Chuvatech is Dedicated to All the Filipinos
Owning a website, turning it into a profitable business that earns in dollars, while you work from home, is the most ideal situation for my countrymen especially. Of course this kind of business is also ideal for just about anyone who wants to work from home.
But Filipinos have a good market of about 10,000,000 overseas workers and an untold number of Filipino immigrants to other countries, especially the United States. And the way we stay in touch with each other is the through the internet.
On top of the Filipino market abroad, another market for the Filipino-owned website would be tourists who will want to visit our beautiful country: war veterans, adventure travelers, beach lovers.
Future markets would be those whose lives our countrymen abroad have touched: hotel co-employees (including cruise liners), the little future taipans who are currently in the care of Filipino nannies (a lot of whom are qualified school teachers) and just about anybody else you can imagine.
For we are an intelligent, hard-working people, who excel in the right work environment, who are qualified experts in our respective fields of endeavor. And better yet, we can express ourselves effectively in the internet’s primary language — English.
Judging by the hordes of Filipino bloggers out there, I felt it is now time to teach others how to start making money from their websites.
WHAT ARE SITE BUILDING CONCERNS THAT ARE UNIQUE TO THE PHILIPPINE SETTING?
Except for how to make and receive dollar payments, or being excluded from programs open to other nationalities, I cannot, at this point see how much different it should be. It’s just that many of us are satisfied with merely getting our opinions in print, earning ‘ad cents,’ and not generally finding or focusing on a niche topic, or competing with other niche topics (this is the Chinese influence in our local business models: Go with a surefire formula. Do not take risks. Sell what everybody else is selling but make yours cheaper), and are unable to convert site traffic into sales.
But creating a niche website or blog, following a time-tested formula in unchartered waters (by this I mean ‘topics’) is where most websites succeed. It may be said it is the American model. And, let’s face it, their rules apply on the internet. So it is time to learn to play by these rules and make the same money (or even more) that other website owners do. Research minimizes risks. Studying your market, and ‘owning’ your product is what works.
Filipinos, in general are more intuitive than analytical. This is what makes us a warm and resilient people. But, at the same time, these traits cause us make a lot of mistakes. Enough of trial and error. It just wastes time.
The marketing rules that apply offline can be applied online, too, with certain terms and concepts modified to address the behavior of the internet market. And I will try to explain these in a really easy way, avoiding as much as possible the technical terms (or at least, trying to explain them in the simplest terms).
WHY SHOULD I SHARE MY KNOWLEDGE WITH YOU? WILL IT MAKE ME EARN MORE? WILL IT NOT MAKE ME EARN LESS BY ALLOWING OTHERS TO SHARE MY NICHE?
The Philippines is not my niche. I cannot possibly cover every topic about this country, it people and everybody’s area of expertise that may or may not have a global market. All I can do is open opportunities for you, my countrymen, because by earning extra dollars, or thousands like my friend Bella, you will not want to seek your fortunes abroad anymore. You will not leave me behind (because I never, ever want to leave this country — tinging yosi, maruya, ginataan, pamilya, fiesta, atbp) in the company of just the politicial scoundrels who are responsible for, in Butch Dalisay’s words ‘this systematic, State-sponsored, shameless moronization of the Filipino.’
The way Web 2.0 has been designed, socialization is of paramount importance. We Filipinos are good at that on and off the web. So we build from that, but learn to focus, attempt to make oodles of money, optimize, explore a myriad of monetization models, succeed economically on the internet, and all of this while being here in the Philippines, so that we can physically stay to help build a better country.
This is my dream. I am well on my way to achieving it for myself. And I would like you to share in the bounties the internet offers. Successful Filipino bloggers and website owners will not teach you this, because they may be too busy building their internet empires. I, on the other hand, own modestly successful websites that open up opportunities for me on and off the web. Plus, I live in Baguio. Just that statement alone should let you know that I have all the time in the world to devote to sharing all I know about building niche websites with you FOR FREE.
And allow me to let you in on a secret: Making money on the web is not a mutually exclusive thing!
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