Continuation, of local blogger

This is the article I mentioned in my previous entry but, I wrongly wrote as 2000 hits per day, actually it was about 6000 to 7000 hits per day!

p/s After I read this article, I had decided not to leave the blogosphere and hence, the creation of this new kularilari blog.

Hacking Ikea furniture online anyone?
By Hazimin Sulaiman



COPYWRITER Yap Mei Mei, nicknamed Jules, from Ipoh has a blog. But just not any blog; it’s one which has received a lot of attention, including from foreign publications like The New York Times. Enter Ikea Hacker in your search engine or point your Web browser to ikeahacker.blogspot.com and you’ll get the idea why it gets 6,000 to 7,000 hits per day!

Before the 20,000 hit explosion caused by the article in The New York Times, Jules used to blog personal stuff but decided to close it down. “I got too busy with ikeahacker and couldn’t maintain the other blog,” she says.
With all the amazing stuff she puts up with other contributors on ikeahacker.blogspot.com some would imagine that Jules is a technology savvy ninja person but she disagrees. Jules mainly blogs at home on a Streamyx broadband connection and a HP laptop PC which she’s not sure what the specifications are. That doesn’t seem to stop her from being such an uber-blogger.

“I didn’t know a strand of html previously and had to learn from scratch. I spent a lot of time at blogging 101 level: figuring out how to add pictures, links, etc. Thank God the Internet is a good teacher! You can learn anything if you are patient enough and you know how to Google,” Jules explains.

According to Jules, the first two to three months was a complete blur but she soon got the hang of it. At the moment Jules spends one to two hours per day on her blog and blog related matters such as answering e-mails and checking out Ikea related news.

Maybe being a copywriter has its distinct advantage in drawing in the crowd? Well, Jules admits that the writing is the easy part of blogging. “Writing an ad or a post isn’t very different: you still need to grab attention and make your readers want to read on.”

What inspired her? When asked whether she did it for friends, pleasure or simply for the love of Ikea, Jules explains that it all began when she bought her apartment and wanted to furnish it. She was practically camping out at Ikea. She went online for home decor sites and saw a fantastic Ikea hack. That was when it striked her to compile all the hacks in one site.

With successes like Jules from Ipoh on the blogosphere, it will undoubtedly cause a lot of excitement. People may want to create similar blogs. Jules has a few pointers that you could try out. “Depending on what you want to do. If you just want a blog to share your life, just go onto Blogger or Wordpress and get a free account. But if you intend to make money with your blog, it is a totally different ballgame and there is so much to be said about it,” says Jules.

Jules isn’t ready to give up her day job yet. “Yes there is money to be made, but blogging is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s a slow burn. If you consistently give out great content which people find of value, you may reap a return,” Jules admits.

The rewards of blogging she believes are not just monetary: it’s also about making new friends all over the world. “I am very thankful that people find my site inspiring and useful,” Jules adds.

1. Find your niche. People like passion and the Internet is full of people gone crazy about their hobbies and interests.
“What’s your niche? You may not be an expert yet, but educate yourself. Then write about it and if possible everything about it.”

2. Find the blog platform you’re comfortable with. The perennial Blogger versus Wordpress debate goes on. Blogger is easier: you can set one up in five minutes. Wordpress’ learning curve is steeper but offers more flexibility and plug-ins. “Whichever you go with you need to get your own domain name, which I regret not doing. It is a real pain to lose all your inbound links and technorati rank.”

3. Get traffic. Make nice and visit related blogs and forums. Try to get to know other like-minded people. Don’t spam by writing stuff like “Nice blog!” and expect others to drop by yours. Do write interesting and useful comments on the blogs or forums. Others will soon see that you are a valuable member and you know what you are talking about and will click through or link to or recommend your site.

4. Network with others. “One of my traffic breakthroughs was when I sent Armand of PositiveFanatics.com (the unofficial Ikea fan site of which I am eternally grateful to) an e-mail about my site. He was kind enough to post it up and suddenly I had hundreds of visitors a day, from the previous day’s 10s. His post not only sent traffic my way, but the news was picked up by other sites such as ApartmentTherapy.com and BoingBoing.net, which totally blew the covers off my stat charts,” says an ecstatic Jules.

5. Learn from the pros. “One of my must-read sites on making money from blogging is problogger.net. Loads of useful information you can put to use immediately on your site,” Jules points out.