Batang Yagit started way back in 2006 when one of my orgmates in college started blogging in blogger.com. Out of curiosity, I left Friendster blogs and started my “Yagit na Bata” blog at blogger.com. It was during summer when I started blogging.

I chose the handle Batang Yagit because it’s catchy and I want people to be pleasantly surprised when they meet me.

2. How many blogs do you run or maintain? How do you keep up maintaining a number of blogs?

At present, I have around seven blogs which I solely own and run and several others in which I contribute. My personal blog, which is BatangYagit.com, contains blog posts relating to my everyday life experiences and blogging activities. My other blogs, like digitalputo.com, techykid.com and several others, specialize on certain niches. I have separate blogs for technology, photography, entertainment and other niches.
I am able to maintain my blogs with good time management. I schedule my blogging tasks well. I also collaborate with other bloggers so I am also able to share the work with them in some of my blogs.

3. As a blogger, what’s your greatest satisfaction?

As a blogger, I get the great satisfaction when I am able to leave an impression to my readers, most of which are anonymous to me. I often get embarrassed and proud when I encounter strangers who have read my blog.

Knowing that most of my readers enjoy my posts is also very satisfying. Most of my friends do not know about my online life and I get surprised when I receive text messages telling me that they read and enjoyed my entries.

The most satisfying thing, however, is getting recognition for the efforts I have exerted for my blogs. Just this year, Batang Yagit received two major blogging achievements, the Philippine Blog Awards’ Bloggers’ Choice Award and the Digital Filipino’s and Ratified.org’s Top 100 Blogs in the Philippines.

The former is an awarded to the blogger with most number of votes from other. It’s an honor for me as a blogger to receive this award since it was the Philippine blogging community who chose me to be this year’s winner of the Bloggers’ Choice Award.

The latter, on the other hand, is recognition that my blog is one of the top blogs in the Philippines in terms of Ratified.org’s metrics including traffic, number of subscribers, and site’s popularity according to Technorati and Alexa.

4. What important blogging lessons have you learned so far in the years that you’ve been blogging?

No Blog is an Island as No Man is an Island. For a blog to grow, you need to interact with the community. Creating connections and befriending other bloggers contribute a lot in the growth of one’s blog. Moreover, a blogger must grow as a person for his blog to continue improving.

5. Can you share precious tips to your fellow bloggers (oldtimers & newbies alike) on blogging successfully, and for profit?

For you to be successful in blogging, you must provide your readers good and read worthy content. You should make your visitors feel that your blog deserves to be visited. And also, update your blog on a regularly because its gives your visitors a reason to return to your blog.
If you are pursuing earning from blogging, increasing your blog’s traffic is the first step in earning money from your blog. You must at least learn the basics of search engine optimization and internet marketing. Search Engine Optimization or SEO can help increase the visibility of your blog in the search engine results page. Even if your blog’s content is good, it will be useless if it’s left unread.

6. Your thoughts on blog monetization. For example, is it really possible to leave one’s daytime job to pursue blogging, and how does one go about it?

Making money out of blogging is not a bad thing. I started earning from my blog a year ago when I started accepting writing assignments from a local internet marketing company in the country. The income was not big but it’s enough to put a smile on a Yagit’s face. I used my blogs’ earnings to pay my internet bills, web hosting and domain fees.

After learning several Search Engine Optimization concepts later, I learned that what I previously did with my blog did not help my blog in any way. First, creating irrelevant content drives away your site’s visitors. They are looking for your ‘original content’ and not some articles you were paid to write. Secondly, it harms your blog from the search engine’s point of view. In layman’s term, your blog loses credibility when you start writing content irrelevant to what you normally write. The search engine loses trust in you, thus, it gives your blog a lower rank on the search engine results page.

There are many methods in which you can earn from blogging as much (or much more) as what you normally earn from a regular daytime job. If the possibility is in question, then my answer would be “Yes, it is possible.” For a hardworking and dedicated blogger, earning twice as much as your daytime salary is possible.

But in my own opinion, I don’t recommend the idea of quitting your daytime job in order for you to accommodate and pursue blogging. Blogging income is very seasonal. It always depends on the market’s trends, the demands of the internet community that is. Unlike with a normal job, blogging does not offer Government benefits, social security, and other benefits available only to a daytime job.

7. Any blogging principles you live by?
Thou shall not steal the content of others.

8. Do you look up to somebody when it comes to blogging? Who is this and why?

When there’s a person (or people) I look up to when it comes to blogging, it would be the people (Ria of riajose.com, Andrew of alleba.com, Blogie of angdabawenyo.com and Migs of migsmobile.net) behind the Mindanao Bloggers, Inc. (http://www.mindanaobloggers.com). They were the ones who gave me inspiration to blog. They taught me the ideals in blogging for the community. I also learned from them on blogging the advocacy of lifting Mindanao’s image on the internet. Most of the values with regards to blogging that I use now were learned from them.

9. Please tell us more about your highlights for 2008 and your plans as a blogger.

My blogging highlights for 2008 include the events I or my group organized. These are the Davao Food Appreciation Tour, Word Camp Philippines, and Visayas Bloggers, among others. I also consider my Bloggers’ Choice Award and the DigitalFilipino.com and Ratified.org Top 100 ranking as highlights for 2008.

As a blogger, I plan to create and provide useful and relevant content online. I also plan to pursue helping the Visayas Bloggers organize and expand their community. I will also continue supporting the Mindanao Bloggers and be active in their activities, even if I am not based there anymore.

Related Posts

1. Batang Yagit Tips: Blog Hosting for Starting Bloggers
2. New Blog Design for Batang Yagit
3. Earning through blogging
4. Si Batang Yagit sa taong nagdaan
5. Taking into account Batang Yagit in the previous year
6. Batang Yagit on Facebook and some other things
7. DigitalPuto: A new Batang Yagit blog
8. Batang Yagit for October Pinoy Blog of the Month
9. The Batang Yagit 2009 Year-end Post

Tagged with: batang yagit, batangyagit, blog-o-rama, blogorama, features, manila bulletin, Personal, print, publicity

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 and is filed under Personal. This entry was visited 3017 times, 3 so far today. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. .

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