spBlogger.com is my testing playground nowadays. Tested DISQUS last time. And I am testing PostDate this time. Does Google able to detect this post date even without PostDate class in HTML? Let’s find out in next few days…

DISQUS good? I believe so because most of the big sites are using it. But does it good in SEO? Let’s find out…

My blogs was hit by Google Panda Update badly last year. 10% traffic dropped when Google Panda first launched at US. Another 20% dropped when rolled out to international. Well, I managed to recover the loss traffic by writing more quality articles. And I did not do much search engine optimization (SEO) on my blogs since then. No traffic performance hit when Google launched another search engine algorithm update – Google Penguin. My blogs was safe until now…

Hit by Google Panda / Penguin Update

Err… Google Panda / Penguin Update did it again. I don’t know it is Google Panda or Google Penguin that is causing the problem. My blog – JayceOoi.com suffered 15% traffic drop. No issue on other 2 blogs – spBlogger.com and PrettyGirl2u.com.

Gain by Google Panda / Penguin Update

There is loss and gain. But the losses are far more than gaining. Lot of pages loss more than 50 to 70% while only a few pages increased. Hmm… How many months to I need to recover from this latest Google Panda / Penguin Update?

I made a very hard decision last 2 years ~ to be a full-time blogger. I was employed as Application Developer in Intel Malaysia for 5 years. It is not an easy decision to make because Intel really pay well and has lot of employee benefits like stock, bonuses, free medical, dental & optical… My blog income is no way near Intel salary back then. However, I decided to make a change of my daily job. And by looking back now… I can confirm that I made a right choice.

Full-time blogger

It is much better to be a full-time blogger. You control the time, task, job… In short == everything. No need to travel to company for work because I work in front of my computer in my room now. I have more time with families. However, being too flexible is a curse for full-time blogger too. I saw lot of bloggers stop / lazy to write. And some was hit by Google Panda and Penguin algorithm update. Therefore, traffic is getting lesser each day. Some even worst ~ banned by Google AdSense. This translates to less income. Besides, income from blog is not stable like fixed monthly salary when employed. There will be up and down.

If you would like to be a full-time blogger, be sure that you have a dedicated mind. Have a goal that you want to success in blogging world. Overcome all the obstacles along the way no matter what. Don’t even thinking of quit, and keep on learning everyday. You will success someday. Remember… A good blog takes time to build up. Put all your effort…

Low earning? Not enough income from blog? Just add more advertisements to improve blog earning, right?

I was so lucky to be invited to optimize my website with Google AdSense experts in Malaysia. Did you get the invitation? Too bad that I could not make it to meet them in KL personally. But talking with Google AdSense Optimization Specialist, Harsha through phone is better than nothing.

Improve blog earning

I did not optimize my blog layout and advertisement placements for quite some time. Focus on writing article most of the time. Hoping that writing more quality posts will generate more income. Yes, they really do improve traffic and earning. But that conversation is like a wake up call to me. Tell me to optimize advertisements to get even better earning. So I started to optimize Google AdSense ads on my blogs. Look at ContextWeb ads performance too. Found out that I still can get more income by tweaking here and there. And finally will take time to improve blog layout too. It’s time to do some background work now…

As usual, adding more ads do not mean that you will get more income. You need to monitor their performance and tweak them. Again and again… Only settle down after you get the best result.