Be a Professional Blogger and Level Up Your Chance on Getting Paid By Clients

I started getting serious about blogging back in 2014. At first, all I know is we can get money from Google Ads and not from clients and attending events. Years past, I was able to write hundreds of blog articles, and I have attended many media trip, fam trips and an international trip like in Indonesia and Israel where I got invited both by the Tourism Department.

I am grateful for these huge opportunities to represent my country Philippines and join other International bloggers and influencers to these media trip. Aside from FREE tours, accommodations, food, I even get paid for attending the International Trip to Indonesia.

Sometimes attending events in the Philippines are paid thru cash, Gift Certificates, products or worst no payment at all, you will just receive loot bags with pens, notebook, mug, power banks and/or USB thumb drive.

For bloggers who are just starting, they wouldn’t mind getting loot bags only after attending an event. But for Bloggers who have established their blog and their social media followings, I am 100% sure that majority of them are asking for cash payment.

Some celebrity bloggers are getting paid for their event appearance. I bet all bloggers would want to be paid thru CASH because how can we maintain and pay our domain yearly if we don’t get any money from blogging? Imagine attending events will require us bloggers to commute, take an UBER or some would need to gas their car and add to that paying the parking fee.

So why register your blog?

For us to get BIG clients and get paid we have to have a good standing of followers on our Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and readers from our blog. In 2016, I had an opportunity to work with one of the leading Travel App in the Philippines which I get paid HUGE money from writing hotel reviews and good thing the Marketing Head did not ask for any receipt from me because I don’t have!
Now, I am aiming to collab with another client and what if the client asks for a receipt and I don’t have any to give, I don’t know if the collaboration will push or the client will back out.

So what I did, I research on how to register my blogs business name on DTI (Department of Trade and Industry). I tried registering my blog www.ilovepaars.com at www.business.gov.ph .com is not a valid business name so I changed it and after filling up the form online, you will have another window to choose on how to pay the fee, you have an option on paying thru BANCNET but very limited banks are included and via GCASH.

I look for the nearest DTI office in my area ( Las Pinas) and the following day I went to Negosyo Office / DTI Las Pinas in Villar Sipag C5. The queue of people is short but there is only 1 personnel to process your application and it also takes longer because the staff will call for senior citizen in an interval for every applicant.

I was not able to finish that day so I decided to go back the following day, get there early in the morning (9:00 am) and I was 5th on the line. After 4 hours I finally had my DTI registration. I paid 530 pesos for 1 business name.

I have 2 blogs under my name but since BLOG/Blogging is new on DTI, they do not have an option to register your (insert name).com business name instead you have an option using your Name or Alias then suffix either WEBSITE MANAGEMENT OR SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT.

It took me a few minutes to decide what should I choose. If I choose Social Media, company/client may think my business is only on Facebook or Instagram, so I finally decided to choose DBMPH Online Marketing and Services as my business name. So when a client will be collaborating with either of the two blogs I am handling I can give out 1 receipt since I have my name showed on my DTI and BIR.

I chose the City/Municipal (Las Pinas) as the address of my business and I only paid 500 pesos for the registration plus 30 pesos for the stamp.

In filing for your business permit, you have to register it to your municipality. In my case, I filed my permit at Las Pinas Municipality because of this where I live and my permanent address as well.

Yes, shocking right? It’s not cheap to have a business permit. But in some rural areas, the permit would cost 6,000 to 10,000 PHP depending on the kind of business you have.

Once you have your business permit you only have 30 days to file at your RDO BIR. 

Now that you have DTI and Business Permit, you have to go to your city BIR Office. I was previously working in Makati and my RDO was in Makati so I need to go to Makati, changed my RDO using 1905 form and change to Las Pinas RDO.

The following day, I went to Las Pinas BIR, file my tax using 1901 form together with my 1905 form, together with your valid ID or TIN ID. 

Start filing your tax, BIR errands every morning because, in some BIR offices, it’s crowded and you might consume a whole day on filing etc.

You have to renew annually your Business Permit and every January, you need to file your ITR at BIR.

To all my blogger colleagues who want to be paid every event or client, get your blog to be registered in DTI and BIR and this will level up your blogging career.