Hi all! This blog was started late 2011 as a hobby, and as a way for me to disseminate important messages & information for my insurance & IT clients.

Since then, I have also shared my views & opinions on science & technology, and even recipes and solutions to everyday problems. My solution posts are immensely popular!

My readership has grown quite a fair bit even though I don’t publish consistently and that’s because I simply do not have the time. My main obligation is to my clients and this wouldn’t change.

Recently, I was invited to upgrade my blog with its own domain and a chance to monetise through Ad impressions and I thought why not. If the blog generates some revenue, I can generate more quality contents, keyword being ‘quality’.

I have read some posts from other bloggers and it seems that the revenue is miniscule based on my current projected traffic and Ad Impressions. Due to that reason, I have turned on Optimised Ad to see if the impressions goes up. I will probably also send out an appeal for readers to switch off their Ad Blockers because at this rate, the revenue wouldn’t pay for the domain and WordPress charges!

Having said that, this blog will still be my hobby and I wouldn’t do anything to game the system, like posting click-bait articles. I know controversy sells but that’s not the purpose of my blog. I might increase the frequency of posts to see if there’re measureable improvement in traffic and Ad Impressions so I don’t have to pay for this “hobby.”

So starting from 23/11/2016, my blog will be transferred to erictay.blog! Yay!!! 🙂

Now I have no idea what kind of Ads were shown before the change but moving forward, WordPress has assured me that the Ads will be relevant to my content and not be too intrusive. I have opt to keep the number of Ads to a minimum and see how much revenue that generates. I don’t think I can do A/B testing with this site to gauge readers impressions on the number of Ads so I will take things slow and see how it works out.

I’ve seen some of the Ads and in Singapore, they are repetitive. I wonder how it’s like for my US and UK readers. At least, the Ads are decent so I have seitched on Optimised Ad.

Remember! My blog will remain the same. The extra revenue will allow for better content (more graphics and maybe animations & video). The mission will also stay true to my original intention for my blog to provide good information in Finance/Insurance, Tech and cooking.

Having said that, I don’t expect to receive any payment from WordAds for at least a year due to WordPress paying out only when my site revenue hits USD$100. So maybe next year, I’d go back to the free tier. Hehe…

Update: 29/11/2016 – updates for the 6 days my blog is on the premiere tier “supposedly” earning Ad revenues.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 45,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 17 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 21,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.