Femme Power

Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category

Calling all bloggers, young and old!

Show the world you care! Be a part of the “I Blog, I Care Movement.” Here are the rules on how to join:

1. Copy the “I Blog, I Care” badge and the rules (1 to 6) on this page.
2. Post these in one or all your blogs.
3. Tag/invite your other friends to join by sharing this with them.
4. Leave your post URL here: The Twitterer
5. For every fifteen (15) blogs joining the I Blog, I Care Movement, a $1.00 donation will be given to the International Committee of the Red Cross. You can also donate directly here: http://www.icrc.org.
6. Spread the love and show you care.

It’s 2010 finally and I hope this year would be better for all of us.  This year, I’m starting a new blog as I’ve been seriously contemplating on “killing” this femmepower blog…gradually.  Though I definitely love this blog and have been earning from it for some time now, I somehow feel that I have to move my blogging adventures to another domain, host and platform.   

Blogging on a subdomain doesn’t give me full control over my theme designs, plugins, etc.  I’m always at the mercy of the domain owner.  Plus I can’t get accurate figures from Alexa.  Alexa can’t detect the correct number of inbound links to my blog (instead of 66 links, Alexa only detects 8 and they’re all pointing to the main domain, not mine).  But despite that, I’ll always be grateful to my friend Adelle who gave me this subdomain more than a year ago so I could start blogging without the fuss. 

No, I’m not about to thoroughly stop posting here abruptly. I’m still weighing things out if it’s worth staying some more or totally move on to my new baby.  I’ve “met” good online friends and readers here in femmepower and that’s what attaches me to this blog.   So it’s not that easy for me to abandon and leave it for dead. 

So much for contemplating, I thank you all for visiting this site for the longest time.  Rest assured, I’ll keep you all posted when I’ve finally decided not to continue updating this blog anymore.  In the meantime, let me invite you to please visit my new blog love which I set up just today, the first day of the year!  I’m looking for blogs to include in my fresh and empty (almost) blogroll in my new blog, Mom Says, so please feel free to leave your links there.  I’ll be happy to see you there, really.  *hugs!*

Do you have a Facebook account? How about a PayPal account? Are you registered from any of these countries - India, Thailand, Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore?  If yes, then create your PayPal WishList now and start earning!

What to do:

Download this PayPal WishList application on Facebook and create your own WishList by simply clicking on the items you wish to have. Once you created your own PayPal WishList, you earn $1 plus you get $1 more for every referral who’ll download the PayPal WishList application under your invitation or referral link.  Easy, right?  I did it in just a minute.

Prizes
Earn up to $100 paid through your PayPal.

Let me quote the rest of the promo details from PayPal:

How Prizes will be Awarded
“You will be notified by PayPal no later than February 28th, 2010, via email or any other method as PayPal may from time to time determine, of how much you have earned.

Prizes will be credited to your PayPal account as per your submission to PayPal via the PayPal WishList, no later than February 28th, 2010.”

This promo runs until December 31st only so take advantage of this promotion now. That way, you still have time to invite your friends, earn more referrals, and earn more bucks.  Not a bad idea for something so easy and fun.

Create your PayPal WishList here now and start the New Year with money on your pocket. I’ve only joined yesterday and as of  now, I have  earned $3 from this promotion already…and still counting.  Yay!

Have you stumbled upon Globe Broadband’s new and exclusive add-on, Gloo?  Gloo is an online scrapbook collaboration website wherein users can chat, send SMS and MMS messages, doodle, share notes, videos, and pictures in REAL TIME.

Yes, finally there’s an online space where you can do all these without having to open several other applications or social networking sites. No, it’s not anything like Facebook, Sandbox,  or Twitter but it’s more of a real-time online collaboration website that is ideal for virtual group discussions (be it with friends, family, or business partners) because it is not only interactive but is also peppered with helpful tools that let you upload and share images and videos, scribble your thoughts and illustrations, and send MMS and SMS to your online contacts, all in one web application.  All these amazing features make a convenient and practical website if you’re having an online business meeting, or brewing a barkada gimik, or simply hooking up with your family.  While other platforms limit you to chatting or sending short online messages, Gloo lets you do more with all those mentioned features to aid you in your online presentation in a virtual business conference or a casual group discussion.  You can even listen to your favorite tunes and share them with friends and add things-to-do list and post-it notes on your page.

It’s practically handy as a collaboration tool for planning events, business meetings, barkada and family updates, or anything where virtual communication applies.

I’m a self-confessed technologically-challenged mom but using Gloo didn’t give me a hard time at all.   That’s my Gloo page’s screenshot you’re seeing at the top.  I just created an account for free and there I was concocting a reunion party with a friend who’s currently based in Dubai.  She said she could even view my notes, reminders, and pictures on my page while we were chatting so she was amazed.   Those “post-it-notes” could actually hold the discussion agenda and other important information about our reunion plan next time.

Interested? Inquire about Gloo and start enjoying its practicality for free.

I’ve been keeping tab of my visitors coming from Entrecard and Adgitize but I wanted to do more.  And that’s by showing my visitors’ links right on my homepage whenever they drop by.  So I recently added a widget by  TheBlogFrog on my left sidebar where anyone can link up by just adding their URL in it.  Just click on the line “Want to show up here?” and add your site or better still, join the BlogFrog community.  It’ll not only grow your blogging network but will also give your visitors good chances of getting clicked on, hence generating more traffic for them.  I believe it’s a good way of giving back to my frequent visitors and commenters.

I put a premium on quality traffic - those who don’t just drop and run but stay a while to read posts as well.  I usually leave comments on other blogs that interest me regardless if they comment back or interact with their commenters.  The reason why I don’t get to drop on 300 (Entrecard) blogs a day is because I take time to read a lot of the blogs I visit, though honestly, not all.  And I do appreciate those who take time to leave me comments so I usually leave them comments too.  But that’s not really because I feel like I owe them but it’s because their blog posts are worth commenting on, if you just read them instead of dropping and running.

I love my visitors and I feel that it’s high time to give back through this link love via TheBlogFrog.  I’ll be happy to see your links on my sidebar. *hugs*

By the way, you may have noticed that I changed my blog’s theme and most of the pictures are quite in disarray.  I’m still on the process of tweaking it.  I’m trying to do a blog makeover and hope that I could find a better-looking template very soon.  I’m also doing the same attempt on my other blog, femme.news.views.  That’s about it for now.  I’m about to scour the Net to find new ways to grow traffic and earn online.  Will update you about it soon.

For now, check out my TheBlogFrog widget at the left sidebar and show your links on this blog for free.

I’ve been blogging (and earning) for more than a year now but I do believe that I still have a lot to learn about blogging.   So last Sunday, sans the opportunity to watch the world-renowned Cotto-Pacquiao boxing match on TV, I tagged along a friend and went to attend a blogging 101 seminar at the World Trade Center in Pasay City.   And it was a good thing we did.

The iBlog mini summit discussed the basics in blogging for the benefit of those who are yet to start blogging and for the “newbies.”  But as one speaker pointed out, “There’s no such thing as newbies and professional bloggers. Once you blog, you’re a blogger.”  One of the points given emphasis was the blogging mantra “Content is king.” While everybody knows that, not everybody gives their best to provide quality content on their blogs all the time. (Ooops, guilty as charged!)

But the very topic that I went there for was traffic generation.  Surprisingly I’ve been practicing what were mostly discussed there except for one thing: SEO or Search Engine Optimization.

Wikipedia defines SEO as “the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” or un-paid (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion. Typically, the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine.”

While I’ve known its meaning and importance in traffic generation several months ago, I’ve never given any attention in optimizing my blog through it.   Mainly because I didn’t (and still don’t) know how.  The speaker said she finds out the key words that drive the most traffic to her site and in the process, she was able to come up with several niche blogs that are now generating thousands of traffic daily. Traffic is fundamental in monetizing your blog.  Higher traffic yields higher ad revenues.  And SEO helps bring in traffic.  Sadly, she wasn’t able to discuss the nitty-gritty process of optimizing one’s site.  So let me quote Wikipedia again to supplement some information, “SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.”  So since it involves editing HTML, I’m afraid it’ll take me some time to optimize my own blog. Wish me luck! *Wink*

Anyway, here are some photos of the event. My friend, whom I dragged to the event, was lucky to win a Philips Rice Cooker during the raffle.  I, meanwhile, almost had the chance to win a Crocs limited-edition camera if I was just fast enough to run to the stage for the “Bring Me” game.  It broke my heart to see the cute pink camera go to the faster guy. =(

Generally, the iBlog Mini Summit was well-handled.  The program went smoothly, the speakers were knowledgeable and the participants were served with ample snacks while listening to the talks of real bloggers.  Kudos to Ms. Janette Toral and her team!

I’m looking forward to future gatherings like this because I can never say I know enough about blogging. While I enjoy writing down my thoughts online, I also love the financial benefits it brings.  Even though my current  monthly income from blogging is just enough to buy me some groceries, it’s a big help to augment the family income and definitely better than nothing.  Isn’t it just wonderful to get paid for doing something that you love? Hopefully the next seminar I’ll attend to would be about monetizing one’s blog.  And I mean monetizing BIG TIME! Lol!

Yes, the voting officially closes tonight for the country’s most promising bands who could be the next big thing in the Philippine music industry.   MTV Emerge is a platform for unsigned music talents in the Philippines who are given the chance to show off their craft and win a 1-year recording contract for themselves under Jeepney Music plus a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be mentored by Apl.d.Ap of Black Eyed Peas.  MTV Emerge is also an online music community which is a haven for new Filipino music and wanna-be-recording-artists.

This project is an MTV, Jeepney Music, and Department of Tourism collaboration, which aims to give a shot for emerging Filipino artists to be discovered.  This gives underground bands the  opportunity to be the next big name in the Pinoy music scene and who knows, even worldwide.   Jeepney Music is Apl.d-Ap’s record label which also aims to give back to the Philippines and the world with its music.  It’s a vehicle for those new artists from any genre to be heard.

Having worked as a radio DJ for almost seven years, I’ve supported a number of local bands in the past by playing their self-produced records on my show (which was at that time top-rating, modesty aside).   Until now, I haven’t lost the heart for supporting emerging music talents because I do believe that all they need is just a chance —  A chance to showcase their talent, a chance to be heard, a chance to make it big one day.  And you, yes, YOU have the power to give them that chance.

There’s one entry from Mindanao that struck me the most entitled “God Bless Philippines,” written and performed by Rapnophobia.  Unlike other entries, “God Bless Philippines” is a fusion of rock and hiphop and the lyrics revolve around social issues that matter.  I’m impressed by their brand of music and their individuality.   May I also say that unlike other entries, they don’t sound like a copycat for a foreign band.  I also wanna give credit to their video for being well-edited and their recording clear.  Obviously, they gave their best shot in it.  Any fellow Mindanaoans and Pinoy “hardcores” (die-hard, nationalistic Pinoys) out there?  Vote for “God Bless Philippines” now or any music entry of your choice here.   These young, underground bands need your support.  Cast your votes now.