In an effort to help out the next brother man and to maintain myself, here’s quick guide to the not so secret ways to earn real money through blogging. It does not matter if you are in the Philippines, Dubai, or USA. The following is what worked for me and my content. I may not work for you. I’m sure I missed a lot but here it is….

The basics
- Get yourself a bank account to receive the payment checks or via direct deposit
- Get a credit card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, or Discover)
- Get a Paypal account to pay for goods and services or to receive payment. It now is Philippine compatable but you can’t transfer funds back to your back account yet.

Your Content
The #1 reason why people will visit your blog is your content. I suggest blogging about something you know. Others will tell you that you have to be passionate about your content. I disagree. It will make blogging easier but I’m honestly not passionate about Pinoy Showbiz or sex scandals. I would rather write about colonial mentality. Regardless, being passionate about your content will help you write consistent content. Believe it or not, there are people out there who share the same interests as you.

OPC - Other Peeps Content
You can also mix your own original content with other content from other blogs. The important thing here is that you only use a portion of they content by “quoting”. If you use their photo, give credit, and upload it on your server. Don’t link to it using their bandwidth. Be sure to state and link back to the original source.

Getting a blog
There are a few options here. 1) Get a free one at Wordpress.com or Blogger.com or host your own under your own domain just like Putanginamo.com. The choice is yours. While some people look down on using hosted services, there are still people making money from it. I personally like hosting my own blog so that I have full control of the design and scripts. It also give you some “validity” and has more name recall.

Putanginamo.com is hosted on 1and1. They have packages as low as $2.99. I only pay $9.99 a month. In my opinion, Wordpress is the best software for blogs. You will need your own host and a little knowledge of PHP and mySQL to install. Just follow the instructions. I didn’t know that crap when I 1st started.

Part 2 will focus on my favorite parts - Getting Paid & Marketing