When I started this blog 5 years ago, I had no other intentions than doing it for fun. I spent most of the time writing about things that were on my mind, or sharing essays that I wrote back in high school which I honestly did not think people out there would appreciate them.
Blogging has never been a priority because I was so caught up with studies, part-time jobs and there were times when I was just lazy. Initially, I had an average of 10 views per day which was mainly from my own traffic because I was my own avid reader at that time. I would revisit my old posts and search for mistakes and correct them. The highest monthly pageviews I have ever received in 5 years was >75,000 based on the statistics. Currently, my blog has a total of 1.7 million pageviews in less than 5 years and I am hoping to reach 2 million by middle of next year!
Indeed a small and humble beginning in 2014 where I was the one who viewed my own posts for the views. My blog started to receive organic views only after 2 years later.
Having your personal domain is necessary for a more professional-looking website. Most of the professional bloggers I know own a domain (.com, .my, .org etc) so I decided to get one. I tried purchasing my own domain few years back, but the installation process was complicated and lengthy so I decided to stick with aaronnavit.blogspot.my instead.
I finally bought Aaronnavit.com domain this year from https://my.godaddy.com as I wanted to take blog-writing more seriously. My blog has never looked better! A domain can be pricey though, depending on the types and the service providers. I highly recommend buying a domain from https://my.godaddy.com as they are offering competitive prices with less hassle installation.
Top countries where my readers are from. Surprisingly, quite an amount of readers are from non-English and non-Malay speaking countries.
Looking at the analytics from blogger.com, my old posts are the ones that have been viewed the most out of any other contents that I have made. This tells me that something about the stories, narration, ideas and experience are of valuable to people out there. Yours too, so keep on doing what you do best and do not give up! After 2 years of blogging, I received an average of 3000 - 5000 views per day on these posts, but there were less engagement with my readers.
In recent years, I have an average of 32,000 - 37,000 pageviews per month. In the last 30 days, I had over 32,000 pageviews. If this is consistent, I will achieve 2 million pageviews by May or June 2021!
Since then, I have been religiously replying to each comment on the posts and also emails, hoping to make a good impression out there. I felt glad to be able to help my readers with their queries. That was one of the satisfactions I had as a blogger, to be of some help to others. Also, I wished I could have added a Mailing List Subscription in the website. It is so important to have a database of my readers’ emails so they can get an email update every time I publish a post.
I know this is such a shameless plug-in, but please leave a like on my Facebook page while you're here. Hehe. Please comment the URL to your page below, I promise to return the likes!
Click here : https://www.facebook.com/aa.avitze
Facebook has been one of the best platforms to share my writings. For that purpose, I made a separate Facebook Page just for the blog, fear that people on my personal account would feel annoyed and uninterested seeing posts I shared from this blog. I used to have a manually installed Facebook Page pop-up bar, where readers would be able to like the page every time they visit my blog. I had over 1.3K likes and follows, thanks to this plug-in. Unfortunately, the pop-up has been removed after the blog’s theme changed. I am still figuring out how to reinstall it back.
For some, these numbers or pageviews may not mean anything but it has definitely played a huge part in the development of this blog. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are helpful too. From merely writing about non-sensical things to receiving collaboration opportunities and product reviews from clients, I would say the numbers are important because they indicate the blog's reputation. Also, never underestimate a good social media presence!
Probably one of the best comments from my readers. Receiving a thanks from them is the best thing ever.
Only recently, I have been actively seeking for collaboration opportunities on Facebook groups. I discovered that there was a whole blogger community on Facebook that is dedicated to help bloggers to look for clients and collaborations. Thanks to this community, I was able to find few clients and had been offered writing jobs by PG Mall, OldTown White Coffee, Shopee, Gong Cha, facial brands, pet foods and more recent is a collaboration opportunity with a Publisher from Canada, which I will be paid every time my story/book is sold (which I have yet to accept, taking into account of my busy study schedule). I might need a proper plan for my blog next year.
Also if you notice, this blog does not contain any Google Adsense advertisement. My applications for putting ads for revenue from Google Adsense had been rejected every time for some unknown reasons. If any of you know how to fix this, let me know. I might need an advice or two from you. The only driving force of this blog and revenue sources are these review and collaboration write-ups that I am currently doing. I did sign up for a few affiliate programs, but most of the ads shown were not targeted to readers in Malaysia. Hence, I did not put up the ads.
I kind of have stopped writing about personal stories online, when this type of content has actually contributed a lot to my blog's traffic even until these days. I have been wanting to balance between writing my own stories and collaboration posts to keep my blog's momentum going. Let’s see what kind of content I can come up with next year.
With 2020 coming to an end very soon, it just feels surreal how blogging has given me opportunities I never knew existed. I get to interact with thousands of strangers online and helped them in any way possible, getting clients for collaborations and such. If I could turn back the time to when I first started blogging, I would tell myself to be more active, engaging and be better in writing. I may have never considered blogging as a full-time job but who knows what the future holds, right?
Finally, one simple advice to all new writers/bloggers who are reading this, keep on doing what you do best. Your effort will bear fruits someday.
Let's motivate each other to be better everyday!
Wishing all of you an advanced Happy New Year 2021. Here's to more successes with blogging.
Thanks for reading.
AARONN AVIT AJENG
Wah... Pencapaian yang harus dibanggakan! Bukan mudah kan...
ReplyDeleteBlog Nina dah 9 tahun. So far seronok dengan my passion.
Terus kan berkongsi cerita dan memberi ilmiah pada pembaca. Moga terus sukses!
Thank you Nina! Awak juga. Semoga tetap sukses!
DeleteCongratulations on your achievement. Semoga blog NIe trus success ya. All the best to you and keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteThanks Fadima! Awak juga ya.
DeleteHi Aaron! Nice to meet you! Congrats you've had come this far! I started blogging when I was 18, started with recipes! Until today! It's been 10 years! Time flies...
ReplyDeleteTime does fly! Looking back, we can’t help but to feel grateful that we started writing something on the blog.
DeleteHi Aaronn. This is such a good read! This does give me a beacon of hope to pursue in doing things that I love and yes, congrats and enjoy what you're doing ☺️
ReplyDeleteHi there! Thank you so muchhh. Wishing you all the best in your endeavour. ☺️
DeleteWoww such an achievement, congratulations! Agree with you, we mmust keep on doing what we love and never give up on our passion.
ReplyDeleteYes! Still banyak benda lagi yang saya kena belajar dalam dunia blogger ni..
DeleteWah... Tahniah! Pencapaian yang bagus. Teruskan usaha ���� jangan putus asa!
ReplyDeleteBanyak tu.. 5 tahun dapat million.. I ambik masa juga.. You boleh tanya blogger hasrul hassan about adsense.. Rugi kalau tak letak
ReplyDeleteThank you Nadia, masih byk yang saya kena belajar dalam dunia blogger ni. Yang penting kena sentiasa support each other..
DeleteCongrats! Semoga terus sukses. Dan semoga saya dapat pencapaian yang sama dengan awak.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Harap lepas ni saya makin bersemangat tulis konten dalam blog! Wishing you success as well!
DeleteCongrats on your big achievements! Let's Keep up the good work and be more successful soon
ReplyDeleteThanks! there's still more to learn about blogging as a beginner like myself. Let's do great together as bloggers.
DeleteAmin. Masih tunggu untuk diapprove. huhu
ReplyDeleteTahniah Aaron..
ReplyDeleteBetul, teruskan aje menulis, ada orang baca atau tidak, jangan amik stress, janji apa yang kita kongsikan, jadi manfaat buat semua orang.. keep it up ya!!..
Terima kasih kak.. betul tu.
DeleteTak pasti lah kenapa Aaron tapi boleh je join Biters untuk belajar pasal Adsense ataupun minta bantuan dengan bro Hasrul Hassan atau Sis Awa. Congrats ya!
ReplyDeleteOkay Farhana.. thanks for the suggestion ya.
DeleteSo inspiring lah bro! This somehow keep me motivated to continue my journey in blogging... Hopefully someday will be fruitful like yours too...
ReplyDeleteLove your blog too bro! Followed u eheh. Keep it up.
DeleteIt is awesome to read your inspiring blogging journey. Thanks for sharing the insight and hopefully we all can be on the same road as you.
ReplyDeleteWe all are getting somewhere soon! Keep the good work ya. Love your blogs as well!
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