The first blog I ever opened was myaceworld.wordpress.com which I opened on WordPress.com to document and publish the poems my colleagues and I wrote on this space then in 2014.
Later, I bought myaceworld.org and then myaceworld.net as an attempt to own my custom domain over the blog. At some point, I couldn’t renew the domains and I moved to blogspot, using aceworld.blogspot.com.
My first attempt at commercializing a blog was with aceworld.com.ng, a domain I bought in 2016 together with a hosting package at Whogohost.
After much struggle, I eventually got AdSense on the blog in 2017 and was making some daily cents. Later, the downtimes on Whogohost became unbearable for me, so I moved to Qservers.
My decision to choose Qservers was influenced by my boss when I was interning at the Software Unit of Evans Brothers Nigeria Publishers in Jericho, Ibadan in 2018. She used Qservers for all her clients.
After a while, my AdSense account of almost a year was disabled by Google. I lost the $70+ inside. I lost the account without ever cashing out. That was my fault for buying traffic from some untrusted sites.
The domain, aceworld.com.ng was blacklisted by Google so to get another AdSense, I bought another domain, aceworldpub.com.ng and moved my website files over (which was still on literature). I applied for AdSense and was approved at first attempt, in less than 3 weeks.
My joy was cut short after working on the blog for months only to boast off less than $1 a month, typical of a literary blog with no traffic.
So I got discouraged and spent most of my time writing poems, articles and reviews which were published far and wide, across the African continent and beyond. A search for “Poet Micheal Ace” on Google will attest to that.
In September 2019, I was part of a team that built and ran erogospel.com, a blog that published erotica.
During this time, I also got employed as a news writer at gistreel.com, a gossip blog, and also herald.ng. Both employments lasted a couple of months.
And then OperaNews came. I was given a 3-month contract and in those three months, I delivered articles which were paid for, and I saved a lot of money.
The contract ended, and then I decided I was going to continue with my own almost-dead blog. If Opera could make so much money to pay us all, my blog can do the same.
So I went to my blog and did a 100% revamp. I deleted all the literary content and changed to posting scholarships and educational content.
All these while, from 2015 thereabouts, I was publishing chapbooks for colleagues for some fee in the literary space. This is what later became ACEworld Publishers which is now available at aceworldpublishers.com/sap. We have now grown into publishing ebooks and paperbacks with primary focus on digital distribution across kindle, kobobooks, etc. We have our bookstore on the domain too at aceworldpublishers.com/bookstore.
Exactly one month after I went back and revamped my blog, Nov 30, 2019, I made $7.05. And I continued. In the following month, I made $21.77.
I sustained myself with the savings I had from Opera and continued to solely work on the blog. In July 2020, I had my first cashout of $101.67 from AdSense.
The aceworldpub.com.ng blog is still active till date posting jobs and educational content and the AdSense account is still paying even though we were hit badly by Google algorithm update (SEO).
In 2020, I built idealhealthng.com during the COVID19 era. I couldn’t get AdSense approval on it because it was a health blog and Google has some reservations against such niches. So I decided to monetize with affiliate marketing via Amazon Associate. It was a poor outing as I made only $4 promoting my blog contents on Quora even though covid19 content gave me a lot of traffic.
After 4 months, I sold the blog for #40,000. A decision I regret till date.
By this time, I was already making a living for myself with my blog and monthly earnings from AdSense.
So in March 2021, I hired and trained a brother and friend whom I’d known from when I was squatting with a friend in Sango to work with me on the blog and I placed him on a monthly salary. The guy still works with me till date.
I’ve gone ahead to hire and train about 20 different people as staff or paid interns. Only 4 people work with me full-time now though.
This time around, I was already an experienced On-Page SEO specialist, WordPress designer (a service I still run till date), a Professional Blogging etc. I have had my great deal of trials and errors. Experience taught me the best things in life because I’m a do-it-yourself kinda guy.
Qservers didn’t seem to meet my traffic need anymore at this time so I had to move to Namecheap Shared Hosting. I currently use their VPS plan.
October 31st, 2021, I launched latestopportunities.com, a blog designed for sharing education and career opportunities.
The following day, November 1st, 2021, I launched futuresyllabus.com, designed in an attempt to brand my desire to impact and share knowledge in respect to skill acquisition.
Both Latest Opportunities and Future Syllabus are part of the remarkable successes I can record today. They are works in progress, and so much more is left to do.
In December 2021, I took a Digital Marketing course on Grow with Google Africa and got certified by Google. I also took a SEO course on HubSpot Academy and was certified as well. Details on this, as well as the certificates are available on my LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/poetmichealace/
In April 2022, I bought the www.latesthiring.com domain and first used it as a career counselling blog, later changed to a career forum using WPForo and now back as a career blog. Till date, I am still trying to figure out what exactly to do with this domain as my plan for it initially didn’t actually work.
In July 2022, the SEO hit caused by Google algorithm change happened, and at the same time, earnings on my now two AdSense accounts were reduced by almost 90%.
While doing my best to put my traffic and earning graph on the rise again, I’d dedicated time to build and re-establish existing digital markets.
This is what has given rise to the
– Sale of paid courses on futuresyllabus.com/courses,
– Sale of direct ad slots on latestopportunities.com/ads,
– ISBN issuance service at aceworldpublishers.com/isbn and the
– Existing publishing packages and add-on services at aceworldpublishers.com/sap
– Also, the Guest Posting Services at aceworldpublishers.com/gps
In November, 2023, I decided to move the blogs, websites and markets from the CAC registered “ACEworld Art and Literary Enterprise” to the now “ACEworld Publishers Global Solutions” in a bit to accommodate the growth of the projects we have built around education, career and business, and even with more that’s in work. See more at aceworldpublishers.com.
My journey in blogging and digital publishing hasn’t been smooth, but no matter what the future has in place for me, I would never trade the experiences for anything.
Managing these projects has given me substantial knowledge and experience of skills such as
– Blogging
– SEO
– WordPress design
– Email Marketing
– Meta Advertising (on which I have built a career and taught over 3,000 students)
With growing knowledge in
– Organic marketing
– Copywriting
– Graphic Design
– Human Resource
and more.
Personally, I’m open to career opportunities and offers and I promise to always put in my best.
I am also open to collaborations and networking offers for my existing projects.
Thank you for reading,
Micheal Ace.
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