Happy New Year! Welcome to 2009!

2008 has been a year of uncertainty for me. Though it was not as exciting between 2004 and 2006, It had definitely brought me from one place after another where I have absolutely no visibility of where I am going and yet God is been helping me, directing me to where I want to go.

How I got myself to become an Internet Reviewer

I remember when I first started this blog as an Internet reviewer in June 2007. It was right after I resigned my directorship with a delivery company in Singapore in May 2007. My background has always been related to Internet in one way or another.

I could still remember June 2006 when I worked out a short term food delivery project known as “Soccer Food”. It was a short project which I got help from a few friends. And we managed to get ourselves interviewed in the various newspapers in Singapore. I could still remember my article was situated side-by-side with McDonald’s when they first started their McDelivery. At that time, if I am not wrong, Old Chang Kee also started their food delivery too. I got my website search engine optimized organically with the keyword “food delivery” where I got lots of traffic. (By the way, my blog here is quite optimized for the word “internet reviewer” as well.)

6 months just before I left the company, I was experiementing with landing page optimization to bring in the maximum result for the delivery company. I did a couple of tests on the website and tried writing my very first sales copy. It was fun when I start seeing big companies opting into our mailing list. We got quite a couple of phone calls asking for our delivery service. I went for a few internet marketing courses, and that has really got me into thinking expanding my career into this industry. And officially, I had left the company in May 2007.

Between May and June 2007, I had been thinking what I can provide to the world on the Internet. I have certificates in Enterprise Development from International Professional Managers Association, Information Technology (computer studies) from Ngee Ann Polytechnic. I also had been exposed to various kinds of sales in web design, real estate, health, events, and delivery industries. Until I found John Chow’s make-money-online blog, that’s how I decided and started writing reviews about the websites.

Life as an Internet Reviewer

I studied all the various kinds of reviews done by different bloggers. I read books on landing page optimizations. I even tried to work on my own websites. I started doing video reviews when Carl noticed me. I must admit that my video reviews are not very up to standard when I finally got myself into John Cow’s blog. That’s only because my accent is very Singaporean and my UK friends may not be able to understand what I am “mumbling” about in the reviews. That doesn’t stop me as I continue to write video reviews. Typically, one video review can take me almost the whole day! Just imagine having to talk the same thing again and again because of “no-good” video areas in reviewing websites. Of course, I got myself better each time and I got it faster and faster.

As I move into the end of 2007 that time, my girlfriend started to complain about my income. That’s because I am only beginning to make money online. Money was not good enough for her to see us getting married in the future (which we are getting married this month!). I started to take up a sales job in the IT industry and worked part time in reviewing websites. Definitely, my focus started to deteriorate in writing reviews, making my clients unhappy about it. But I wasn’t really happy because I am not learning what I wanted to learn. I quitted my job immediately after three months in March 2008. That’s where I am going strong in my reviews and keeping my clients happy once again.

As I work longer as an Internet reviewer, I found that I need a breakthrough. I have done up a couple of websites and they are all maturing and making some money for me. At the same time, I can hear my girlfriend nagging again because she wants to see me with a job security. She started to ignore me for one week. With my faith in God, I decided to look for a job which can assist me in growing up along the Internet marketing industry.

Truly amazing, God has answered my prayer and I found an internet marketing job with a MNC. I dedicated myself 100% in the company as I can see a huge potential learning opportunity for me. I worked regionally serving for many country websites. And although I have not touched my websites as much as I do in the past, I start to see paychecks coming in as well.

Preparing for the future

As you may know, I am going to get married in 20 Jan 2009. Remembering that I have no visibility of my future in 2007, while I was working on my internet reviews, I spent a lot of time tidying my room. I could still remember throwing a lot of things away. I never knew this was for the preparation for my marriage in 2009 actually because I cannot imagine so many things to be done in 2008 when I am so held up by my job and my websites. It was truly God’s blessings because I am starting to see a future of what I have been dreaming for. It’s all becoming real in a blink of an eye. I have planned to work for the MNC for five years because I can see so much potential for this company to grow in the Internet arena. And I want to see how it can grow into that stage!

Nevertheless, I am also spending the time to work on my reviews because it is now already a hobby for me to play with. I would love to review websites and to see how much potential a website can become. Problogger has a post on “How to write fast” and that really inspired me. It can be about writing fast and making things to work correctly. It’s not about how much time I need to spend on blogging. It’s all about Key Performance Index (KPI)! And I must admit that the KPI for my blog is deteriorating in 2008… I am going to change that in 2009!

On the very first day of 2009, I wish all of my blog readers a very happy new year!