I always admired “SELaplana” or Mr. Sustines Laplana. His blog on making money online is really doing well. I’ve been to his site and the traffic is good. No wonder, he really is a pioneer in the Philippine Blogosphere. He’s up there with the likes of Abe “Yuga” Olandres - who some call the “Father of Philippine” blogging.

Anyways, I thank selplana for reviewing my blog just recently. I wanted to interview him, not just to return the favor, but also to learn more about how he succeeded in blogging. He readily admits that his english is not that good. But his blog and his dedication to his craft (and the will to learn new things everyday) define the words “success” and “determination”. His story proves that anyone with a dream and the determination to realize that dream can become successful. I’m sure that those of you want to get serious in blogging will learn a lot…

Check out my full interview with a blogging “legend” after the jump…

GM T: Tell us a little something about yourself and how (and when) did you get into blogging?

SELplana: I am Sustines Laplana, a BS Electrical Engineering graduate at the Leyte Institute of Technology (now Leyte Polytechnic State University). My friends call me “SELBOY” and my family calls me “SUEBOY”.
It was year 1999 when I started publishing my personal journal online. There was no blogging software yet. I didn’t even hear about any software that would give me ease in publishing my journals. What I did was just edit every page of my personal site using the Netscape Composer. And the site was just hosted for free by Geocities.Com. Geocities.Com at that time was not yet acquired by Yahoo. The address of my site was http://geocities.com/selaplana, but it was hacked and stolen from me by one of my friends on March 8, 2004 along with my other site “Pasugo (God’s Message) Online” at www.pasugo-online.com.

The focus of my personal site is Religion. I regularly posted one religious article every week in the Filipino language (tagalog). My aim on putting up that site was to share my experiences, my thoughts and my knowledge about religion to all my (offline and online) friends and loved ones.

It was on the year 2003 when I first heard about blogger.com. So, I decided to create a blog that would contain my thoughts about the girl I liked. Until now, the blog is still existed at http://toaubrey.blogspot.com. It’s my first blog and this was also the first time I tried to write journals in English.

The criticism made by my blog’s visitors on the way I write articles in English led me to create more blogs as a way of enhancing my skills in English writing.

GM T: What made you decide to become a “pro” blogger?

SELplana: I started earning money through my blogs on the year 2004 when I became a Google Adsense publisher. But I didn’t consider myself a professional yet. I blog because I really wanted to enhance my writing skills.

When I lost my business in Quezon City (Internet Café) on December 2005, I went home here in Southern Leyte without a job. So, my time was just spent blogging and waiting for the Adsense check to come. Yes, I became a fulltime blogger but still didn’t consider myself a professional one. When Yuga (Abe Olandres) gave the definition of Problogger or Professional Blogger as bloggers who are paid to blog, I then admit I am problogger because I was paid by my self in blogging. But still I consider myself as an amateur.

GM T: Tell me about your first few months with selaplana.com. What were the things you did to increase your traffic and readership? What was it like? Was it hard at first?

SELplana: Actually, I didn’t find it hard dealing with my SELaplana (www.selaplana.com) blog. I already have my Ka Webspy Network (the network of my personal blogs) which helped my SELaplana blog gain traffic. What I did was establishing links from the blogs on the network to my SELaplana blog. And I am always mentioning it with a link to it on my blogposts at the other blogs on the network.

Below is the list of other ways I used to gain traffic for SELaplana blog

• Taking Advantage of Yuga’s PinoyBlog.Com. Every time I post blogpost at SELaplana blog, I also post announcement at the PinoyBlog.Com.
• Using my blog’s URL as my signature at forums.
• Using my blog’s URL as my signature when giving notice to bloggers who request link at the Pinoy Bloggers Directory (www.pinoyblogger.com).
• Talking about the popular local and international shows.
• Do some tricks in winning the SERP of popular keywords.
• Posting unrelated contents like popular lyrics.
• Posting related comments to other blogs in the Blogosphere, especially those popular blogs.
• Joining the discussions on the Blogosphere and pinging for trackbacks those other blogs with similar talks with mine.

These techniques are just the way to let other internet users notice my blog. But I also employed some other ways to make those visitors visited my blog revisit my blog regularly. And some of these ways are:

• Trying hard (because I am not really good in writing) to write quality and interesting blogposts which are related to my niche, which includes tips, tricks and useful information.
• Making sure that my blog’s content loads faster and tried to avoid some annoyances that will piss off my visitors.
• Plugging in some hot issues related to Technology and Money.

GM T: Where do you get your ideas about topics?

SELplana: Well, there are tons of places where you can get topic to write. What I did was just to:

1. Think of my personal offline and online experiences.
2. Put into writing my knowledge, especially those related to my blog’s niche.
3. Read emails and publish my thoughts, reaction and answers.
4. Read news from news.google.com, Philippine Daily Inquirer (offline and online) and other local papers.
5. Read hot discussions in the Blogosphere through Techmeme.com.
6. Visit other blogs (those listed at my LINK page, and also the blogs listed at the Pinoy Bloggers Directory) especially those related to my blog’s niche.
7. Read comments from other blogs, especially the comments of my readers dropped at my blog.
8. Regularly visit Digital Point Forums (http://forums.digitalpoint.com) for latest discussions on Information Technology.
9. Since my blog’s niche is “Making Money Online”, so I regularly check the latest posts of other blogs related to that by searching the Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com) or Technorati (http://technorati.com) with that key-phrase.

GM T: Any tips you’d like to share to our readers on how they could also increase their blog traffic?

SELplana: I already mentioned some of the ways I did with my blog in increasing my blog traffic. You can apply them too into your blog.

However, you must also dig the internet and search more information about it. Even if you already gained thousands of visitors for your blog, you need not stop digging the internet for information. Remember that everything will change, especially the search engines algorithm. There are techniques which are useful today, but will only harm your blog on the next day.

GM T: What’s a typical day (routine) for you?

SELplana: I am not really sure. One thing I know is that almost all of my time is spent in front of my computer.

GM T: What are the top 3 monetizing tips you think pinoys should concentrate on? Is relying on purely adsense, for you, a good thing?

SELplana: There are many ways to monetize your blog. Don’t just rely on Adsense. I know you can earn more than what I am earning now from Adsense, but you can still maximize your earning by using some other monetizing services. Don’t waste your time… Make use of it.

However, you should also make sure that those monetizing services you use will not piss off your visitors. You should not forget that the blood of our blog is its visitors. Without them, our blog is useless.

I tried several blog monetizing services but I am earning much from Adsense, YesAsia Associate Program and Text Link Ads. But traffic is important on these services for you to earn much. So, I think I can give you only one tip.

Work hard to increase your traffic. If your blog gained excellent traffic, everything will follow na, including your blog’s Alexa ranking and feed readership which are the basis in pricing the value of your blog.

Just like what I told you on my blog before, and I will tell you again here: “Traffic is Money”.

GM T: Final words?

SELplana: Don’t blog if you just want to earn money. You’ll never earn money from blogging if you’re just thinking of money. Do blog because you love it, interested with it and have passion on it. These are the most important things that should be found in your heart while blogging. And I’m sure, after sometimes, you’ll be rewarded with unexpected things, including the wealth and popularity.

Thank you! Good luck and God bless us all.