My first attempt at “pro” blogging (as in trying to make money with blogging) isn’t with this website or with Bloggy Network. It’s with this blog – Sugoi Stuff. It was December of 2006 when I proposed the idea to a couple of friends of mine from back in college. Being the anime heads that we were, we decided on putting up a Philippines-Japan blogzine.

As with many virginal attempts, it had been quite the disappointment. We started with much vigor, even sponsoring a couple of events, but eventually, real work got in the way and Stugoi Stuff took the back seat. There were a couple of attempts to finally get it back on track but it proved to be tough to squeeze in posting on the blog when all of us needed to do work that actually pays.

Now, almost three years after, I decided to revisit the old site. Google has indexed it well, resulting in a bit of residual traffic. It gets 120-150 uniques a day but there’s barely any monetization from that. In fact, the most we got from AdSense simply covered the hosting and domain renewal costs. But now, I’m hellbent on reviving the darned site.

I’ve been managing web content for three years now and I think it’s about time I use my skills on something I own. Not that I intend to ditch my blogging work and strike out on my own, it’s just a sort of a challenge – trying to find out what can I do with my own resources.

There are main parts in the plan.

1. Transfer the domain registry from OnlineNIC/Philhosting to Directi/MSWeb DONE
2. Use a blogzine template DONE
3. Re-orient it to cater to a more general audience (from Otaku to a more general Geek audience) ONGOING
4. Post at least two new posts daily (since it’s looking like a single-person effort for now) ONGOING
4. Raise traffic to 300 uniques/day by the end of the year ONGOING

Sounds like a workable plan to me. So let me get cracking.

Check out these other posts:

1. LifeSpy gets redesigned
2. Crap for cheap
3. Site downtime apologies
4. More than one year with Bloggy
5. Butch Dalisay’s quick words on what attracts people to blogs and blogging