Making Money

Blogging For The Money: Don’t just do it for the money! Enjoy it…

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It’s true, I’m not a mommy blogger, nor even a mommy, nor even a woman… but can a ‘mommy’ or ‘daddy’ blogger make any money with SocialSpark? In this post, I’m sorry to disappoint some of you! After using SocialSpark for about three months on and off, it really depends!

It depends on a number of factors, some of which you can control and some of which you can’t. I offered several projects on PayPerPost a few months ago, and I found some Mommy Bloggers who were trying to do that! Let’s welcome Roselle, who gave me a great write-up on her blog! Thanks,…

roselle

Have a good audience, or get one!

If you’ve been blogging for a while, you will already likely have a good audience, but for those of us starting out, getting our blogs noticed can be a nightmare! But to get a better chance of posts, finding an audience for your blog is going to be very much the core task. If you have a better ranking or status, you’ll find it much easier to find good opportunities! Also, having a good audience means that you will be understand your blog’s purpose.

Choose the right niche!

When you start blogging it’s quite likely that you haven’t got a clear focus or niche to work on. Worse, after blogging for a while you find that you want to refine your niche even more! Don’t fret: perhaps you are just discovering your true interests. Blogging like that really helps bloggers to find their true focus. But do be aware of the more popular or more focused niches, and try to find your niche early!

Don’t just blog for the money!

The challenge when doing Social Spark is not to blog for the money, get the money and run! You have to really work at your posts to capture the essence of the opportunity, refine it, and work it in to the theme of your blog, the interest of your readers, and the requirements of the advertisers. I’ve actually purchased a few and found that some posts were really poorly written – didn’t engage the reader, but simply filled the MINIMUM requirements! N! After writing 181 opps over the past couple of years on many blogs, I’m now beginning to understand how to do this.

Show commitment to your blog!

Oddly, this is perhaps the one thing that beginning bloggers don’t think about: SHOW commitment to your blog! Be proud of it, dress it up, tidy it up, care for it … it’s YOUR BLOG, it’s YOUR BABY! There are a number of ways you can show your commitment:

  • #1 buy your own domain name – nothing shouts ‘amateur’ more than http://***.bravejournal.com or http://***.blogspot.com – It’s only $10! Yes, $10!
  • #2 use a theme, any theme, NOT the default theme on your blog. Try to personalize it even a LITTLE!
  • #3 keep an eye on your grammar and spelling! It irks a lot of readers to see words “spled rongli”.
  • #4 get an email address or contact form on your blog, anywhere, somewhere…

People are going to be dropping by your blog, so you really do want to try to put your best foot forward, right? Who knows where your blogging adventure will lead…? A new house, a new job, a new life…? If you think this is for you, sign up with SocialSpark, and try it out!

Sponsored by SocialSpark

The DEAL – Would you buy an extra car parking space?

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I was emptying the mail at school today, when I picked up a flyer that had a picture of a car on the front. I scanned the Chinese, immediately noting that they were offering parking lots for sale in our building. So I began to wonder if it’s a good way or not to make a little extra cash.

The DEAL

Quite simply: one parking lot is available for approximately NT$550K. That would allow you to park one car there wherever the lot is located in the building.

The Opportunity

Once purchased, you would be able to rent out the lot to whoever you can find. If the lot is located on the B2 floor, you could probably rent it for NT$2000 per month. For the lot located on the B3 floor, you might manage to earn about NT$1700 per month.

The Costs

There are of course costs associated with this kind of purchase: transaction and other one off costs. When the deal goes through, you’ll face the challenge of finding customers, too. On a regular basis, you will need to pay NT$200 per month in building fees that are applicable to all car parks in the building. There aren’t any upfront taxes I’m aware of, other than the requirement to report your income.

How much can you earn?

Over one year, and assuming you cover the building fees, you’d likely earn about NT$18600 or so. This would amount to a gross return on investment of 3.38%. Additionally, you may be able to sell the car park at some future point in time, which might earn additional growth in the value of a carpark. If your client pays the building fees, then you could make an additional NT$2400 pa., earning 3.81%. You may also be able to purchase the lot at a slight discount of 5%, improving your ROV nicely to about 4.01%

What is the highest interest rate?

I’ve been searching for ages, and I’ve found that the highest interest rate you can get at the moment in Taiwan is approsimately 2.65% for a 12-month CD at the post office. There are occasional offers marginally better than this, but since the Post Office is govt. backed it’s likely that this is the best you can get.

So, if you bought it straight up, your gross margin would vary from the minimum of 0.75% to a more respectable 1.36% vs. the post office rate.

There are a number of assumptions in this scenario that would warrant further note.

  • Could you rent the space out for 12 months EVERY month? It’s not likely, there are times the lot would be empty for sure, as you wait for your next client.
  • Rental units in this area of Tamsui are generally undersubscribed and there is a reasonable supply of spaces BUT several of the lots are above ground, and as property prices spiral, it’s likely those lots would be turned into apartment blocks which may or may not have open access parking.
  • The population in Zhuwei is certainly rising, and quickly, so this should also help property values in the medium to long term.
  • There isn’t a big office space market here yet, though, so finding a renter would likely mean that the renter is himself renting an apartment without a space. Many in our community do this already.
  • I’d certainly be happy to have another source of income from a parking lot; perhaps even two lots would help me reach a personal goal.
  • Mortgage such a lot might help improve returns on the purchase, but with mortgage rates nearly at 4%, it’s unlikely that you’d see much benefit. And rates are rising.

A final note: Taiwanese are happy to buy apartments and car parks for rental and rent them out at rates we would find worthwhile doing. For example, people buy a house @ NT$5 million and rent out the house for less than NT$15K per month. The amount wouldn’t even cover the mortgage if it was over 50% of the total. It’s a math that has ALWAYS puzzled me.

Would you do this deal? Let me what you think…

May Income on InvestorBlogger Dot Com

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This month has been pretty quiet on InvestorBlogger Dot Com, though we managed to notch up another better than average month. I’m facing one really big challenge right to creating additional revenue: a sheer lack of time. I have about 10~12 hours a week that I spend on this blog, but I’m beginning to see HOW much I have to do to make this blog better, and the time that I spend just isn’t my quality time at the moment.

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May’s Income’s broken down for you in the paragraph following this. As you can see, some categories are missing from last month as they are $0! That includes hosting, business and consulting categories. The income from my online activities fluctuates a great deal from month to month. The fluctuations seem to occur largely in the categories, but I’m now consistently earning about $500 per month longterm.

* Bank Interest: $28.00
* Dividend Income: $88.19
* Blogging: $163.50
* Advertising: $166.00
* Affiliate = $1.81
* Total = $447.50

*there are a few other residual sources but they generally don’t generate much, like Voxant, NetAudioAds, etc. that generate only a few cents a month. In addition, some sources that generate a lot one month, but nothing the next are not included.

There are three major obstacles I’m facing right now to building my income: time, knowledge, and experience. Unfortunately, the root cause of my failure to learn more is that I simply lack the time and energy to build much more than I currently have.

A good example is the hosting: I’ve a few clients that I’ve managed to keep over several years, but I’m just not finding the time to go out and market my service any more than I am right now. Affiliate income suffers just as much for the same reason. I’m even noticing how this blog is suffering from a lack of time that I have to put into it! I know more needs to be done, but after a full day’s work running my own business, it’s difficult to summon the energy to blog extensively AND run the online side of things.

I have three or four other blogs that are just languishing at the moment as well. Each of them could be a viable blog if I was able to muster the time and resources to manage them. It’s quite clear that the model I have been pursuing the last few years is now reaching its limits; and I must seek to find new ways to manage these affairs.

I’ve been looking for a solution to manage my numerous blogs all through one interface: including full domains and subdomains as well through one installation of WordPress. I wonder if anyone knows if WordPressMU can handle this. For example, this list of blogs is…

  • https://www.investorblogger.com
  • http://www.eeeblogger.com
  • http://www.obblogatory.com

etc.. Could I manage all of these plus four others THROUGH one installation? I have nearly 2000 posts and options and files for dozens more that I could put up, but I would like to reorganize the entire database of posts, switching posts from one blog to another, until things are better organized. I’ve looked at three options: WPMU (too complex for me to figure out!), B2Evolution (unknown if it can work on different domains), Moveable Type (same problem) and Lyceum (same issue…)… I think one of these should do it, but I’ve been unlucky so far.

I’m also coming to the opinion that blogging like this on a daily basis isn’t the best way to make money online, even if one enjoys blogging (and I very much do!). So I’m now looking to monetize my stats in a different fashion… Suggestions?