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Why Start a Blog

My Story

I came to Japan on March 20, 2011. That was just nine days after the big Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. I lived in Iwate which was one of worse affected areas. There was no food in the convenience stores, no gas at the gas stations and most of the time, no electricity either.

It was a rough start to my life in Japan.

At that time, I was employed by one of the big dispatch companies and I was getting paid the very minimal. So from day one of my life here, money was very tight.

I struggled financially largely because I was sending 50,000 yen home to America every month. I was still paying for my student loans. That was a huge part of my paycheck every month!

It seemed like every waking minute of my life I was trying to find new ways to make money. I tried everything I could think of. I even moved to Yamanashi to start a new job (still as an ALT) and then I moved to Shizuoka to work at a private eikaiwa.

Everywhere I went the jobs weren’t paying much money, but I did find many great ways to make extra spending money. But having extra spending money wasn`t enough for me. After getting married, the pressure to start making more money really pushed me to find better ways to make more money.

I Started Blogging

After getting married I moved to Hokkaido and I started making websites. It turned out to be the best financial decision I ever made, but it was scary for me to take that first step.

I am by no means a “computer guy”. I only used my computer for checking emails and watching music videos on YouTube.

Other than that, I knew next to nothing about computers. But due to the stress of having no money and after reading about people making 1,000,000 yen a month blogging, I decided to try and start a website of my own. There really are some amazing success stories out there and they were wonderful motivation for me.

After starting, I was immediately surprised at how easy it was to start!

Don’t get me wrong, I still spent weeks watching “how to” videos and reading endless blog posts, but the more I learned, the more I realized just how doable making a website is.

It wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it would be.

You don’t have to know computer coding and you don’t even need to have a great computer.

There is also a TON of information and support available online.

Take a look at my Make a Website post and you will see just how easy it is to get webhosting, a domain name and your very own WordPress site!

No matter your background or you computer skills level, you can start a blog easily!

But what is a blog and where to start a blog?

A blog is a website that has content (articles/posts) about a certain topic or subject.

You can start a blog about anything you want! As long as you’re interested in the subject that you are writing about, the sky is the limit for blog subjects.

The Yen Pincher is my blog about how to make and save money in Japan. I was obsessed with finding ways to making money in Japan, and over the years I became an expert on the subject.

Since I am passionate about this subject, it became something I wanted to blog about.

Find something you are interested in and look for your niche. Some of the top money making niche ideas are health, fitness, finance, travel, fashion, technology, cooking, dating, pets and self-improvement.

Think about your hobbies and your interests, and then think about what niche they fit into. Remember, that the niche you choose should be something that you have experience with and are interested in.

After finding a niche that you want to blog about, make it as specific as you can. For example, “health” is far too broad of a topic to blog about. There are tons of competitors for a topic that broad and it is hard to bring readers to your blog.

So something like “breakfast recipes for a healthy body” is much more focused and it will have less competitors.

Whatever you write about, the most important thing is that you are passionate about it. If it is something you really are interested in, then it is easy to write content and it is easier to get readers because the readers can feel your passion.

You have wonderful and unique ideas, why not share those ideas with everyone in the world!

Start a blog: How do blogs make money?

Since there are several different types of blogs, there are several different ways to make money. But generally, bloggers make money through:

1. ads on their websites

2. affiliate marketing (selling other peoples products)

3. selling their own products (physical products, classes or information)

Once you start getting traffic to your blog, you can use all of these methods to make 10,000 yen a month. Maybe even 100,000 yen a month? Or how about 1,000,000 yen a month?!

There really is no limit.

The key to making a lot of money online is making a website/blog that has a lot of traffic. The more people that come to your website, the more money that you can make.

I will write posts that give more specific details on how to get more traffic to your website and how to make a website that makes money, but for this post I only want to talk about the basics.

I am a firm believer that anyone can make money if they start a blog.

It will take time and effort, but with a website you have the potential to make a lot of money. You will have the potential to not only be financially free, but you could even quit your day job and make money while sitting on a beach in Okinawa.

All you have to do is start. Take that first step and start learning the process. The sooner you start, the sooner you can start to make money.

There are many reasons why you should take that first step.

Here is why you should put the time and effort into starting a blog

Be your own boss.

This is a truly wonderful feeling. You have control of everything!

You can decide how many hours a day you work and what the design or content is. Work as much or as little as you want.

The upsides are amazing, but of course there are some downsides as well.

When you are your own boss you have no one to blame when mistakes are made and it is a big responsibility to be the only person who can make or break your blog. However, the upsides to being your own boss far outweigh the downsides. The freedom feels amazing!

Control how much money you make.

Being your own boss means that you can chose how much you work. This also means that you control how much you can earn.

When it comes to blogging, the harder you work the more money you can get. If you are happy making 10,000 yen a month from your hobby blog that’s great! But if you want to get serious and try for 1,000,000 yen a month, that’s possible too.

You can set your own goals and work accordingly.

The people who make careers out of their blogs have put their time in and have hustled to get to where they are.

As with everything in life, there are no guarantees. However, there is a direct correlation between working harder and getting paid better as a blogger.

This doesn’t always happen with other jobs.

Think about it, if you bust your ass as a teacher in Japan, you really don’t have any hope of making more money than the teacher who doesn’t do more than just read from the textbook.

As a blogger, you have the chance to make a lot of money from the extra effort you put in.

If you start a blog you can be in control of your income!

Learn new things/gain new skills.

As I mentioned above, I am not a computer guy. But over the last couple of years, I have learned so much about making websites, SEO, marketing, monetizing blogs, etc.

It has been incredibly fun to learn about all these things.

I look at the internet differently now because I understand what went into making each webpage.

Learning these skills also opens up many doors and opportunities for me.

In addition to these “computer skills” I have learned a lot about how to organize my thoughts, organize my life, how to research, how to release stress and how to communicate better.

These are skills that I can use in my day to day life. Being able to organize my thoughts better and communicate better have helped me build better relationships with the people around me and has made networking easy.

Starting a blog will teach you many things and some of those things will be pleasant and unexpected bonuses.

Many of the things you learn will help you in your daily life!

It will build character and build self confidence. All of which are wonderful things!

Help others

If you started a blog, that probably means that you are interested in a topic enough to want to share your ideas with others.

These ideas can help other people.

Whether it is about health, money, games or dating, people search the internet for answers to their problems. Your thoughts and ideas could really help people.

Your life experiences have made you very unique and you have unique ideas that could benefit others.

The world is a very big place and starting a blog connects you with people in almost every country. The power of blogs and the power of your voice can’t be understated.

For me, I really hope that The Yen Pincher will help people living in Japan make more money and improve their lives here.

You can travel while you work!

If you are making money online, you’re not really obligated to be anywhere!

All you need is an internet connection and you can make money.

Making money online equals freedom!

Work on your blog while sitting poolside in Barbados or while sitting at a café in Paris.

Even if you’re not a full time blogger, you can work (a little) on your blog while you enjoy your winter vacation in Thailand. This can help offset the cost of your trip.

The point is, making money online feels good and the fact that you can do it anywhere is amazing!

The startup costs are low

Becoming your own boss and starting your own business usually takes a lot of money to get started.

With a blog, you don’t have to lease office space, buy insurance or pay for overhead costs like labor or utilities.

You can get started for around 1,000 yen! With Host Gator (and my discount code “theyenpincher”) you can get started for very cheap.

Starting a website is by far a lot cheaper than starting other types of business and a website still has the potential of making a lot of money.

Then, the fact that you can do it from the comfort of your own bedroom, is just icing on the cake!

Final Thoughts

I want to clarify… You really can start a blog for under $10!

The only things you need to pay for at first are the hosting fees and the domain fee. With the hosting fees, you can pay for just one month if you want to. Though the more you pay for upfront the cheaper it becomes.

That’s all you need to pay for! There are no hidden fees or difficult to understand fine print.

WordPress is free. Mailing companies like MailChimp are free. SEO companies like Yoast offer free services and security groups like WordFence offer free services.

All of these free services are fine for a start up blog. Of course, when your blog starts to grow it would be a good idea to start paying for some upgrades.

For example, MailChimp is a great (free) mailing service that helps grow your email list, send automated emails for email marketing and sends out notifications to your subscribers, but it is limited in what it can do for you. ConvertKit on the other hand, is a paid service that starts at $24 a month to use.

ConvertKit may seem expensive but their service is well worth it. With them you can take your blog and turn it into an affiliate marketing money maker. It all depends on what you want to do with you blog.

The Yen Pincher uses MailChimp at the moment because this blog is more about helping other people make money and is not really designed to be an affiliate website. I use affiliate links on this site, but I dont have a sales funnel set up selling affiliate products. If I ever decide to sell my own products on The Yen Pincher or try to sell more affiliate products, I will switch to ConvertKit for sure!

As your blog grows you can start to pay for some of these premium services, but to start your first blog all you really need is a good idea, the willingness to put in the time and spend around 1,000 yen.

That is a really easy and cheap way to make something that could help make you a lot of money!

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Message from Adam