“Pig, what are you writing again?” Robert asked.
“I am writing about the traditional Khmer color ‘black’. Cambodian people didn’t call it black in the past,” I said.
“What is it called?”
“I don’t tell you. If you want to know, you have to read it. However, it will be published next week.”
“What’s about your article about color indigo?”
“Click on the picture above if you want to read it.”
“Pig, can you tell the difficult experiences you have encountered working as a blogger?” Robert asked.
“There are many,” I said.
“Tell me one.”
“Let’s take the example of writing in English. Though I know English, I am poor in grammar. My writing usually had grammatical errors. When I wrote fiction on websites, there were a lot of criticism comments especially over my grammar, but no one told how to fix it. This is what the writers online always meet - especially the non-native English writers. In addition, though I asked them to help me by telling me how I could improve my grammar, no one replied. Seeing that I decided to continue writing. I published stories on eleven websites and I spent about one year. One day, there was a comment from a reader saying that my story had a lot of grammatical errors, they told me to use google doc in gmail to fix it. I followed their advice; after that, I don’t see anyone criticize grammar in my writing anymore.”
“Wow, sad but happy experience.”
“Yes, it is both a sad and happy experience. And because of that, I decided to share what problems I encounter and how I fix them on my website. The experts, the rich, the outstanding people might think it is not important and laugh at. But for the low and poor bloggers, like me, who are thriving to chase dreams to be successful bloggers, it is very important. Especially when we are not native English writers, we meet a lot of difficulties, and what we need is comments or advice on how we can deal with that difficulty or improve our capacity. Nowaday, among thousands of people, there are less than one hundred people who have a helpful heart to share good comments. Most of them love to give look down comments, mock comments etc.”
Robert wagged his head, “I understand.”
It was a good, shiny day. While Robert and I were gardening, cow, duck and twin piggies came.
“Hello pig. Hello Robert,” they said.
“Hello,” I said.
“We are coming to call you to go to the lake. We didn’t go out together for many days.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“Come on, pig. We miss you,” twin piggies said.
“Yes, come with us,” cow said.
“Don’t stay at home like this. You will be stressed,” duck said.
“No.” I shook my head. “Sorry.”
Seeing that they couldn’t persuade me, they gave up.
After they left, Robert asked, “Why don’t you go with them? This will be fun.”
“I don’t have time for having fun, Robert,” I said. “I need to work to get money.”
“I wonder why they can have time to have fun, and you don’t.”
“They don’t need to worry because they have their masters taking care of them. They don’t have to care about food or pay the bill, but I do.”
Robert wagged his head, “I understand.”
“Pig, I have read your website. Most of your articles are short,” Robert said.
“Yes, they are short,” I said.
“Why don’t you write a long article?”
“It’s not the right marketing.”
“What does it mean?”
“Nowaday, people prefer short content. You can see that short videos are gaining more popularity than long videos. So, I decided to inspire this tactic by producing short articles.”
Robert wagged his head, “I see.”
“What are you doing, Pig?” Robert asked.
“I am writing to publish on my website chantchhaya,” I said.
“What are you writing about?”
“About the color of ‘wall of the museum of Cambodia.”
“Why do you write about it?”
“I want to tell both Cambodians and international tourists that the wall of the national museum of Cambodia is not called red.”
“Will it be published now?”
“Not yet. This article will be published on Wednesday, next week.”
“How often do you plan to publish your article?”
Hearing this question, Robert made a sour face. “I have no clue about this,” he said.
“It’s important,” I claimed.
“What is your suggestion?”
“No matter if you are a blogger or a vlogger, you have to have products in your hand before you make a website or a video channel. Based on my experience, the number of products you should have is more than one hundred.”
“More than one hundred?”
“Yes.” I nodded my head. “When you create your website, you should post one hundred articles. If it is less than one hundred, you will make the readers feel you are not ready and it can make them feel not impressed about your site.”
“I see.” Robert wagged his head. “Like we open a fruit store, for example. We have to have fruits in our store. When the customer comes, they will go around and see what we have. If we have little, the customer will leave.”
I nodded my head with a smile.
“But why do we need more than one hundred contents?”
“If we own a store on the land, to make people know that our store is opening, we open the door - everyday. But own a website, an online store, the only way to tell the customers that it is opening is to post everyday or regularly. So, besides the one hundred published articles, you have to publish a new article - which you can choose between posting it one daily, two daily, one in a week, two in a week etc.”
“Oh god! It’s not easy.”
“Like I told you already, it is very very very very very hard. And it will be harder while you are operating your site. You will understand when you work with it yourself.”
Robert dropped his shoulders as he heard me.
“Now, summary what I have told you.”
“To make a website,” Robert narrated, “find a domain and a niche. The domain should be no longer than four syllables, it should be easy to say, to type and to remember, it should be a word that a lot of people know about it and it should not be too specific. As for the niche or the topic, it should be a thing that is useful for the readers or what the readers need. Then think about channel and language. If I choose Blogspot, I should write in English; if I choose Wordpress, I can write in any language. To make the website work, I should build my fame. So, besides creating a website, I should create a video channel as well - and I should link them together. Before I make a website or a video channel, I should prepare the contents in advance more than one hundred. When I start my website, there should be one hundred contents published on the site, then I should post regularly to make my website go on.”
“Perfect,” I said with a smile.
I continued, “When I changed yayaidea to be Wordpress org’s site, I also changed its topic from balcony garden to television commercial script. My mind thought and hoped that this would be successful to pull readers to read, still it failed.”
“Why?” Robert said.
“First reason is we are new, second reason is no one knows about us, third reason is it doesn’t give any benefit to the readers.”
“Um,” Robert wagged his head slightly, “I seem to feel about what you said.”
I smiled when I heard it.
“What’s about your chantchhaya? You said it is written in Khmer. How can it get views?”
“It’s because I link it with youtube.”
Robert shrank his eyes as he heard what I said.
“Besides writing blog, I have also used youtube - in 2011 or 2012 I think. At that time, I just wanted to learn using social media. In 2018, when youtube became famous, Cambodian users including me tried to get our channel monetized. I made many types of content but it didn’t work. One day, I tried an administration video and it went viral, so I decided to choose administration teaching as a niche for my youtube channel. At first, it went very well; then youtube closed the advertisement in Cambodia, it was the down period of all Cambodian users in Cambodia. Because of that led me to become a real blogger, and I decided to buy the domains - which two are failures and one is walking.”
“It is written in Khmer, so your youtube channel is in Khmer as well, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is in Khmer.”
“How can your site work by just linking to youtube?”
“Good question.” I grinned. “For instance, I made a video teaching how to write a meeting report uploaded on youtube, then I uploaded the sample of report as PDF file in chantchhaya for the viewers to download it.”
“Ah,” Robert wagged his head in a row, “I see.”
“It’s called a strategy,” I stated. “The same as very happy piglet and yayaidea, chantchhaya didn’t get views by just posting articles. Instead, people go to it because they want the free download document.”
“I’ve got it. You want to tell me that I should build my name if I want to walk on a path of online career. I should not create only a website, but also a video channel and link them together. And to make my website successful, there should be something beneficial that the readers can take from it.”
“Correct.” I nodded my head. “It’s a business. When we do business, we give a product or service to customers and we take product or service costs from them. If our business doesn’t have a product or a service that customers need, no one will come to us. So, you have to think carefully and deeply before you create your site. Not only the website career but also other businesses.”
Robert wagged his head in a row, “I see. Anything else?
“Yes…”
“Pig, where do you come from?” Robert asked. “I went to the market to buy this box,” I said and showed him. “What is it?” “It’s a foam conta...
