Hi People,
I guess this is the right time to come back, as I have now got my Reliance Data Card (3.1 Mbps) as well as a new Toshiba laptop (the motherboard in the old one was not working!). And as an icing over the cake, my professional blog on computer networking www.excitngip.com has been nominated as one of the finalists in the Avant Garde Bloggie Awards 2010 in the “Best Professional Blog” category. I am sure you remember this website, as I had introduced it earlier, when I started it.
But now, I want to write a separate post on the same as I have taken quite a bit of efforts for that website. I took a break for almost 6 months to write 125 articles in that blog, full time, all related to computer/ IP networks (I work on providing networking solutions for various organisations/ enterprise companies – I am involved in the Pre-Sales and the Sales activities, precisely). But, taking a break for six months is a professional gamble. Fortunately, my current boss viewed it positively as the website was in the same domain as my work, so I am back to my full time vocation.
Frankly, I wanted to achieve two things with that website – One, achieve recurring income through advertising and second – try and fetch leads for requirements for networking projects with new customers through the website.
So, on the first one, I have made around $ 25 USD in the last 10 months (I have just written 4 articles in the last four months due to lack of time) through Google Adsense which is a Pay-per-click advertising network run by google. So, as you can see, it averages to around 2.5$ a month, and that is not exactly a huge amount! But yeah, these are the initial months and I hope to make it better as I go on.
The second one is more interesting – I needed to write on specific brands/ products in order to generate any kind of leads for new business opportunities. I also needed to mention specifically that if any one was wanting such a product/ solution in so-and-so place, they could contact me using the contact form. But I never did either!! I have kept the website as neutral as possible without any product names/ brands and hopefully I will keep it that way in the coming years. This decision was not planned, in fact, the reverse was planned! But another hurdle in this approach was, most of the visitors who arrived through the search engines were outside India or at least not from the southern states where we work.
But frankly, since I have referred to a lot of material over the internet and the downloaded manuals etc for writing each article in the site, I have got a better understanding of enterprise networks and the elements that go in to building and managing them – This is priceless!
If you are inquisitive, it takes around 3,500 to 4000 rupees to get your domain and hosting space on a shared server (I hosted it in Bluehost). Then you need to install a content management system (Like self hosted WordPress.org version which I used) and get a theme to suit your blog/ site. The last two are available free of cost. And yeah, C.Bavota (the developer of the free theme that I am using), if you are reading this, the first investment that I would make is to purchase your professional theme of the same magazine basic series when my first check would arrive from Google! because I love the theme I am using – Great work mate! I might still not change to the new professional theme I buy though!! And yeah, Google pays out once the amount accumulates to 100 dollars – so I guess there is no hurry 😉
Ok, the idea of writing this post is to request my wonderful audience (if you remember me still!!) to vote for my blog http://www.excitingip.com in the Best Professional Blog category of the Avant Garde Bloggie Awards as I would love to see it win there!
For this blog (Destination Infinity), I am planning to write at least one post per month from now on, and I want to take some interviews with real people we meet every day (Auto-wallah’s, shop owners, etc) and write about their life, work etc. in order to get a better understanding of the lives of people living around us. I have wanted to become a journalist when I was young, and this is the closest I can get to it – but still I am happy, as with my blog I can decide on what gets published!!
Destination Infinity
PS: Here is the link you need to click to vote. Happy Voting 🙂
Related Articles: Click here for information on Converged Networks – Basic Introductory articles on wired/wireless networks, voice, video over IP networks.
Destination Infinity 