24 Responses to “Chinese New Year – Introducing My New China Blog”
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Stephen Cronin is Manager of Online Service Delivery at a Queensland Government department & has been a freelance WordPress developer/consultant since 2007
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Stephen,
Good luck with your new niche site. It will make you look at everything differently. After launching my new site about local events, I have learned about new things that were literally in my own backyard. At the very least, I am having fun with that site.
Hi Neena,
I’ve seen that you’re following the niche site experiement with Vic. I think a local niche site would be great fun! That’s the main reason I’ve created the new blog, but this isn’t really part of that experiment – I’m trying to go after a whole country! I’m actually moving back to Brisbane in about 3 months and I may look at the local niche blog then.
Anyway, good luck with Westpoint Kids!
Now that you’re moving AWAY from China, how will that affect your new blog?
RT,
Good question. I thought long about that – it would obviously be better if we were still here.
However, our household is a Chinese household, whichever country we physically live in and we’ll visit China often, so I’m sure I can come up with plenty of content for the blog. As for tying it into working here, I have a few years experience with that and lots of friends who’ll still be working here (I may get them to guest write), so I think that’ll be fine too.
The main problem is perceived lack of authority. People will be happier to read someone who’s still in the country. I think I have enough background that I can pull it off – I guess we’ll have to see how others feel!
i think china is a huge booming market
it’s great that you could use chinese to tap into their job market
Hi Putco,
China is a huge market, which is why I bought the domain name in 2004. I’m kicking myself I didn’t actually do something with it before now!
you’re right, China is such a booming market, not to mention they’re gonna host the Olympics. I think if you keep your focus and work hard enough on your website, you definitely cant lose. That domain also sounds cool
New niche it`s good , eggs need to be held in different baskets
Good idea!China is such a booming market! Continue on this idea!
that’s a huge market u are looking at
at 1.3 billion people, that’s a mega workforce
the problem is they don’t read english
i agree with what bike said – they don’t really read english i got some visiting my home and they don’t know nuts about english
Nice blog.. I hope that it will be successful. And yeah, Chinese don’t read English…
wait what? plenty of chinese read english.
Nice blog and good luck for your new niche site. Interesting to know about China
Hi Everyone,
Thanks for your comments and wishes.
I should just clarify that the site is not targeted at Chinese people, trying to find jobs in China. It is targeted at foreigners who want to live and work in China. At last count there were over 400,000 foreigners officially registered as working in China (which means the real number will be much higher). The number continues to grow. It’s small compared to 1.3 billion, but it’s a start.
Now I get to try out my SEO knowledge! It’ll be slow progress though, because I don’t have much time…
Good luck with the new site! It is actually very fun to do a local based site. Sharing your knowledge of the area with the rest of the world is pretty interesting.
I agree – I really do want to share what I’ve learnt here…
Hi Stephen,
It’s looking good, so best of luck in your new niche
I had a friend years ago who “fled” to China after a group of us were made redundant and he ended up teaching English somewhere before disappearing into the past as people do. While we were still in touch he seemed to be having a blast.
Doubt I’ll ever visit China, but look forward to doing so vicariously through your new site!
Hi Mo,
There’s a lot of Westerners over here and most of them are having a great time. There are some people who don’t like it here, but most people love the lifestyle. It’s easy to find teaching jobs here – although they general don’t pay much. Anyway, I need to get posting on that blog – I’m a bit behind at the moment.
Stephen,
Great idea for a site and I wish you all the luck. The market will only continue to grow, espeically as more and more people start studying Chinese. Actually, you could probably do well enough just by recruiting foreign English teachers and charging schools/local education boards for placing them. TEFL salaries have reached the point where a single person can make a decent living by teaching in a bigger city.
Good luck!
Hi Isaac,
Thanks. Yes, there is constant demand for foreign teachers here. The school I’m at is always looking for more teachers and it’s one of the better employers out there, so the staff turnover isn’t as high as in other places.
People can certainly make a decent living here. The salaries are lower than in the West, but if you can get one of the better salaries for China, you’ll save a lot. You normally don’t have to pay rent, don’t need a car and the cost of living is so low that you can’t spend your money…
Hi WebDiggin,
I’m a bit slow answering! At the moment, I haven’t had time to work on JobsInChina, but it should start moving again soon.
Eventually, I’ll give JobsInChina a complete overhaul so it looks different from this site, although as you say, the fact that they are similar makes them a little easier to maintain.
As far as I know there’s no easy way to install or upgrade plugins across multiple blogs. It needs to be done on an individual basis…
It may be worth checking out WordPress MU (Multiple User). I think that’s what they use for WordPress.com, so presumably you could install one plugin for multiple blogs.
The problem with this, is that many WordPress plugins won’t work directly with WordPress MU. You’ll need to fiddle with them a bit to make them work. It’s probably not worth seriously considering unless you have hundreds of blogs…
It’s brilliant that you’re going to be writing about something you have passion for. Too often blogs and websites spring up for one person only: making money online. While that’s a fairly good motivator, lack of passion is probably the #1 cause of bloggers getting bored and stopping their sites.
A thing I heard about China and can’t get it out of my head, it so bizarre. Is it true that European/American style Chinese food restaurants are becoming popular among the Chinese elite in big cities ?