, I’m glad to say that Calvin’s Hub is now back. To my handful of loyal readers, thank you for being patient. I guess I need to explain myself.

The thing that I’ve been fearing last week regarding this blog has finally happened. I got suspended again from my old hosting due to high CPU usage but there’s no second chance because they finally kicked me out with no refund (I still had 2 years to go with them).

The timing is kinda bad or good depending on how you see it. I was about to embark on a 9-day year-end vacation to Malaysia so I couldn’t really take care of the migration process. Abe helped me out but he’s also out of town so he couldn’t process it quickly. Then there’s also the 1 to 2-day wait for the new DNS to propagate and finally we’re here.

I guess it’s also a blessing because I just let the problem work out itself and not think about it which allowed me to enjoy our vacation. I’ll probably finish our trip before writing again unless I find myself with a lot of time to spare. And I’ll worry about getting the blog’s traffic back up next week. I hope Google would still remember me.

See you soon guys! Cheers!

Why a good support on your web host is important

Calvin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:13:15 +0000

Most of you noticed that my site was down yesterday. I was close to getting kicked out of my hosting provider (WebHostingPad.com) because suddenly my site started eating up a lot of resources which affects other sites within the same server.

I got suspended and it was not the first time so the admin told me to look for another provider where they can transfer my site. I appealed, telling them that I already paid for 3 years in advance and my site was working very smoothly for a long time prior to this incident.

So what happened really? What was the problem with my site? That’s the thing. They didn’t give me any explanations and I couldn’t log in to my cPanel to investigate. After a few more e-mail exchanges, they told me that a plugin script is eating up the resources. I asked them if they could reactivate my site so I can uninstall the plugin. I didn’t get a reply so I submitted another ticket and they addressed the issue.

They deleted the plugin and now my site is back up. I don’t know if that’s the cause of the problem or if there are other sources. Who knows maybe I’ll get suspended again in a few days and there’s no way for me to troubleshoot my site. Since my hosting is cheap, I don’t think they will take the time to investigate for me either. I just hope we solved the problem already.

If your site is really important to you, don’t scrimp on cheap hosting like I did because if there will be a problem, you might have a hard time communicating with support… or worst, you won’t get any support. Read reviews with excellent support, preferably 24/7 and also offers Live Chat.

If you can’t afford those better hosting site, the only advise I could give you (which I should be following as well) is not to tweak your site a lot. Don’t put too much plugins and don’t update your plugins just for the sake of updating. I did a mass update on my plugins prior to the suspension so I guess that caused the problem. Or you could just stick to BlogSpot. Hehehe.

How to create your Google+ Page

Calvin — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:22:49 +0000

You’ve probably heard already that Google+ is now accepting Pages already. Before, it’s just profile and if you create a profile for your brand, Google will promptly delete it. Now with Google+ Pages, you can create as many pages for your brand, store, web site, band, or whatever as you like on your profile.

Creating is easy but I didn’t know where to start at first. However, if you look at the bottom right part, there’s the link that will direct you in creating a Google+ Page. Or click here instead.

Next thing you need to do is choose a category. For blogs, you might want to pick Others.

Then fill up the fields – name of the page and the optional URL. Click Create and you’re all set!

Now when you go back to your main Google+ page, you will have the option to use Google+ as your page so every time you comment on something, people will see it coming from your page instead of your profile.

It’s also nice to know that sharing links on your Page stream will also show a summary and thumbnail of the post, just like in Facebook.

There’s still no way to use a name for your Google+ Page URL unlike Facebook but I hope they will come up with one soon. Right now, your page URL is comprised of a series of numbers you probably won’t memorize. Might as well use a link shortening service if you want to share it to someone or put it on your business card.

Oh boy. Another social network account to maintain if you want to be serious in your blog. Hehehe. Go ahead and add Calvin’s Hub to your circle and give it a +1 will ya!

5 ill-suited topics to boost your blog’s traffic

Calvin — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:30:08 +0000

Is your blog stuck on a rut? Blog traffic stagnating or even declining? Do you need help fast? Sorry to tell you that there’s no easy way to boost your blog traffic without sacrificing your content and what your blog stands for. But if you wish to go to the dark side, why not blog about these ill-suited topics continuously for a couple of weeks and see your blog traffic rise.

Here’s an important caveat though – don’t expect other bloggers to respect your blog. Blogs should be personal, or have a personal voice. Not just a place where you put random information just because TONs of people will be searching for them.

So here we go…

1. Showbiz scandals

Who doesn’t love showbiz? And what more if it’s scandalous. Gossip is hot in the real world and it will also drive traffic to a blog. If it works for popular showbiz magazines then it should work for your blog. It doesn’t have to be lewd. It could be a simple upskirt photo of this famous star or maybe this alleged mistress of this married actor.

Your conscience tells you: Leave this to showbiz sites. The world doesn’t need another Perez Hilton wannabe.

2. Streaming videos

Got a link to the latest episode of Gilmore Girls or Bleach? Or a streaming video of the latest UFC match? Or maybe a live telecast of Big Brother? Those are just a few types of videos that people look for online. Those who don’t have access to a pay-per-view of a marquee fight will diligently search for streaming videos on the net. Go feed their needs.

Your conscience tells you: Really? Do you call your blog a blog if it’s full of TV episodes? Korean shows? Anime shows? If I want anime, I’ll go to sites like Crunchyroll thank you.

3. Latest mangas

Well it seems that a lot of people still don’t know of sites like OneManga that we find download links to popular mangas on high-traffic blogs week after week. If you want, choose the top 3 mangas (Naruto and Bleach comes to mind) and post links the latest chapter on your blog every time it becomes available. Refer to OneManga for the links.

Your conscience tells you: Does your blog address have the word “naruto” or “anime” or “manga” on it? Unless you write a personal opinion or review on this week’s Naruto manga, forget about it you copy-paster you.

4. Game cheats

A lot of people plays games. And a good number of them are stuck and would look for cheats or walkthrough. Choose a popular game and google for cheats and re-post it on your site, rinse and repeat and see your traffic grow and your blog health dip. You’re better off starting with games that a lot of kids play because they are not as patient as grown ups when it comes to playing the game on their own. Facebook games perhaps?

Your conscience tells you: Have you actually played the game? Not just created a character that you already forgot about?

5. Exam results

I really can’t blame people for doing this. The official examination body is not that quick enough to post results or their site is not SEO-friendly yet to be searchable. So what bloggers do is post and repost the exam results on their blog because you know, a lot of board and bar examiners go to the internet for the results. And so does their relatives, friends, drivers and postman. That’s a lot of traffic.

Your conscience tells you: Really? Do you really need to post the results on your blog? Why not just tweet the results of the official link to your readers?

I’m sure there are more unpopular topics that you can use to boost your traffic but these are sure-fire ways. Just do them for a couple of weeks and see your traffic increase. It’s also a chain effect so if you rank well on exam results, eventually you will rank well on those TV episodes you’re posting.

So you may be asking, why am I sharing this? Why am I spreading this “dark magic” to bloggers? Well I’m sure maybe one or two of you will try this out on a new blog and probably get some Google AdSense money from it. So that should help you a bit. Secondly, I want to saturate the blogosphere with these types of “blogs” to have them compete with one another so that readers and advertisers will realize that it’s not all about the traffic.

Peace!

A blogger’s journey earning through his blog

Calvin — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:54:29 +0000

I originally started to blog not to earn money but just to write about things and share it with friends. Soon after, I found out that there’s money (although not a lot) to be made from blogging. Sounds like something you’ve experienced?

If you’re interested how I started from blogging for nothing to earning tens of dollars per month (just kidding) then read on. I’m going to divide the journey of earning via blogging into three phases: Fledgling Writer, AdSense Builder, and Ads Magnet.

Fledgling Writer

As most of you have experienced, when I decided to earn through blogging, the first thing I did was to add Google AdSense on my blog hoping to start earning some bucks. And as most of you have also experienced, there’s no money in AdSense for at least the early part of your blog. A dollar a month just doesn’t sound too alluring.

But I want to earn fast even just to pay for my domain and web hosting. So I did sponsored posts or also known as paid posting. I applied to a lot of sponsored posts services and wrote about anything that’s assigned to me. $3 per post sounded good at that time. I was averaging $5 per week and I was happy that I’m not shelling out cash from my pocket to maintain my blog.

Then it gets tiring. Writing about nurse scrubs, debts and loans, it was not doing any good to my blog’s traffic. I tried to wean myself from sponsored posts and just accept $10 assignments and up.

AdSense Builder

While being choosy in accepting sponsored posts, I found myself getting better at writing. I started writing about things that really interest me or things that I think would be of value to people, not necessarily my readers and friends but people searching for things on the internet.

I began writing my travel guides and iPod Touch guides. With this move, I noticed that my blog traffic was getting better and my Google AdSense was slowly picking up. At this point, I stopped writing those sponsored posts that doesn’t interest me at all or would not fit on my blog. My AdSense earning was enough to pay for my blog.

That was my next focus. Bring in more traffic to build up my AdSense. I did some SEO tweaks and started writing less personal posts and more relevant and generic ones. I was getting $3 – $5 a day in AdSense. I also created another blog to get multiple earnings but I grew tired of it. What I noticed though is that once you start neglecting your blog, AdSense earning also drops. Hmmm.

Ads Magnet

Sometimes, AdSense just won’t grow anymore. Or you will get banned if you’re not careful. Well Calvin’s Hub got banned from Google AdSense so I had to look for other means of income for this site. Luckily, the site was already stable in terms of traffic and healthy in terms of social media… and this brings us to our third phase.

You can say that your blog is starting to mature when people regularly visit it, and when ad buyers start contacting you to buy placement. Your blog is slowly turning into an ads magnet. Some text links could be had starting at $10 per month or banner ads can be had for $100 per month depending on your traffic and blog quality.

Here’s a tip, those who are looking for ad placement looks at the health of your blog. That is how engaging your posts are and how often people would post comments on it. This is very possible with the help of social media traffic instead of search engine traffic.

Conclusion

So that’s how I did it. I hope I was able to give you an idea on how you can earn from your blog. If you want to multiply your earnings, create another blog and aim on improving traffic to get better AdSense results or better yet, direct ads for some passive income.

My earnings are still not enough for me to quit my job but having extra money that allows me to buy something big every once in a while, or extra money to spend on a vacation trip is something that I love about blogging.

Images from Getty Images

Adbeans ad publishing network is not a scam

Calvin — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 07:34:38 +0000

Last December, I was contacted by Adbeans to run some ads on my site. I checked out their site and saw that it looks poorly-made. Very old school so I didn’t push through.

But they kept on insisting that I reconsider. Saying that the ad will occupy a dedicated spot on my site (like AdSense) but it will only be visible to users in specific locations. Sounds good, it won’t clutter my site with out-of-topic ads and I will earn from it (not too much though).

Eventually I did sign up. I didn’t see the ads but the code was there. After four months I checked my account and cashed out. Got paid a month later for £179.00. I wanted to write about it back then but I said I’ll give it another go first. Three months later, I cashed out again and recently got paid £125.00. That answers the question that Adbeans is a legit and not a scam publishing network.

Before you go to Adbeans and sign up though, keep in mind that I was approached for this one. I think my current set-up is not available to the public. However, they also offered me two types of link serving:

They will give you keywords that you incorporate in your posts (must be current) and each keyword costs $35. At least that’s the rate they gave me. It can go higher or lower.
They will give you a plugin that will add a paragraph with their links on it at the end of selected posts. You will have no control of the post they select and will compensate you $40 per month. Again, it can go higher or lower.

I didn’t choose any of the two. On the first one, I don’t like forcing myself to include a sentence that would fit Canary Islands or German hotels. And on the second one, I worked hard for my travelogues and I don’t want anything added onto it as part of content.

I declined both. They did asked me if I know any bloggers for tech and/or travel or finance who may be interested with putting up such ads for Adbeans.

So if you’re interested, shoot me a mail and I’ll hook you up with them. Only quality sites please or those with PR3 and up. They will still decide if your blog fits their requirement ok? My e-mail is in my About page by the way.

The guy that got me into tech blogging

Calvin — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:45:41 +0000

Having a tech blog these days is quite a challenge. It’s one of the hardest niche to be successful if you’re just starting out. You have to rely on online news for your stories, you have to buy your own gadget or borrow from friends and you worst of all, you have to compete with a lot of other tech blogs.

I’ve been blogging for the local tech scene for 2 years already with Pinoy Tech Blog (along with some friends). It is far from being a successful tech blog but it has shown a lot of improvements from the time the reins were handed over to me. I’ll get back to the person who did that in a bit.

First, what makes a successful tech blog?

A successful tech blog in my opinion is a blog with relevant and updated tech news (not just pure press release but something with your personal take), informative tech reviews, and a smattering of cool tech tidbits for good measure. Oh and lots of cool gadgets to show off.

So how can a newbie blogger accomplish all those things? Well you don’t. Not at first at least. Start small but be diligent and patient. Tackle hard but interesting and relevant issues. All it takes is to impress ONE person who has connections in the industry just to get you in and everything will snowball into place eventually.

For me, I had it easy. Way easy. That ONE person I know happened to be the biggest name (I think) and the most influential in the local tech blogging scene at that time (or even till now). I used to work with him about a decade ago for about a year. He was also my regular whipping boy in CS, StarCraft and WarCraft. Hehehe.

Anyway, I started Calvin’s Hub back in 2008. During that time, Abe of YugaTech approached me if I wanted to attend an tech event he can’t make knowing that I’m into gadgets and I started blogging. I believe it was a Samsung Omnia event and all he asked of me is to write it for Pinoy Tech Blog. He was maintaining two tech blogs that time and PTB barely gets updated.

I like to think the Abe was impressed with my writing. Hehehe. So he decided to invite me to more events he can’t attend. Eventually, he also brought me with him on events to represent PTB while he be Mr. Yugatech himself. I met a lot of friends in the industry, from companies, to PR agencies, to other tech journalists and bloggers. Finally, after a long time of being consistent writing for the blog, Abe handed me the reins to the it. And with that, PTB grew a lot from where it has been and I still enjoy writing for it along with some of our friends.

So why am I writing this? I don’t know, a good story maybe? I just want to thank my friend and blog mentor for helping me get ahead in this blogging world.

Let’s help this lil bugger win at the Tatt Awards

To return the favor, I would like to ask for a little of your time to vote for him as Tech Junkie at the Tatt Awards.

All you need to do is visit the Tatt Awards site, go to Tech Junkie and click Vote under Abe Olandres. A Facebook popup will appear and just give it access to complete the vote.

Abe also helped me win the Malaysia Trip before so this is also to return the favor. Maybe you could help him out here as well? He’s trailing way behind because he’s too lazy to campaign for himself. Hehehe.

Thank you friends!

The other side of the DTI – Blogger permit issue

Calvin — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 13:16:47 +0000

Bloggers, you may have heard of the hotly contested debate that cropped up when somebody asked DTI if bloggers need to secure a permit in order to run a contest. According to DTI, if it’s a contest or a raffle to promote a site or a brand, you need to have a permit to run it.

Quite stupid? That’s what a lot of bloggers say about it. And I mean a LOT! On the body interfacing with DTI’s defense, they say who will protect the interests of the contest participants if things go awry?

I’m going to play devil’s advocate here by siding with DTI but it doesn’t exactly mean I support them on this issue alright?

First, who will protect those who joins the contest? That’s a load of crap IMHO. Show me numbers on how many times people complain about online contests hosted by blogs out there. If I have to estimate probably 2% and most are probably petty complains that people wouldn’t want to lose sleep over. This reasoning just won’t sell. If ever a contest goes bad, it’s the blog who will lose more anyway.

I checked out DTI’s website regarding Sales Promotion and the only main reason why agencies are required to secure a permit is to assure the fairness, truthfulness and transparency of the declaration of winners.

Given that blogger’s contests are typically simple and the mode of declaring winners is usually via a randomizer, how could DTI ensure fairness and transparency there? Will a DTI representative stand behind a blogger as he clicks the submit button on Random.org? All that trouble for a measly P500 spa gift certificate?

Another thing we can also look at what DTI can do here is to protect people from being scammed by online contests. Hmmm, I don’t think so. By the time people can complain, it’s already too late to track a scam site and what can DTI do? It should be common sense that people should be wary when they have to spend something or give away sensitive information when joining an online contest.

Bottomline here is, there’s no other side to this issue. I really tried looking at DTIs perspective on this one but blog giveaways and contests are very different in scope compared to beauty pageants, mall promos where they give cars and house and lots. It just won’t sell. This is plain extortion.

I’m just curious, does anybody know if radio programs secure a permit every time they give away premiere tickets?

Improve Akismet by installing a conditional CAPTCHA

Calvin — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 02:28:44 +0000

If you’re on a WordPress blog, you probably experienced losing some legit comments to Akismet who puts them into your spam box. And if you’re lazy to sift through your spam box well consider those comments junk and you will lose a possible regular commenter.

I’ve had that problem and it’s driving me nuts especially if I run a contest that requires readers to comment. Akismet doesn’t have a feature to whitelist or unblock an email or IP address so here’s the next best thing, install a conditional CAPTCHA plugin.

For those who don’t know what a CAPTCHA is, it’s a type of security for online forms to filter out bots from real people filling up the form. You will be asked to solve a simple math problem, type the text shown on an image… I’m sure you got the idea. The problem is people might be turned off if they have to solve a CAPTCHA every time they would enter a comment.

This is where conditional CAPTCHA comes in. What it does is every time your Akismet decides to put a comment in the spam box, it will first ask a CAPTCHA question so that human commenters will have a chance to un-spam their own comment. Otherwise, comments are entered as usual. Quite clever huh?

Akismet is a powerful tool for a blogger to block spammers but sometimes, it’s just way too good. So do your blog a favor. Save those comments mistakenly marked as spam with this plugin.

How to withdraw PayPal funds to your bank in the Philippines

Calvin — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 14:57:39 +0000

I’ve been using PayPal as my funds when I want to buy things online and never found the need to withdraw from it until recently. I successfully withdrawn funds from my PayPal to my BPI account without any issues whatsoever.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Log in to PayPal and head over to the Withdraw link on the top menu.

2. You will be presented with two options: withdraw funds to your bank account or to your card. Choose the first one.

Take note that PayPal will charge you Php50.00 ($1) for withdrawals of less than Php7,000. There’s also a minimum withdrawal of Php500 ($10).

3. On the next page, enter the amount you wish to withdraw. You can choose to withdraw from a foreign currency but it will be converted to a local currency when it arrives in your account.

4. If you don’t have a bank account entered in your PayPal, it’s time to add one. Click the Add bank account link.

5. Make sure all the details you enter here are accurate or else the money will be returned to your account and you will be charged a return fee.

If your name is different from your bank account name, click Profile to change it. If you don’t know your bank’s code, refer to this post.

6. That’s it, click next and confirm and wait for your money to arrive.

It takes 4-5 business days before you will receive your money. Some banks will deduct an amount from your transfer from P150 – P200. For BPI, they took Php150 from me.