Being a content creator and having a platform where I can share resonating articles with my audience has been one of my greatest interests.
When I first started, it wasn’t all rosy and easy as I had imagined. From purchasing my domain name and hosting to setting up the site.
In fact, none of it has been easy. But here I am celebrating my 3rd year as a creator. Going back to some of my old articles, I think I have greatly improved with my writing skills and use of grammar.
It blows my mind to see the thousands of people I have impacted. My readers, those who came from Google search, WordPress community, social media, and emails. With over 200k readers and more than 10 million impressions, I can say we really made it this far.
Truthfully, when I started writing on this space, I had no idea where I was headed. I just wrote what came to mind, and I had no particular audience to target. I didn’t know how I could target a set of regions to make a great impact.
I was just wandering around the wilderness, hoping my content meets someone who finds it interesting to read. But along the line, I met like-minded people who were amateurs like myself on Facebook. I took it upon myself to make a difference.
FAQs About my journey as a blogger and a content creator.
1. What made you choose the path of becoming a blogger?
Around 2018, barely one year after I wrote my WAEC, I was just a confused young man who needed to pursue a career. I had nothing specific in mind until I read an article about a girl my age who bought her parents two exotic cars.
She was living the life I dreamt of, and I told my friend, Chukwudi, “hey man, someday, I want to be like that girl.” Then and there, I made up my mind that I was going to be a content creator.
2. After three years of putting in the work, have you gotten to that level yet?
No, although I am gradually getting there. Being a blogger, I have realized how much value I put into creating what my audience would love to read.
3. How lucrative is blogging as of 2024?
Blogging can be a very lucrative career choice if you put in the work. I have also realized that putting money as the main goal can make you feel frustrated within a short period of time.
Most times, you don’t achieve your goals very easily without needing to invest in your blog. I thought blogging was mainly about writing and getting traffic from the moment you publish your articles.
But as time flew, I realized a whole lot. As of 2024, one must invest in quality content, backlinks, and other sources of traffic, and then blogging can be said to be very lucrative.
4. What’s your view on search engine optimization (SEO)?
When I first started out, I wasn’t getting any attention to my content. I was writing content that no one was reading, and that wasn’t my aim.
I needed to know I was making an impact, so I did some research and discovered I could attract more attention if I wrote my content in a certain way.
SEO changed my blogging career for good, and I was doing really great. For the first time as a newbie, I had over 17k monthly readers. SEO was a game-changer for me. I learned the game and practiced it every day, and with time, it felt really good.
I can categorically say that you can achieve a whole lot with SEO knowledge. Although the negative side of relying on SEO is that you can lose all your traffic with just one Google update. Read more about how my site was hit by the 2024 Google Update.
5. How much did it cost you to start blogging?
Since I bought a TLD domain, it wasn’t that expensive. I bought ceetimax.com.ng from Smartweb for a period of 5 years, and it was sold for 5500, which was less than $15 as of 2021. I bought hosting from Namecheap for less than $30 per year the same year.
Everything was around N20,000 naira, which would have cost between $35 to $40.
6. What is your source of income as a blogger?
For me, this one exciting part about blogging aside from writing of content. Being a blogger gives you many opportunities to monetize your blog. One of my major sources of income is Adsterra, Google AdSense, Ezoic, and paid guest posts.
The more people read my blog posts, the more impressions I get, and most ad platforms like Adsterra pay per 1k impressions while Google AdSense pays per click on impressions, too.
Being a content creator, I have collaborated with a couple of agencies who submit paid guest posts and other advertisements on my blog.
7. What are the challenges you have faced as a blogger or content creator?
Since I write content using keywords, one major challenge is losing my ranking keywords. Keywords are like the root of any blog.
When you start losing your ranking keywords, you start losing traffic because people won’t see your blog on search engines like before.
Another challenge is being hit by a Google update. This can greatly affect a blog negatively, and the impact can most times take months or years to recover.
Relying on SEO isn’t always advisable because of the ever-changing Google algorithm. Aside from that, blogging is a very exciting career. You get a loyal and listening audience who helps you grow with time.
8. What is your advice to someone who wants to start blogging?
Pick a niche, yes, don’t write about a bunch of different topics that won’t profit you. Your niche can be anything you are passionate about. If you love cars, you can become a car blogger. Follow trends and talk about features of those cars, their upgrades, new models, and other vital features.
I have learned that blogging is all about expressing your point of view to your readers from your own unique perspective or experience. Don’t write long and boring articles or topics that may seem boring to your readers.
When you’re creative, you get a lot of people wanting to read your articles every time you publish.
So yeah, you can start today, tomorrow, or anytime. But there’s no exact time to be ready. With the rise of artificial intelligence, you can do virtually anything. You can use AI to create your own content and edit it to the way you want to present it to your readers.
Happy third anniversary to Ceetimax, and those who have contributed in one way or another, a very BIG thank you, guys.
Cheers 🍻 👏
