Best posts made by crxssrazr93

If it makes money while you're not working on it aka while you sleep or doing anything else, that's what I liked to call real "passive income".

In this topic, we are going to look at how one can blog and convert it into something that generates revenue for you.

I will divide this guide into a few sections;

1) How do you blog/ Is blogging right for you?
2) What do you need to start blogging?
3) How to use your blog to generate revenue.
4) What next?

1.How do you blog/ Is blogging right for you?

When you think of blogging, what actually comes to your mind?

Blogging is a process where people document their upon on a certain niche, it can be anything, but the main important factor is that it should be something you are truly passionate about!.

When it comes to blogging, there are no shortcuts, no tricks or get famous quick tips.
You won't be able to blast 1000's into your account everyday within days of starting blogging. If this is what you're looking for, this isn't for you. You have to look elsewhere.

People from all over the world tune in, and keep themselves with blogs out there because the passion and value the authors put out is something they adore and want.

Notice how the words "passion", "value", "adore", "want" are in bold?

Passion = Effort = Value = Benefit = Adore/Appreciated = Want.

Passion brings in hardwork and commitment, which breeds value and insight, which is what people would rather have, appreciate and want.

Time is money, and so is their attention.

Most people who blog and fail, do not put in the hard work, commitment, are not consistent, and their content has no value, need or want in them.

People would ignore you and move on if there isn't something you can provide them with.

This is the basis of figuring out whether you are ready to embrace all these rules and condition and move on forward.

2. What do you need to start blogging?

One of the most important thing we need to start blogging is to select a niche, as discussed earlier. If you haven't figured it out already, stop right now, do your research and make sure you have a niche to start blogging on.

The next most important thing you need to start blogging is "content".

Preferably you would want to write articles, a good word count would be between 1000-3000 words for starters.

Please pay attention to detail, grammar, and the choice of how you word your articles. Use pleasant, neutral language and DO NOT offend, criticize or involve yourself into any slurs of any kind, be it religious, racial, or of any sort.

Do not copy paste content from elsewhere. If you'd like, you can rephrase articles you find on the internet, or any other source but do not ever plagiarize from anywhere and provide appropriate references when necessary.

Use images, videos related to your topic as much as possible but don't over-do it.
The key is to strike a balance. People should visit your blog for what they can't find anywhere else, and that is, YOUR OPINION.

So make it count!.

Try to write 40-50 articles a day, YES A DAY!.

It was never going to be easy.

If you can do that much per day, commit yourself to do atleast 60-90 articles per month.

For 3 months straight.

That means, 2-3 articles per day. Let's imagine 1 article takes 2 hours to write?
That means 4 hours of no social media from your day, no procrastination or wasting time watching cat videos or tv dramas.

At the end of 3 months, you will have between 180-270 articles of fresh content.

Now you have an idea about the content you will need to start off.

Next you need to already have a platform to host your articles.

There are many platforms available.

I will not discuss them here, however, I will talk about what I would choose if I was someone like you, and why.

Self-Hosted Wordpress Blog

Most of you all know Wordpress or might have heard of it.

Wordpress is one of the most popular Content Management Systems out there that has a big array of plugins, themes and many ways to enhance your blogging experience.

This is how I'd suggest you use Wordpress and start blogging.

1. Buy a domain of your choice with a name that suits your theme or niche. Please be patient and take your time when doing this. This is the personal image you give to the website and so you must take care about this.

2. Next you need hosting. While many would suggest a paid shared hosting of any sort, when you're starting off, you will spend most of the time writing and publishing articles for the first 3 months. You already paid some amount for a domain, and honestly, you will not need all the features of a paid hosting as of yet as your traffic will be less at first and you won't need the extras. Grab a freehosting like the one at freehosting.com. I used them as well as can recommend them. Should be okay until you're ready to go full on with a paid hosting. And once you're ready, you will know to not cheap out here and get the best hosting pack for your value than you may think you can get with the cheapest one out there.

3. Install Wordpress and get familiar with it. There are two ways of doing this. Either running Wordpress Live by installing on your host and running it from there, or use a WAMP or LAMP stack and run Wordpress locally to get used to it. I will demonstrate how to run Wordpress locally if you can't figure it by googling or youtube'ing it :).

4. Install a Theme and spend some time customizing it to your liking.

5. Install Google Analytics on WordPress. This is to track traffic sources.

You can then decide on writing and publishing your posts/articles.

Now that you have a platform to start blogging,

You will need to bring traffic into your blog.

You can do this by;

• Promoting on Social Media.

• Linking your posts on other groups, email newsletters, etc,

• Use those articles while responding to people on Forums such as Quora , Related Forums , Submit it to Reddit with various different accounts, ask friends to up-vote. Start Self-Promoting your content as much as possible.

• From the Web

• Etc

The first two would easily make sense, but the most important one you should be aware of, is how to grab from traffic from the Internet itself.

Ask yourself this question.

What is the best you can find out anything on the internet?
By Searching for it!.

Let's say you make a google search for something...
You see the most related query to your search term at the very top and the ones most similar to it will be in the first page.

How does Google know which website to show up in the first page and what isn't the best to shown?

It's done by something called SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.

In simple terms,
It is the process of placing content and keywords in your posts and content in such a way that, when Google crawls your website, it knows to show your page when certain keywords in your article/page match the search query in their searches. This is how people find websites when they search on Google.

I highly recommend and suggest everyone to read up and understand how SEO and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) works, and how you can optimize your page for the best results. It is a deep but very critical element to successful blogging.

Once you have these in place, let's move on to what you have been waiting for all along :) .

3. How to use your blog to generate revenue.

To make money, you NEED traffic.

Since you should have traffic on your blog by now due to all your hard-work,

Here is a list of what you can do to make money;

1. CPC/PPC Ads: Cost Per Click or Pay Per Click ads that you can place in your blog where you get paid for each click someone makes on your site.

2. CPM Ads: Cost Per Impression Ads are ads you place in your where you get paid for each person who views the ad on your site.

Google AdSense is the best form for the above types of ad placement programs.

3. Private Ads: This is similar to those large advertisement boards which says "Space to Lease". You can rent out a place on your blog to other where you display their ads and get paid in return.

4. Affiliate Marketing: There are many ways and services to use Affiliate Marketing. Basically, you are presented with an Affiliate Link that tracks when someone purchases an item through that link, you receive a commission from them in return.

5. Sell Digital Products: You can sell digital products like Ebooks, online courses, apps, etc. and earn that way.

6. There are other niche related revenue methods I will talk about in another post another time maybe.

4. What next?

Let's imagine you have successfully built your website, you have great content, have 10000s regular of visitors, have set up adverts and such and it brings you cash.

Now what? What does the future hold for you?

To explain properly, let's assume your blog is about "Men's fitness"...

You can start getting paid to review and market other brand products.
You can reach out to a company and tell them,

Hey I run a blog on Men's fitness, and have 10000s of organic visitors per day. Would you be interested in featuring your products on our blog?Here's what we charge per post and you are welcome to talk and take this through with us. We are based in so and so country, etc.

At the same time, you can start a Youtube Channel related to your blog, create a video, post it on Youtube, link it to your blog too.

Remember, you signed up and got the products to review as an article but you are offering a free video review for them no questions asked. This is something that will not go unconsidered from their side and you can work togather with them further it works out great.

Slowly you can start building your Youtube Channel by bringing traffic from your blog as well as directly from Youtube itself.

You can do giveways and such. There are so much you can do if you give in hard thought into this and work hard and stay committed to it and not give up. This doesn't happen overnight.

There is so many ways you can make money online. The best most profitable ones don't happen overnight.

I am planning to shed some more light on other passive/income methods you can work on online. See you guys next time.

Share your feedback and insight in the comments section so I can do better next time. I don't do article writing very much. I prefer 1:1 discussions so if you have any suggestions, do let me know.

If there is anything you'd like me to work on as my next post, let me know.

Anyone up for a brainstorm session on starting up an eCommerce/online store?

Anyone can contribute here. Whether you are a casual user of sites like AliExpress, Ebay, etc or even Sri Lankan user-bases like Daraz, Kapruka, Simplex, etc, or someone who sells your products online on ikman.lk or Facebook, Instagram or even through Whatsapp/Viber...

You are all amazing people and we'd like to create a platform for everyone to use whether it be to purchase or sell, we want to provide you with a more professional and a less frustrating way that does not make you run or worry for your money's worth.

Let's face it. The only thing that is holding back Sri Lanka from being the "Digital Pearl" of the Indian Ocean, is because are all trying to be desperate on trying to earn quick bucks and are so focused on how we can make ends meet, living from paycheck to paycheck.

And I can't blame you. We are all the same. The economy of this country simply always cannot afford to pay our fullest worth and this makes it more and more important for us to be able treasure every single cent we earn. It's yours, and you have every right to enjoy it and get it's fullest value too.

Researching upon many flaws and shortcomings of the current digital e-commerce ecosystem, it was clear to me why we all fell short in this.

The main reason?

No passion in the service being provided.

As I said earlier, raising costs, price inflation and currency exchange rates increasing rapidly, taxation costs, etc make it frustrating for any casual online buyer like you and me to trust some vendor on the internet, be it our very own countryman or some foreign corporation to be assured of whether our demands will be addressed in a fair manner, such that no customer ends up dissatisfied. You simply cannot succeed if you remove the customer out of the equation and only see them as a piggy bank for your business. They are the greatest asset and the very backbone of your business, whether you choose to realize that or not.

You might be wondering, will this ever become a reality?

Yes! Ofcourse it's doable.

To be honest with all of you, I spent the last quarter of 2018 on studying, analyzing both international and local ecommerce solution providers, and their response management, customer feedbacks, complaints and other various aspects and we learnt quite a lot.

I tried to start off on my own, but I soon realized that my vision and my capability to provide value and service to my customers will be limited if I stood alone.

So we have decided to involve the public too! We need your help to make this a reality! , be in providing insight on your experiences, or expressing your interest in joining us as a partner or contributor, or even by simply spreading the word out to everyone you can.

Our plan so far has loads of potential for growth, market expansion with an exciting road-map ahead, with possibly global market expansion too!.

This is a tried and tested approach (on small scale testing ofcourse) that revolves around solving some of the major issues that many Online Stores in Sri Lanka suffer from a consistent basis.

An uncommon route that is rarely taken because, it's "not so easy" but very profitable and a real game changer on the long run if done right.

We aren't looking for a large group to kick-start this up, hence is why this form is very detailed, strict and concise, however we solemnly invite everyone to participate. We will shortlist the best of the best in this venture.

We intend on doing 1:1 interviews online and figure how we can best work it out with each other.

Participate in the form below if interested;

http://bit.ly/E-Commerce-Online-Brainstorm-Form-Invite

Please share on your walls and get the word out! We want to revolutionize the Sri Lankan E-commerce Industry and thus invite you to take part in the progress forward.

It'll only take a few minutes to fill out the form (for interested parties), and only a few seconds to copy, paste and share on your social media!.

This is done for you, by you.
So let's all come forward to bringing this dream of us Sri Lankans to reality.

@lkdev

Make sure php-fpm is already running on the background...

Then, change your listen 80; to listen 127.0.0.1; .

These days, we see a lot of workshops, certifications, programmes, even degrees and higher qualification trends happening and since "hacking" sounds exciting or thrilling to most of the youth in our society, they'd naturally be curious and spend a lot of money or effort into this but sadly, very rarely do they know how to approach this correctly.

If you wanted to get into the Networking fields,

You could start off with CCNA, or take the ICND1 and ICND2 exam after which you are CCNA qualified, whereas later on you can do CCNP and establish a more better ground on the aspect or focus on other various qualifications out there.

When it comes to cybersecurity, however, despite needing a networking background and a more established knowledge in systems and operations, there's not much of a well refined career path known to most.

Some suggest starting off with CCNA, then with the Security module, then CEH, CHFI, etc.

I'd like to know from those in the Industry today about how they'd go about with this regard based on the knowledge they have now, and what you'd suggest for any reader here who'd come knocking by wanting to step foot in this path.

I haven't posted in a while since life has got me busy but I understand that there are many who are looking to get into e-commerce or want to start a side job or own business for some extra income.

This may not be directly related to technology but it is more about developing and enhancing our lives. I wrote this for another forum but decided to share it across here as well.

This is a disclaimer for those who are new, or looking to start drop-shipping or e-commerce.

Winning products are the least of our worries and besides, it's a dangerous factor to bet on. A winning product is capable of becoming a saturated one way too quick and shit goes south.

Esp if you are starting new.

Here what you can do to start off.
I guarantee you that those who are looking to rich quick or lazy will not follow through any of this.
If you want to develop the right processes and methods to be smart when you select products read through.
This is assuming you have found the right supplier.

A good marketer knows to take any sensible product and make it boom given the right resources and time.
A good thing that goes into finding a product of that is to break it down.

Base it on factors like;

• Need,
• Desires,
• Demand,
• The problems that revolve around it,
• What pain points does it touch,
• Emotional relations with it,
• What makes people want it so badly (or how can you?),
• Are you able to get people talking about it?, what do you need to do make that happen, etc.

A huuuge portion of how well you sell is dependent on how you get the product+brand across to the customer.

What aura you create around them, and so forth.

Choosing a product you can break down may seem difficult at first and rightly so.

This why you need to either create an environment around your niche or be part of one or many, so that when you need data or information, you will be responded to.

Creating this is the hardest part imo (As well as ad spend too).
Because you need to get real people be in your circles.

People buy with emotional and social triggers as well as availability triggers too. Exploit them!

I promise you, if you want to do this right, it will test your time, patience, and will want to make you give up.

If you give into that feeling, you are not cut out for this.

Many people fail at drop-shipping and eCommerce in because they don't understand the weight of it. This is a full time business for a lot of people. If you think you can get by with a little effort and a lot of shortcuts at the beginning, you are making a big mistake.

These so called gurus and experts you see out have already got the experience and drive put out. They have lost a lot of dollars making mistakes and finding the right way.
You learn from their mistakes but don't get the idea that you know their struggle too.

Get ready to invest yourself full on and enjoy what you do.

There's a lot you can learn more by reaching out and networking with like-minded individuals. Expert advice in the right way does wonders as you already know (otherwise you wouldn't spend so much time here on Facebook and Youtube). I am a part of a few groups and I have seen so much information shared across. So go find them and learn.

However, please don't be selfish.

Please don't join the group to just make use of free help and advise but also share your experiences and help one another too!

Give more than you can ever take, and you shall reap more than you can ever sow.

@root While not like swappa, which focuses on a specific niche (mobile industry, namely just smartphones) and follows purchase/sale scheme not very different to how Amazon operates, although on a different level,

We are planning to introduce a few different schemes, for ex, we will provide a platform for the local industry (suppliers, distributors come under this section), indie buisnesses (like handicrafts, clothing stores, custom special purpose goods, export quality goods like batiks, speacial ornaments and the likes, FMCG sector goods that are locally made and what Sri Lankans would love to get their hands on, etc), another section is permitted for direct associations with brands, dealerships, companies who wish to partner up (Like Softlogic, Abans, Samsung, etc).

We want to create a platform for beautiful online shopping experience.

The beauty of this is that, we will directly integrate with buisnesses to create a seamless experience. Essentially, they will provide you the way itself. All we do is to bring everything together and make sure it reaches you, just the way you wanted it.

Another category would deal with solely online products from around the world. This is akin to online platforms like Ebay, AliExpress, Amazon, with a personal twist that enchances the experience itself.

This is just the beginning. We hope to be able to bring more value. But that means we need everyone's support to know what they want, how they'd want it, and what are they willing to do about it

We're trying to get this across everyone we can. We need everyone's support on this to make it a reality.

Hope this makes sense.

@sudo I tend to disagree. Here's why.

Arch Linux is considered to be a derivative work of Linux, similar to Debian which is used as a base for many distros.

Manjaro is a distro that builds upon Arch Linux, similar to how Ubuntu is based on Debian.

I would agrue that, despite Manjaro being a good beginner distro to kick start with, and all the added benefits of AUR repos, I would state that it is definitely not as beginner friendly and approachable for "absolute beginners" who wants to, or has transitioned fully from Windows/Mac OS platforms, compared to the Ubuntu-Based support and ease of use it provides when it comes to the common user.

Due to the nature of ArchLinux, there are moments you have to dig dirty and go Technical, and if you're not enthusiastic about that, the community won't help either. Not all problems have solutions always or it may work for someone and the exact same thing may not work for you.

I don't approve of Ubuntu based distros at all and would highly recommend you'd rather go for Arch Based distros, as the learning curve absolutely makes you a better person but one should be aware that you can easily run into so many issues that need manually fixing and it may break your config altogether.

For someone who can afford to spend such time and patience (if need be) to get up to speed with how they want things to be, go for it.

Also, same as with PPAs, you can't always trust everything AUR, but generally speaking, yes I agree they're less suspectable to injections.

Apart from AUR, Flatpak, Snaps, AppImages are other ways of packaging scheme we can use, which is nice xD

@sudo said in The best Linux distro in 2018 (#1 in distrowatch.com):

@crxssrazr93 i don't know man. I know few people who switched directly from windows to manjaro. But i agree a normie might not be able to do that.

Exactly. I switched from Windows to Arch Linux back in the day too but the linux community kept pushing me back because I didn't know how to troubleshoot and fix or approach most problems that may arise if you use Arch. I use Manjaro extensively. Everyone was like "Arch is not for you, get a more user friendly os instead blah blah." Thank god I didn't give up but I did learn alot though it was a real sh*tstorm at the beginning. 10/10 would do it again.