Versatile Blogger Award

I've been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award by Lou-Ann of Live Love Lou.

Thank you very much for the nomination, I think this a good way to round up new bloggers and give them more exposure in the blogging world.

The rules are quite simple:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you and link back to their blog.
• Add the Versatile Blogger Award picture to your post.
• Nominate 15 other bloggers that are relatively new to blogging.
• Let the bloggers know that you've nominated them (either thru email or comments).
• Share 10 random facts about yourself.

Sometimes it is quite hard being a blogger. Of course, it requires time, effort, dedication and not to mention, motivation to keep you going. That’s why I’m glad to find some fellow bloggers who shares great posts and inspirations. It is therapeutic for me when I write something although at times of work loads and exhausted of my day job I failed to constantly update my blog. I know I shouldn’t be making excuses, there’s always a time for everything if you really wanted to right? 
So here you go....

Here are my Top 15 Nominees:

1. Tiffany of A Girl and Her Passport
2. Jackie of Day well lived
3. Brittany of Girl in the dynamic City
4. Jozi of Open roads are calling
5. Karen of What will happen to me
6. Naomi of Tea time with Naomi
7. American expat of My thoughts from the deep end
8. Joana of B Hong Kong  
9. Angie of The Stereotypical American
10. Gail of Hungry at midnight
11. Jenny of The little adventurer
12. Sofia of The pallet of life
13. Honey of You will miss me when I'm gone
14. Kerstin of My manly blog
15. Lynnette of Sincerely Lynnette

Curious about the girl behind the words????

Random Facts About Myself:

• Pure Filipina
• I love potatoes (fried, mashed, baked, whatever)
• I'm a big fan of Nicholas Sparks book and movie. I like reading erotic books or any romance, inspirational and informative ones.
• I love beaches. (Suck swimmer).
• I'm addicted to sweets, (chocolates, sweet corn, caramel, nutella, peanut butter, pick-up lines?) Anything that involved sweets, I'll buy it!!
• I don't bite into the cob when I eat corn, I want to remove it piece by piece and eat. I also don't like it shaved, I just really want to pluck it out one by one.
• I'm a sucker for TV series. Anything, reality TV to zombies to vampire (and their love lives). I enjoy watching TV (while I eat my corn by bits. Haha)

How to set-up a blog: In 5 Easy Steps

When I first started this blog over a year ago, I absolutely knew nothing about blogs or blogging. I kept searching for information about the “how-to” guides on google, but they all required technical skills and I found them difficult to follow. But now I’ve learned a bit about blogging and I'd like to share it especially to all my friends who loves to travel and taking pictures in each places they've been to and hoping one day that I could convince them to document their daily activities via blogging. So shall we start?

5 EASY STEPS IN SETTING-UP A BLOG:

1. Find a killer and catchy Domain Name.

First things first, in order to start a blog you need to brainstorm a domain name that you are going to use on your blog. Unfortunately most one-word domains are taken at this point but there are still plenty of good domains out there. Finding a great domain name can take a while, but it’s worth it. I suggest pick something unique, short and easy to remember. I've actually tried a couple of times changing my domain name because I find it hard to think of a good domain that fits to what I am passionate about. So I've decided to use this domain: www.themidnightink - unique, concise, bit catchy and easy to remember. I've come to this domain because I usually work on my blog at night because that's when all the best thoughts aren't taken yet and I want this blog to take me somewhere or anywhere or so whatever my future holds in the world of blogging. 

2. Decide what you are going to blog about.

Pick a blog topic. Is there anything you enjoy or are really passionate about? If there is, then start to blog about it. It’s even better when you have been interested in a specific field. However, if you don’t have any idea which topic you want to write about, think about your hobbies or just start blogging about your daily activities, memorable moments or simply about everything. Like mine, I am starting to document some of my "first try" and new experiences in a new City. There's always a first for everything and those firsts I want to share with you.

3. Which blogging platform you are going to use?

There are two free blogging platforms available online:

Many popular blog users use WordPress because it sounds and looks professional especially if you are planning to start a business this is a good platform to start with. Since I am a newbie and still on my learning quest in the world of blogosphere - I opted Blogger.com and because I find it a lot easier to use. 

4. Money Blogging

You are not able to earn money via blogging but if you are going to use a self-hosted blog you can start to earn money from it but I'm still trying to figure out this one how it works. I think you can only earn money depends on how much traffic your ads will get each month. Overall, it’s a great choice for people, who want to blog long-term, share their knowledge, become a blogger and earn some money from it. Check Google AdSense for more information about how to start making money via blogging. 

5. Writing  - This is a tough one.  Think of something interesting to talk about. You definitely don’t want to bore your readers. Though I’ve only had 3 readers and 1 follower (1 in Philippines, 1 in UAE and 1 in USA) Nevertheless, I'm still motivated each day to write because this is my idea of having a blog to document my daily life events. Tell a good story. People love a good story. Stories have the ability to connect with people. If you tell a good story, you won’t have any trouble of being interesting. 

But make sure to be honest. Storytelling is great, but making up a work of fiction and pretending its fact is not only lame, but also stupid. You don’t want to build a reputation based on deceiving people. It’s also way easier to keep your stories straight. I have never written so much in my life but blogging certainly hones your writing skills no matter how you look at it. 

People won’t expect you to write like Shakespeare. Just write your heart-out, tell your story, be honest and you’re doing fine. 

Lastly, Make sure you’re on every social networking site. You should set up every single social media page available on the web. 

Better Advice: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest etc. Create content first (stuff worth sharing) then move on to worrying about promoting it later.

Do you find it a bit helpful?

Or you got an easier steps to set up a blog?

Please leave a comment and 
Share some tips to improve this blog.

Thank ya'll! 

xxx