Back those days when I started out as a blogger, I did so just for the fun of it. No keywords, search engine optimization, heck not even monetization was bothering me then. I just wrote.

After a few months of utter dedication and passion to my writing… I started harvesting the fruits of my labor. Labor, which I didn’t considered to be a chore when I started out. Fruits that is more commonly known as money to most of us. No doubt, it made my blogging life more colorful than ever… Yet it had both a good and bad side.

Blogging for fun is fun

If you blog for fun, then of course, blogging is going to be fun! Especially if you post about all the happy things that you see around or write about great finds that you want to share with your friends. It’s also an avenue to share your downs in life..[1. Carla Nazario‘s inspirations to blog] Who knows, people who have been in common situations might leave some piece of advice?

You can freely blog, no doubt.. but everything has its limitations. For one, I believe there’s just one limitation to the freedom of blogging and that is respect. Respect other people, other entities. Specially the ones that you criticize in your posts. If there’s a need for you to be negative, then do so constructively.

Blogging to earn is troublesome

And on goes my journey as a blogger. I experienced my first Adsense payout billed at around 150 Dollars, about a year after I got into it. Oh yes, it took me that long. The third bill came in at 600 dollars and it wow-ed not even myself, but my colleagues in the blogging realm as well. Those days, 600 dollars in adsense seemed so much, specially for someone as young as yours truly was a few years back.

More months went by.. Earnings of 15-20 per day or 250-500 per month followed, not only adsense made some noise, but other Advertising too.. and as these months went by, I got more and more pressured in the position I was in.

I became more and more conscious about keywords, about search engine optimization that I’ve slightly lost myself becoming a blogger merely for money instead of fun… someone who isn’t reader focused anymore, but focused on having people click away on an ad instead.

Thank God, I remained lenient in just having a single (utmost 2) ad blocks on my flagship blog at all times to leave it as clutter free as possible.

The wows from my friends ended up in woes within me. There was a conflict going on. Insecurity popped up, a little greed, maybe. The moment I said to myself that I wanted to make money from my blogs was when I lost hold of them, and that dates back to early 2010.

For me? Blogging for money is not blogging at all

I don’t consider blogging for money as blogging. Writing for money would be a better fit in my opinion. I irk sometimes when I see blogs that are cluttered with advertisements, no user friendliness, nothing.. just waiting for you to be the next user to click an ad and make the person behind it earn.

BLOGGING is NOT EQUAL to MAKING MONEY ONLINE

I always thought of blogging as a tool for sharing information[2. The main reason I carried on with Pinoy Teens, to entertain, educate and inform.] and expressing ones self[3. Hence, the often times very personal (first person POV) posts on Pinoy Teens]. Income should always be secondary, or at best a by product of your service to others. It may seem to be a long and dwindling road to take, but that’s how it is, and even if you put money making as the top priority on your websites.. you still won’t make a thousand bucks overnight.

It will take time. Putting money on top of your list will make you earn, no doubt (if you do it right) but it won’t make you a blogger in my eyes.

No, I won’t deny it. I find myself placed somewhere in between at the moment. Looking to safely come back home, return to the real blogging realm.

Being a blogger and earning can go together though

Of course, these two can go together. All that you need is to put your readers and your content on your priority list, and not your advertisements and crave for making money.

I feel a little sad… because more and more people look at bloggers as just some random people writing online to make money… Blogging is losing credibility, credit to those people who just write for money. What makes it different from an advertisement on TV now?!

Indeed, blogging is also finding its way into the mainstream media as a respected medium of information dissemination, too.

To cut it short.. Look. Blogging is heading both ways, the good and the bad. AND there is a fine line between these two. Now, are you really a blogger? Or just a webmaster making money out of a blogging tool?

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Kudos to everyone who manage to do both[4. Mark from PinoyMovieBlog.com]. Provide something in return for their readers and earn along with it. It’s always nice to be of use to others while getting compensated for the effort you put into it.