Use your blog to show your expertise, get work, and make money

The picture above shows an oDesk job invitation which I received a couple days ago. The good thing about this interview invitation is that I got it because of my blog.

My secret source of online work and earning
I have a blog where I share various programming related topics every now and then. The most popular article on this blog attracts more than a hundred viewers ever week. Link to the blog is given below:
aprogrammersday.blogspot.com/2014/05/disconnect-block-drop-calls-android-4.html

This blog post is about a technique which can be used to block an incoming call on smart phones running Android mobile operating system version 4.x.x. Disconnecting calls based on caller's phone number has been a pressing problem for Android app developers since the launch of Android 4.

More about my popular blog post

I am sure many others would have figured the same technique out but nobody would tell their secret, I decided to publish it in spirit of helping the community. I discovered the technique while I was experimenting and playing with a few ideas which I needed to get sorted for a project. It was quite a "Eureka" moment I must say.
There has been a lot of activity on the blog, the number of comments has been very gratifying for my ego as well. It makes me feel that I know something which people don't know.

Making money on internet is easy (not)

The fact that we need thousands of visitors before someone actually tries to buy something from you shows the difficulty level of internet marketing. It is no mean feat to get clients from the internet and it is not a piece of cake or a walk in the park. There are a lucky few whose ideas click instantly and they make sh*t load of money along with getting famous. Pretty much fairy tale stuff, and if someone's telling you that you can get rich with Adsense, they are completely nonsense.

Hire me for Android mobile app development and Windows PC software development on oDesk.com 
https://www.odesk.com/users/~012d73aa92fad47188

My blogging story
I created my very first blog in 2006, I wrote my first blog post from an internet cafe. The thing was short lived since I didn't even own a computer back then. Then came my second tech blog which I started in 2009, where I've been adding content steadily with a brief 2 year blogging "menopause" after getting married. This blog still gives me about 100 hits daily.

Then there was a third blog where I would post crap about gadgets, that too was short lived and I decided it was not worth it after couple dozen posts. It also brings in about 30 hits daily.

I also have an Urdu language blog which I write just for fun, a post every few months which is a bad practice since people don't like irregular writers. This blog also gets about 20+ hits daily.

And finally this blog, I started this one when I quit a full time job in favor of a freelance career. The AdSense account which I create sometime around 2006 is still showing "all time revenue" around $58 and I guess it won't cross the $100 mark any time soon.

Role of social media
On time of this writing, I got about 200 followers on Twitter. 300 connections on LinkedIn, and 200 friends on Facebook.
I am often a top contributor in oDesk Linkedin group as well.
All these social media outlets get me a reasonable number of hits as soon as I publish the blog and tweet about it or post a discussion on Linkedin.
Having a strong reputation on social media can be helpful, although please don't use this statement as an excuse to watch cat videos.


Demo TCP/IP Sockets Read and Write in C#, Free Udemy Course from Naeem Akram on Vimeo.
Moral of the story
Overnight success does not happen in blogging, we have to try and fail and get up and get started. Same practice needs to be repeated again and again until we hit the sweet spot. It is like discovering yourself, and finding your true competencies.
You need to be passionate about what you will be writing, filming, or pod-casting about but that alone is not enough to make you a success. There must be a market for the stuff you want to write about.

Then you must write regular, readers/viewers want to hear back from you. The content in your publications will show your character so always try to post high quality and well presented stuff.

Leads through your blog or youtube channel will start flowing your way, but again it is going to take some time. Best of luck :)