You may think I have become lazy to write articles.  You may think I have taken easy way out by microblogging using Facebook isntead.  But I suspect I’m not the only one.  I venture to say that microblogging using Facebook and Twitter has won over the heart of some conventional bloggers like me.

Now I suppose conventional blogging is not for everyone.  Not too many can write, want to write, care to write, or have the time to write.  Some of us took up blogging a few years ago due to reasons such as peer pressure, or it was the “in” thing to do at that time.

But as time goes on, we start to find out who can blog, and who better not waste time blogging.  You may call the blogs of former as high quality blogs, or the latter low quality blogs.  But I prefer to think that blogging is simply not the cup of tea for these latter group of people. 

Some of them blog because they have a need to express themselves.  But it can take too much time sitting in front of computer to write, and or too much stress to think what to write.  But now with microblogging, it serves their need to express perfectly.  They can just shout anytime they have something to express!

I’m talking about the bloggers who have “expressive” need to express themselves.  I’m not talking about other reasons for blogging such as to contribute to body of knowledge, to attract web site traffic, to promote a company, product or service, or to make blogging money.

Moreover, by microblogging we have ready pool of friends on social media who can read our status updates.  We don’t need to worry about attracting search engine traffic to our conventional blogs.  Well, not too many people know or care about search engines and online marketing.

But don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying blogs have no use any more.  I’m saying microblogging has taken away some conventional bloggers like me who blog primarily to express and to shout.

And you are welcome to express and shout your comments below

• You do not know why you are blogging.
• You do not know what to blog about.
• You do not know who your target readers are.
• You do not know what you can offer to readers.
• You do not feel happy and at peace blogging
• You blog because others do, or others asked you to.
• Your blog is just a copycat of another more established blog.
• Your blog is not serving what you intend to achieve.
• Your blog conversion rate is too low.
• Very few people read or subscribe to your blog.
• You find blogging eat up too much of your time and energy.
• You find blogging become more important than other things in life such as your job and relationships.
• You find blogging working against your life objectives!
• Do you have anything else to add?  Please feel free.

Actually this is a checklist for myself.  I started blogging since years ago on Google’s Blogspot.  Since then, I have stopped and restarted a few blogs.

During my previous blogs, I could easily answer yes to many items in above checklist.  When one blog was not working, it’s time to take a hard look!

At last, I settled down with this blog since April 2008 and it’s been one year plus now.  Hopefully it will stay long this time

I was initially skeptical of the business model.  The idea seems old and uninteresting.  But after getting to know that the startup was to be backed by one of the most visited web site in Malaysia, my perception changed.  Its very high traffic is going to spill over to the new portal and bring advertising dollars to the new business.

In fact, though the idea is not new, I think the startup is going to work.  Those who joined the group are going to earn, not only financially, but in reputation and authority as well.

But unfortunately, I am unable to fulfill their requirements.  Each blogger is to blog at least one post per day.  So it’s 7 blog posts per week, 30 blog posts per month, at least.

Not that they emphasize quantity over quality.  But the founder said most successful blogs have something new everyday to become successful, though it may not be long essay everyday.

I can’t join because I can’t commit myself to blog everyday.  Currently I’m blogging only once or twice per week.  I’m not a full-time blogger or problogger, but rather an occasional one.  I even consider myself still quite a newbie in blogging.

Furthermore, it’s going to be like a full-time job to blog everyday.  It’s not only the time spent to write, but it’s the time spent to read up, research, think and organize my thoughts that is going to consume most of my waking hours, every single day!

So it’s going to be a job for me to work in rather than a business, and it’s a pretty hectic job.  My personal mission is not to create a job for myself.  My mission is to create a business.  Otherwise, I might as well work for others.

When an opportunity knocks, no matter how great it is, one may still need to think whether it is in line with one’s life mission or not.  In this case, the blogging job is really not for me.

It’s a pity for me not being able to join this startup.  But it’s OK.  Opportunities abound on the Internet.  Our job is just to be ready when they come

I was helping to blog regularly for the event.  As you know, whatever we blog now comes up at the top.  I remember being told not to blog any more for time being, because the last blog post was so important that it had to stay at the top of the home page.  In another case, the committee chairman told me a post had disappeared!  It had “dropped off” the home page after a few newer posts were put up!

With the advent of World Wide Web, we became so used to the way how a web site organized itself, that is, hierarchically with menus and sections.  But blogs changed the way how a web site works.

On blogs, the latest piece of information comes at the top. Then as we put up more posts, the previous post will “drop” down in the home page slowly to the bottom, until “disappearing” into oblivion (actually hidden from the home page).

Frankly, when I first started to read blogs and publish a blog, I was not so used to how it worked too.  I thought it was not “user-friendly”.  But as time went by, I started to see the logic and got familiar with blogs now.

Instead of an almost dead hierarchical web site, a blog site is just like a live person who changes from time to time.  Rather than just looking at the same old and cold content, a blog gives a more personal touch, a plus point for businesses.  It encourages more interaction with the users, through links, search box, comments, widgets and others.

But there are still many who think blogs are not the best way to organize information.  As “the customers are the kings”, we must not be so proud to assume that blog is the best architecture for a web site.  But just like other technologies, I believe blogs will evolve to be even better and more useful.

Well, it’s not possible to “delete” those pages from Google (unless you get a court injunction ordering Google to do so). But he can add in more positive content about the person, and try to boost these web pages up the ranking using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.

But if an individual, a business or an organization’s reputation is already bad due to their behavior, no matter how much positive content is generated, even more negative content can still get its way into the search pages. This is especially so when everyone can publish nowadays on the Internet by means of blogging.

With the advent of Internet, and social media more recently, reputation management has become very important for individuals, businesses and organizations in their branding, marketing and PR efforts.

Perhaps the best policy is do like what Google says, “Don’t be evil”. Be good and people will talk about us well on the Internet.

But in case there is any negative content, one can contact the web site owner, or participate in its forum or blog, and try to set things right, perhaps by posting feedback or comments on the web sites. Be professional and don’t hide behind anonymous email address which I believe some commentators did on this blog when I talked about them. Be respectful. Don’t point fingers and don’t lose temper.

Today we no longer can ignore what people say about us on the Internet. The long term solution is to be good and not evil. As for my customer, all the best to him for what he intends to do.

He asked me to introduce web developers for him.  Besides suggesting my partner web designers for any web development job as I normally do, I also suggested him do it himself, especially if it is such a simple web site.

Customer can consider using any free content management system (CMS) out there, such as Drupal and Joomla.  A good CMS enables you to develop a complete web site with little or no technical knowledge.

But CMS to some customers is still quite technical.  Why not use a blogging system like WordPress instead?  You can create static pages using WordPress, and announce latest news and promotion from time to time by means of blogging.  This RickySoo.com web site is created using WordPress.

In fact, for businesses who want to build a web site, I would suggest make it a blog, especially if the web site is not too complicated.  Businesses should use blog not because it’s the “in” thing to do now, but it could be the most cost-effective way as well.

Learning WordPress is easier than learning a typical content management system.  You just need to download WordPress, install on your web site, set up everything, put in the content, and maintain it along the way.  Find out more on how to set up a blog here.

At the beginning there will be some learning curve.  But soon my customer will become a pro in WordPress, and he will love it.  The good thing is that, he can apply the WordPress skills to replicate other web sites as he wishes.

Do it yourself!

But according to my friend, the real feng shui masters in Malaysia are few and far between.  Yes, we have heard of some big names who tout their expertise in feng shui.  But although their marketing is excellent, some of them may not be real experts in feng shui and may not have respect among feng shui masters.

On the other hand, there are those who are real masters but are not good in marketing themselves.  But after all, why need to market so much?  Their daily schedule is already packed up and they are already earning good money.

I myself don’t believe and don’t practise feng shui.  But here I’m writing from a business perspective only and nothing else.  I asked my friend who is computer-savvy why he doesn’t use the Internet and even blogging to promote his business.  Perhaps the web site will not generate many leads.  But he can use it to build his reputation.

But he said those who promote on the Internet expose themselves for challenges from the real masters in feng shui.  If one is not yet ready, better not have a web site, much less a blog.  Ok, sounds reasonable to me.

There are web developers and Internet marketers who think that EVERY business should go online.  But I think there are businesses which should not have an Internet presence, perhaps because the Internet does not fit into their business model, or they are not yet ready for Internet presence.

So perhaps a feng shui business is one such example?

Looking at the development of Internet in the past one and half decade, we can see the role of Internet users changing, from mere consumers of information in the 90′s, to producers and publishers of information on the Internet nowadays!

Just think about it.  In the good old days, we surfed the World Wide Web to read up what the site owner wrote. Then with the development of web authoring tools, the more technical people among us learned to design and publish web pages on the Internet.  Around the turn of the millennium, any IT student (including me) could do up a web page!

With the flourishing of social networking web sites in past few years, even non-technical people got to express themselves on the Internet.  Nowadays, more than 9 out of 10 college students own a piece of virtual property on Facebook or Friendster!

When blogs were popularized in more recent years, we change from owning a member page on Friendster to owning a blog!  Now virtually any Internet user can express themselves and shout on the Internet by blogging.  Even those who used to consider Internet as a scary place started to speak up!  Think about it.  It’s easier to learn WordPress than Microsoft Word!

So the Internet population has been transformed from content consumers to content “prosumers” (producer-consumer).  The technologies have turned non-users of the Internet to voice our thoughts, to using the Internet to rave about anything!

But many people in this country are still not using the Internet yet.  But watch and see.  When mobile Internet becomes so pervasive in our mobile phones, there will be more people surfing the Internet on mobile than through PC.

If most mobile users know how to send an SMS message now, they will know how to “micro-blog” in the future.  Microblogging tools such as Twitter may not be so popular and useful now.  But it will be in the future as more non-Internet users become Internet users via mobile phones.  At that time, even more people will publish content on the cyberspace!

I don’t know why they have such a mission. Perhaps they aspire not to hurt others, but to bring goodness to the world through its existence. Unlike some other newspapers who are used to criticize and hurt others, this is indeed a noble mission for such a media company.

How about a blog? Blogs are transforming from being “alternative media” to being a “main media” on the Internet. Should we not aspire to bring some goodness to people also through the existence of our blogs?

We can see some blogs being used to criticize and hurt others. Some point fingers, complain and even swear against company, service provider, government, college and even lecturers. Of course there is freedom of speech. But do we really need to do so?

I understand that everything is permissible under the sun. We can do anything we like. But not everything is beneficial. We will need to be prepared for the consequences of our words and actions.

The mission “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind” sounds attractive to me. I might have to reflect and even repent on how I wrote against some people in the past, though I kept to my policy never to mention names.

I’m not a professional blogger and don’t have too much time to blog for you.  Normally I suggest you get a domain name and hosting service, install WordPress on their domain name (can be done easily from web-based control panel called cPanel) and start to blog.

Believe me, it’s good to learn how to blog yourself (or your staff).  Unless you really don’t have the time to blog, blogging yourself is the best option because you are the one who is most knowledgeable on your business, and more importantly, you are the one who is most passionate about what you offer, not any paid professional blogger!

Another way is to team up with me in blogging.  I can get your hosting and/or domain name free of charge, install the blog for you and maintain the blog platform.  All you need to do is just login and blog.

But it depends on what you are selling, your business model, and your commitment to blog.  Contact me if you are interested in further discussion.

Either way, you still need to blog yourself (or get a knowledgeable and passionate staff to do it).  It’s quite easy actually.  But as your provider and friend, I’ll be glad to pass on what I have learned to you out when you need help!

Search engine friendliness – A normal web site is “static”, meaning that it doesn’t change much over time. But a blog updated regularly can provide fresh content to the search engines. Google can crawl your web site and so update its search results more often if it has a blog.

Keywording – What keywords you want people to type in Google to find you? In blog you can stuff your blog posts with the keywords you want. A blog is ever-growing and so your keywords’ exposure grows as well.

Ease of setup – You may need a web designer to do up your web site. But with blog, there are so many free blogging software available, such as WordPress, that you don’t really need so much technical knowledge to create a blog site. DIY stands for Do It Yourself!

Ease of maintenance – With a normal web site, you may need to spend much for a web designer to update your content (maintenance is not cheap so that’s why you can see so many web sites not updated). But with a blog, you can just login any time to make changes yourself! Again, it’s free!

Low cost – You may need to spend thousands of dollars to hire a web design firm. But with blogging, web development can be literally FREE! At most, you need to pay up for your domain name, web hosting, and maybe hire someone to set up your blog. Then you are off to blogging!

So if you already have a conventional web site, I guess it’s time to add a blog to it. If you don’t have a web site yet, why not create your whole site as a blog?

Not convinced?  Find out more from OneCoach – the 3 ways how blogging can help your business.

You can be selling computer hardware, doing computer repairs, setting up computer networks, providing web hosting, web design, e-commerce services, writing computer software, doing Internet marketing, teaching computer classes, or providing any other computer-related services.

But if your target customers are the SME/SMI (small and medium sized enterprises) in Malaysia, please consider this proposal.

You can’t be providing ALL computer services yourself, even Microsoft and IBM don’t.  But from the point of view of our target market, especially the less IT-savvy Malaysian businesses, these IT-related services are all just “computer stuff” to them.  So if there is a single, one-stop portal which can provide all their “computer stuff”, why not?

All of us can congregate to this neutral online blog platform.  We can write “advertorials” for our reader.  It could be some computer tips for our readers.  Of course, don’t forget to promote your services, include your contact details, and link to your web site at the end of your article.

This is like a tech and IT business blog geared towards the enterprises rather than individuals.  You build your credibility as an expert in your IT service and get customers from your blog posts.

So if you don’t already have a blog or a web site, you can consider this. It’s zero cost to you.  Just need your time to write about your area of expertise.

But if you are already blogging, why still join?  Simply because there is strength and synergy in working together.  While keep on blogging on your site, you can also copy and post your articles on this IT blog.

Anyone interested?

First of all, this blog is not a prominent one.  There are many other blogs doing much better than mine, in terms of their business model, strategy, marketing, design, usefulness and content.

But having created a few blogs for myself and others, I guess I still qualify to give my two cents.  Below is not a step-by-step guide but just an overview.  Not only the technical side, but also the business and marketing aspects as well.  If you need any detailed information, please post your questions in the comments below.

Why you want to blog – Decide on the objective of a blog.  Is it to promote your business, sell your products, bring traffic to your main web site, be a PR channel for your business, express your opinions, earn money by blogging or anything else. Even if it is just a personal blog, you still need a “business model”.

Domain name and web hosting – Register a domain name and web hosting.  For serious blogging, don’t use free blogging service.  There are many such domain name registrars and hosting providers.  You can also consider mine at http://bizpartner.com.my.  Alternatively, if you already have a business web site, you can include your blog into it under a folder such as http://www.yourbusiness.com/blog, or a subdomain such as http://blog.yourbusiness.com.

Get WordPress – Download the free blogging software called WordPress here at http://wordpress.org/download/.  There are many other such software.  But so far WordPress is the most popular one.  Your web hosting provider, like me, may also provide a facility (such as cPanel) to install WordPress on your web server with just a few clicks of button.

Install WordPress – If you have downloaded WordPress manually, install it on your server.  Refer to the documentation at http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress.  It’s a 5-minute installation.  Basically you just need to upload the files to your server, run the install file, and then follow the instructions on screen to finalize the setup.

Tune up your blog – Login to your admin account, click “Design” to choose a user-friendly blog theme. Click “Settings” to set up various options, especially options for Discussion and Permalinks.  For a start, you should allow anyone to post comments.  You should also change the “permalink structure” from the default to another more search engine-friendly structure such as “Day and name”.

Publicize your blog – Let Google know about your blog.  You can submit your blog to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl/.  Let your friends and customers know about your blog.  Try to get other web sites to link to your blog.  Incoming links help search engines to find you, and also to better your search engine ranking.  If you have another business web site, you should put up a link there to your blog.

Blog consistently – It is one thing to set up your blog, but it’s another to run it successfully.  To make it effective, you need to make new blog posts regularly and consistently, even if it means just once a week.  In other words, you need to keep on adding (good) content into your blog so that search engines and other people can recognize it.

Review your blog – Evaluate your blog regularly to see whether it’s helping you to achieve the objective you set in the first place.  Change course, or fine tune your blog to make sure it works for you.  Close it down and restart another one if necessary.  I had two other blogs on RickySoo.com since years ago but closed them down since they were not serving any useful purpose.

More advanced options – The above is just scratching the surface.  As you use blog more often, you will naturally learn more.  Then you can consider other more advanced options such as installing useful plugins, dealing with comment spams, search engine optimization (SEO), tracking your feed readers, doing web site analytics, promoting it on social networks and so on.  But don’t worry for now.  There is a time for everything.

Have I missed out anything else important? Please correct me or add your comments if any.  Happy blogging!

A domain name search service, or WHOIS service, lets you query the availability of a domain name. If it is available, you can register it. If it is not available, the search shows you who registered it.

It took me one whole day on Monday to revamp the previous WHOIS service. The service is now more robust, accurate and useful. It took me another one whole day on Tuesday to make the search available for bloggers and site owners to monetize their web sites.

Being a site owner and blogger myself, I understand the dilemma on how to monetize (make money from) a blog or web site. A business web site can sell products and services. But how about a non-commercial one, such as many personal blogs out there? How do they make money?

One common way is to make money from pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements such as those of Google Adsense. You just put up some snippet of HTML code on your blog, and it turns into advertisements relevant to your content. When your visitors click on any ad, you get paid by Google.

Another way is to sell other people’s products or services. This is “affiliate marketing”. You become their “affiliate”, and put up a link from your blog to their web site. When your visitors click on the link, and buy from the supplier, you get a cut of the profit.

This is what I’m trying to do with my domain name registration service. But instead of putting up just a link, you are given a domain name search box to be placed on your blog. When your visitors search for any domain name, and buy any domain name within 3 months, you get a commission.

This way, it’s win-win-win for you, your visitors and me. You provide an extra feature or service to your providers and earn money from it. Your visitors can search for their desired domain names on your site, without going to a domain name provider’s web site. And I can get more customers referred from you.

I also think that if domain name search is ubiquitous, more people will be encouraged to have their own domain names. Getting own domain name is also what I strongly recommend to those who want to blog. No more using free blog address!

Look at the search box I put up on the left of this blog. It may not look nice here, but you can change its appearance. Find out more here on how to put up a domain name (WHOIS) search box on your blog or web site.

How shall they live while they are still alive?  Can they still live normally like you and me?  Well, if they were known by others as having AIDS/HIV, they often will face discrimination against them.

Unfortunately, social stigma is inevitable.  They are deprived of privileges and opportunities in life.  They are discriminated, ignored, forsaken.  Their lives seem gone.

Recently, I was approached by my friend in charge of Crisis Home, an non-profit organization taking care of these unfortunate people, to do something online for them.

So a blog has been set up at http://www.crisishome.org.  It serves to create awareness in the society, to dispel social stigma and misunderstandings against those with AIDS/HIV, and to communicate the message of the organization through the Internet.

It is in serving them that I had to confess and repent for my own discrimination against these people.  I’m culpable for my misunderstandings against them, including a few popular myths about HIV/AIDS.

Yes, they are infected with AIDS/HIV.  But they are still human.  There is definitely hope for them to be useful in this life, and after.

You can easily set up a blog for your business and take advantage of its search engine friendliness to bring in qualified prospects to your web site.  Just among many benefits of using a blog.

What if you don’t have to pay a single cent but get all these benefits from blogging?  It is not necessary for you to have a web site.  I’ll have one for you.  Zero cost!

If your business is the kind that you want to target foreigners to travel, buy properties, do business, or invest in Malaysia, please contact me here and briefly introduce your business.

I have a little idea to help you.

Some clients are asking me whether they should start a blog and how to start one. Some even ask whether they can outsource the blogging to me. Here is one example. But sorry, blogging is not my business.

I looked around. Is there any “bloggers for hire” service in Malaysia? No, I couldn’t find. Do you know of anyone? Please let me know!

For now, I just started a new category in my directory of IT solution providers called business blogging so that I can redirect my clients to these providers whenever they need blogging service.

So if you are interested to blog for businesses, please register yourself. It’s free to register! I don’t earn a single cent from you!

If you have any experience starting an Internet business, be it success or not, you are welcome to share your thoughts for the benefit of all of us who want to make it big on the Internet.

I’m interested to gather other people’s stories on how they started their dotcom businesses, the ups and downs they have gone through, lessons learned and any “secrets” for success online.

Your story can be from be from two paragraphs to six or seven.  It’s up to you.  Just share what you have learned so that others will be blessed by your story.

Of course you can always link back to your sites in the blog post.  And don’t worry I don’t use any WordPress plugin that turns outgoing links into “NoFollow” links

If interested, please contact me here.

Update – You can guest blog on anything here in this blog   But priority will be given to articles related to business, business, strategy, marketing, technologies, Internet business or MBA.

The job description includes:

• Blog for the web site about their CDs, products, services and anything, perhaps at least once or twice a week.
• Maintain their web site content through a content management system (CMS). Your job is to put in new CDs as they arise from time to time. No web design knowledge is required.

These are the basic requirements:

• A passion to blog.
• Knows Mandarin as the web site is bi-lingual, English and Chinese.
• Able to meet the customer in Kuala Lumpur whenever necessary.

This is a part-time job. If you are interested, please contact me here. Please quote your price on monthly basis.

By the way, is there any bloggers for hire service in Malaysia? Interested to start one?

I knew Kenneth three years ago when both Kenneth and I were called to a meeting by a common customer to advise him on Internet business.

It’s good to catch up with him again. Kenneth has been an e-commerce consultant and Internet marketer.  Impressed by projects done for clients and ideas inspired by him.  The web sites are showing among the very top in search engine result pages!

I feel grateful to have listened to his presentation, though many ideas are not new.  There are a few facts and interesting points that I cannot agree more:

• 80% of companies in Malaysia are still not using the Internet to promote their brands!
• There are many well-known brands in Malaysia.  But amazingly you can’t find them on the first page in search engine result pages.
• Digital branding online does not need to be expensive.  In fact it could be much cheaper than offline brand building.  Branding using YouTube is an example.
• Your web designers can develop a beautiful web site, but may not be the right person to be your branding and marketing consultant.  You won’t hire an IT person to do marketing, will you?
• Many people are worried about payment and security issues on the Internet.  But when they come to buying air tickets from AirAsia online, there is no problem! Why?

Yes I think businesses are under-utilizing the Internet to do branding online.  What are they still waiting for?  Internet is not just a channel to reach customers, but is a market battlefield nowadays!

Besides the more technical aspects, I wish I could learn more about the more business aspect of building brands online, such as what brand image and personality to take relative to competitors.

Digital branding leads to me to think of how we as individuals and bloggers can brand ourselves on the Internet or in the blogosphere.

Kenneth took on the brand of being an “e-commerce doctor”.  Hanzo Ng poses as “sales ninja”.  Shall I become a “monkey blogger”?   How about you?

I’m not against becoming a full time blogger but I guess those who have such ambition need to beware of a few traps and how to overcome them.

First, our lifestyle will change, hopefully for the better.  But it’s not always the case.  Since we don’t have to be at work from nine to five and we can work anytime we like, we may just sleep, wake up and eat at the wrong hours.  And you know our human body has been designed to follow a certain biological clock.

Second, our health may deteriorate since our lifestyle is not right.  Night may become day, and day may become night.  We may watch TV more.  We may just relax at home gaining weight.  We may just sit in front of the computer screen too long time and harm our eye sight and posture.

Third, we may become more and more antisocial.  We humans are not designed to be islands.  Since we don’t have to meet people that often as at work, some of us may just slowly leave the crowd into isolation.  But relationships can make or break our life.  We still need real connections with friends and people around us.

Fourth, we may just stop to grow mentally and develop ourselves.  Again, of course we can still read up on the Internet.  But real growth comes from real life experience and interaction with people, not virtual one.

Fifth, we may lose meaning and purpose in life.  Full time bloggers may be earning a lot.  But some of us may just think we have retired and lose the drive to go on to achieve more success and meaning in life.  Do we live on this earth just to blog, achieve good money and do nothing else?

Sixth, do you really think blogging can be a long-term job?  Let’s commend that blogging and earning from advertisements such as Google Adsense and other PPC works pretty well now.  But is this business model going to be sustainable a few years down the road?

Seventh, some of us may depend too much on blogging money.  But to be really wealthy, one may need to have multiple sources of income, instead of putting all eggs into one basket called blogging.  Since we are so free everyday, why not do some other things to generate more sources of income?

In fact, an Internet guru recently talked about “blogging less but earning more” by having other sources of income.  By blogging alone and doing nothing else, one might miss many other opportunities.

In summary, I suppose we human are designed to work, not to just sit there and wait for heaven.  When I say working, I mean keeping ourselves active.  We can work for a charity cause, take up some responsibility in some non-profit organization or carry out some activities to spice up our life.  When we stop working, our mind, body and soul start to deteriorate.

So as full time bloggers, let us not fall into these traps.  Let’s keep our life active, do some exercise, keep on connecting with other people, do something worthwhile, and leave a legacy for our life!

We asked him how much his designer charged him for the web site. He replied “one five”. Initially I thought he meant RM15,000. But it’s RM1,500 for the whole web site! No wonder his web site is not working at all.

There are many web designers who can do a web site in RM1,500. But will the web site be effective? Will the designer really care for the web site?

Unfortunately, the web design prices nowadays are so dirt cheap that there is basically not much profit to earn out of each project. It may not worth the time for designers to put their heart and focus on any individual project. They just do up what is instructed and go on to the next project for volume.

But a successful web site does not work this way. Without Internet marketing a web site is virtually non-existent. But doing Internet marketing does take time and effort. Does it justify all the hassles for just RM1,500?

There is a Chinese saying that once a person is bitten by a snake, he becomes scared of snakes forever. There are customers who have had high expectations out of their web sites but got disappointed when they see no result. Understandably some may not want to do a web site again.

We propose business blogging to this customer. He is very much qualified in his field and can potentially command authority as a prominent blogger in his industry, like Paul Tan in the automobile industry.  The good news is that, there is no such blogger as yet. He can fill the void and claim the first-mover advantage!

We hope he could overcome his previous bad experience so that he can again have faith on doing business on the Internet and utilize his strengths to produce tangible results this time.

Yes I have. But very few. Now, for those bloggers who are proficient in our national language, this could be a good strategy to differentiate yourself. Blog in Malay, and attract search engine traffic from the Malay Internet users!

I feel each race has got things to share with others, and at the same time learn from them as well. By writing in Malay, perhaps non-Malays can better communicate with the Malay readers and learn from them too!

Well, should I blog in BM also? But my proficiency in the language is really rotten now!  Perhaps bloggers can consider my suggestion?

The competition among travel agencies and tour operators is already very intense. Do a search on Google and you can see the online marketplace is crowded too. It may not help much to do another conventional web site or portal to compete with many other sites. It will be just another me-too web site.

But blogging is different. If someone in the field can dedicate some of his or her time to blog about the country, MM2H, travelling and investment opportunities and other related topics in Malaysia, I’m sure it can generate a lot of traffic, especially when blog is very much under utilized by MM2H companies at the moment.

Blogging builds up personal or company credential. It can bring in genuine visitors who are interested in Malaysia and MM2H. It is not only a new way of promoting MM2H, but also an instant one, especially when any new blog post is updated by Google search engine almost instantly!

But blogging is a new phenomena not readily accepted especially by companies. Some may ask why rock the boat while their conventional channels are working fine? Furthermore, blogging takes time and committment from the blogger. The blogger needs to blog regularly and consistently to be effective.

If you are involved in MM2H business and would like to explore blogging for MM2H, please contact me here.

Update – Check this blog post if you are interested to blog to expand your business.