The Lady Programmer

These past weeks I had been able to find old classmates and friends in real life. They’ve always asked what I do. I kept telling them that I am earning both from my blogs as well as with freelancing.

For now I can just list down steps on how to get started in blogging.

How to get started in blogging

1. Decent writing skills. I started out using a word editor with a spell checker to help me out.
2. Knowledge of using the computer and the internet. Obviously.
3. Decent internet connection. Believe me, I started blogging and even freelancing using 56kbps free internet connection that came with my telephone line.
4. (optional) Your own computer. Here in my country (Philippines) you can always blog at any internet cafe for a  minimum of P10/hour.

Of course, the next thing to do is to open up a blog for free.

1. Blogger.com: The site is great for starters (and even advanced users) to start earning money from blogs. They allow placement of advertisements and other useful codes into the blog.
2. WordPress.com: Their blogs may look better and have better comment management, but they don’t allow advertisements and other codes to be placed on their blogs. If you don’t really intend to make money, then this may be a wiser choice.
3. There are more free blogging platforms out there such as Blogsome, but performance-wise, the first two options are still the best ones to start blogging.

What’s next?

1. Choose a topic for your blog. Most often people think of blogs as a place to write down personal thoughts: but blogging had matured and evolved, so it is now easy for one to pick a topic. It is best to write topics that revolve around your personal interest if you want to earn from your own blog: cars, technology, gadgets, fashion, kids and parenting, news and commentary – the list is endless.
2. Learn the technicalities of blogging, such as HTML. Or pay an expert to help you out in coding your blog. Or ask the help of a friend in doing simple HTML tweaks on your blog. Sometimes you want to insert advertisements and other useful codes into your blog.

Making Money from Blogs

1. Learn SEO techniques. If you want to attract huge amounts of traffic to your advertisements or offers.
2. If SEO is too technical to understand do occasional paid reviews and link selling instead in addition to SEO. You may even have to invest in a domain name just to qualify for these offers. Please visit this link to learn more.
3. Do not stop at the first two steps. Making money online doesn’t stop there. There’s always a new trick or technique that comes along the way.

I keep on getting emails and even get to chat with a few online friends that they want to make a big career change move: quit to job then go to freelancing or problogging (bloggers earning income from blogs such as blog advertisements).

One email I got said that she is planning to quit her job and just go freelancing. She plans to start building work history right after she resigned from her job. She could not explore freelancing while she is employed because the job takes a lot of her time.

I’ve got so many old friends who were suddenly interested on how I earn online these days (both from freelancing and blogging). If they happen to be skilled in Information Technology, writing or even both, then they can be able to get online freelance jobs successfully. Those who are interested in earning from blogs need to improve their writing skills and eventually move to learn SEO. However, their interests were short-lived even if they wanted to learn the ropes.

I helped two friends start their own blogs to earn from them. After that one session, they were not able to update it as often as they should. They were just too busy with the day jobs.

To be successful in this venture, people need to be able to honestly answer these questions:

1. Can I afford to quit my current job?
2. Do you have the right skills and experience to go into freelancing?
3. Am I able to learn new skills quickly with my own resources?
4. Is there a huge demand for my skills and experience?
5. Can I have a social life at home with online friends all around me most of the time?
6. Am I a master of my own time?
7. Do I have the nose for new income opportunities?
8. Do I tend to decide just early enough to get started?
9. Do I tend to be a bit ahead before everyone gets to discover the awesomeness of a good opportunity?
10. Am I thinking about making the preparations for freelancing or problogging over several weeks?

All the questions are essential to the success of a freelancer, but I’ve bolded the most important ones. If you can say yes to most (not necessarily all) of the questions above, then you may be a good fit for freelancing.

Freelancing and problogging always give better returns compared to regular salaried jobs to those play the cards right.

For neophyte freelancers, I’ve always recommended that they learn the ways on how to talk, communicate and negotiate with other people and think the business way. For aspiring probloggers, they just need to start out their own free blogs in Blogger (not WordPress.com – it is a platform that does not let you post advertisements in their blogs) then watch and see over time whether they blogging is for them or not before they waste their time, effort and money on things that may probably not work out for them (talking about perception and persistence!).

Automysophobia is the fear of getting dirty. Most people could probably tolerate an amount of dirt in their body, thinking that they can wash that away later. However, automysophobic people don’t feel that way: they get sick, dizzy, nauseated, breathless and even feel get that feeling that they’d rather die than get dirt in their bodies.

People suffering this extreme fear definitely seek psychological help. It surely gets in the way of living a normal healthy life.

I often see VCCs or virtual credit cards being sold usually at the forums to verify one’s paypal account. Many could attest that using these cards are effective, but I learn from Selaplana’s post that VCCs are not recommended. As he says it:

You can buy VCC from VCC providers for only $20 to $60. It’s just virtual (not physical credit card) but its functions are similar to credit card. This kind of credit card expires in a short period of time from 24 hours to 6 months. So, if you’ll use this, make sure to buy a VCC that expires at least in 2 months.

However, I don’t recommend it. There’s a problem with it especially if Paypal will request copies of your credit documents. You couldn’t provide one if you’re simply using the VCC.

Seriously, problems with Paypal happens too often (I get lots of emails on how to lift of Paypal limits, which requires a user to fax personal documents, so there must be a lot of people who encounter trouble with their own accounts) so this further proves that VCCs are not recommended.

I had been able to get my second Payoneer card several months ago (I think last May or June) and I got that activated just before my first Payoneer card expired last August 2009. I got my Payoneer card free through oDesk.

The new card’s physical appearance is no different from the old one. It’s still the sleek shiny and black that looks better than most local debit and credit cards I’ve seen here in the Philippines. Once more, I get to use the card for three years before I get to contact Payoneer again for a replacement card.

I went through the instructions of reactivating the card several days after I received it through snail mail. I contacted Payoneer’s live support to activate that new card and disable to old one. I remember chatting to the support for about 15 minutes just to perform this one. My virtual bank account too, was transferred from my old card to the new one.

Ideally, this card should work with any ATM machines and credit card terminals that bear the Mastercard logo.

I was excited in using this card, only to notice later that they won’t work with Banco de Oro ATM machines anymore. I always get an error message from any of their ATM machines. I’m not sure if they don’t work with BDO Mastercard credit card terminals but I sometimes notice that my card is declined, even if my card has funds loaded in it.

I have no problems withdrawing funds from Metrobank and BPI ATM machines. But I would still love to have my Payoneer card work well with BDO ATMs because these are more accessible to me. Metrobank and BPI ATMs aren’t safe places to withdraw funds here in Baguio.

I keep on wondering if I am not the only Payoneer card holder experiencing problems with BDO ATMs. Right now, the only solution I can think of is to contact both Payoneer and BDO for this concern.

If you had encountered the same problem, suggest on what’s the best way to deal with this or even provide possible explanation why my card doesn’t work with a specific bank ATM, let me know through the comments.