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Yodisphere Year in Review » An Amazing First Year of Blogging

It’s an exciting place, the blogosphere – and it’s unfortunate that I just discovered blogging this year. Though 2011 has been busy: with my regular work, other personal projects and non-essential stuff, I’ve tried to continue posting, though not as consistently as I would like.

This blog just celebrated its first blogversary last September 1, thus still at its infancy. However, 2011 was a great starting year for me. I got a Google PR 3 already, has a daily average of 500 unique visitors, had the chance to meet and network with some inspiring Pinoy bloggers and attended a few blogger and PR events.

As this year comes to a close, I wanted to take a moment to look back at my top posts and share to you exciting things that I’ve learned.

But before I get on with it and before I get too excited about what's to come next, I would like to review the main contents that I have covered on this blog this year.
  • Travel Hacking: I am fortunate to have backpacker friends and office mates, which allow me to do weekend getaways and plan cheap leisure trips around the Philippines. The experiences and insights I had on these trips are definitely worth sharing and I’m so glad it consistently help spike up blog traffic.  Travel could very well have been the niche of this blog, but at this stage I am not sure if I could sustain regular travel gigs due to time and budget constraints. Therefore, this blog’s contents will still be a mix of lifestyle and anything amusing posts.  
  • Mountain Climbing. Late this year I discovered the thrill of mountaineering and shared some life-lessons and thoughts on my post-climb write-ups. This helps me achieve one of my blogging goals, that is to provide something inspirational to others.   
  • Mobile Phone Photography. Yes, I don’t own a DSLR camera – mostly the pictures I used here are from my very handy Samsung Galaxy S smartphone. As filler posts, I started a mobile snapshot series, which aims to share everyday scenes that I find interesting. But hopefully I could buy an SLR this year since I’m planning to attend some formal photography seminar.
  • Tips and Research-based Stuff. These types of posts about random topics are the major traffic boosters here, but it’s very tricky to write because it needs accuracy, reliability through valid sources and personal experience. It always took me weeks before I finish writing posts of this type. 
  • Commentaries, Events and Reviews. You will also find occasional personal editorials here about current events, political issues and some stuff about the blogosphere. I also tried personal reviews of some establishments, books, some movies, and travel destinations.
  • Personal Development. I always believe only you can motivate yourself – so I’m also sharing some inspiring notes, personal effectiveness guides and motivational stories here – plus, it always helps adding some humor stuff once in a while.
What’s to come next?

I’m still experimenting on monetizing this blog and for 2012, I’m planning to include posts about instructional how-to's, product reviews, case studies and more events reporting. Also I want to do a Q&A or interviews but currently I’m not that confident about it yet.     

Here are my 10 most visited posts from 2011, based on total page views (via Google Analytics):

10. Cosplay Mania » Absurd Escapism or Creative Self-expression? . This is my first serious attempt on a case-study type of post which got lots of hits from the cosplayer community.

9. Ilocos Tour » Laoag-Pagudpod-Vigan Impromptu Weekend Getaway. I never thought unplanned weekend getaway could be memorable and fun – and Google likes the idea too and indexed it on the top search results for “Ilocos tour”

8. Yummy Cebu Food Trip » Cheap Restaurants in Cebu City. This proves that we love eating, especially on affordable restos.

7. Banchetto » Street Food Fiesta for the Hungry Insomniacs. Filipinos definitely love street foods

6. Getting High at Majayjay » Taytay Falls, Laguna Escapade.  This is our little escapade at the ice-cold Majayjay Falls where I got totally drunk…hmm nostalgic.    

5. Hosting Gig » Sample Wedding Reception Script for the Instant Emcee. It’s always nice sharing things to those in a hurry and I especially love this post because of the heartfelt thank-you notes I received from readers who are in a similar situation – of being an instant emcee.
  
4. Maritime School Assessment Program (MSAP) General Information. Exam results are definitely a traffic booster – it’s just sad I am not allowed to post the whole results of this examination unlike in government licensure exams.

3. Wensha Spa Body Massage: Affordable Way to Reduce Stress and Bring Back Your Sanity. Everybody hates stress! And sharing this becomes a healthy breather on this blog.

2. Sec. Angelo Reyes Committed Suicide, Dead on Arrival at Quirino Hospital. This is my attempt on breaking news quick-post and I was surprised by the sudden traffic surge. Amazingly, this becomes the most commented post for 2011. 

1. NBI Clearance New Biometrics System » How to get it without losing your patience. This becomes my top post for this year – and it proves that a content that helps others is really king!

Happy New Year!


I will be officially on vacation until next week and maybe offline for the next two weeks. I’ve got much needed family time awaiting. I’ll get in touch in 2012!

I would love to hear your feedback and would entertain any new post ideas for this upcoming year. I wish you all a prosperous New Year!


Thank you once again and I’m hoping for another exciting and eventful year!


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Image Credit: Digital Art. Human Plant


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