My Online Income

January Has Been a Good Month

2012-01-27T07:27:00.000-08:00

Well, January has been a pretty good month to me and there are still a few days left. The month saw the launch of my newest blog which has gotten over 1800 visitors in the last 30 days. I will probably end up January between 1800 and 2000 which seems like a decent launch considering I am not a professional and only do this part-time.

I also completed the give away for my other blog, Cash Flow Mantra. I will be announcing the winners tomorrow, but they have all received their money. Plus I still have enough in the PayPal account to cover February and March blogging expenses.

AdSense revenue is the highest it has been in almost 1 year. It is a really solid month. I expect that I might come in close to or just over $50. A little bit of growth in February would mean that I could get another check after two months. That would be nice since I am trying to pay off a Discover Card balance with blogging earnings this year.

Finally, I was able to meet my goal with the HubPages Ad Program. I am just over $26 right now and have been adding a lot of content this month. I hope to hit it hard in February and get to monthly payouts with HubPages which would require $50 each month. I figure that $2 per day would do it. I have had only 2 of those in the past 30 days, but I have had several greater than one dollar which I had only done once in the previous 8 months. I am definitely headed in the right direction.

Ultimately, I would like to be able to cover my author costs for Grand Per Month with HubPages income so that I could start another blog. I won't have any additional time to write so I would have to pay to have it done. At $25 per article and 2 articles per week, I would have to pay $200 per month for content, but I think it would be worth it to be able to expand into other areas and try to multiply revenue even if I can only do this part-time.

How has January been treating you?

Passive Income While Playing Golf

2012-01-21T10:03:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite part of the year for passive income. Why? Because for one week in January, I get to go and play golf with my wife's brother in South Carolina. It is something to look forward to following the Holidays and breaks the cold weather in half since it usually starts to warm up a little in March.

I also like it because it provides me a good comparison from year to year on the amount of passive income that I can earn while away on vacation.

Looking back at 2011 during the 7 days while we were away, I earned a total of $6.98 with AdSense or not quite $1 per day. This year I am pleased to report that I earned $14.15 or more than double with AdSense during those same 7 days away while playing golf.

I am also especially pleased to report that I received an additional $82.47 while away due to efforts on my own blog. This is what is most exciting because I only started Cash Flow Mantra in late May and now have 2 blogs that I will be working on for the next year.

I would dare say that I could more than double the amount that I can earn in that time frame so that I am earning almost $30 per week with AdSense by January 2013 and about $200 per week with my blogs. At least that is the target at which I will be aiming.

There is no reason not to think that it will be possible. I recently published my 100th post at CFM and at a rate of 3 per week should be more than double that number in a year. Also with GPM, I should be at about 150 posts as well so that will be more than 250 additional blog posts compared to the 100 this year meaning that doubling my income in the next year would seem reasonable.

Then in another year, I might even be earning enough to cover the whole trip. Of course, I will be using the money to pay off debt first, but every little bit will help. Ultimately, though, once the debt is paid off and the kids are out of the house, traveling on blogging income would be so cool.

Announcing a Cash Give Away

2012-01-13T08:25:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to take the opportunity to announce that I am giving away cash prizes to celebrate the 100th post of my blog, Cash Flow Mantra. I am giving away $150 total with $75 going to the first winner, $50 to the second winner, and $25 going to the third winner.

The main criteria for winning is that you must have a PayPal account so that I can get the money to you. I am using money that I have earned from the blog itself to pay out the prizes keeping with my trend of not investing any of my own money into my online ventures, but only my time.

It has been wonderful to be able to attract advertisers and make money since I have been able to expand using some of that revenue and start a second blog hiring some writers to help with the content since my time is limited. I am hoping that I can start making some revenue with the new blog as well, and continue to expand.

Extra money is being used to pay off some debt as well which is really nice. I am hoping to pay off the Discover Card this year. You can follow my progress as I report it periodically at Cash Flow Mantra. In the meantime, be sure to go enter the contest.

Gearing Up for Grand Per Month

2011-12-26T12:21:00.001-08:00

The launch of my newest blog, Grand Per Month, is coming up very soon so I have been working very hard to get all the content together for the first month. I have all four posts from the hired authors and have three of them scheduled in WordPress. I have written one post of my own, but still have four of my own to write. The first one isn't due to be posted until January 9th, but I am wanting to stay one month ahead and have all articles ready to go by the first of each month.

This means that I also have to put together the list of February's potential topics, send them to the authors, let them choose from the list and put together a coherent schedule in the next few days. I am hoping to get it done today so that may actually take precedence over writing, but I should at least get one of the posts written today.

I have my to-do list filled out for these 3 days (yesterday, today, and tomorrow) and am a few tasks behind already. The list may end up spilling over into the weekend as there are certain things that must be done by a specific time. ARRGH! I am so busy right now. But, I can't wait until mid-January when I go on the golfing trip to South Carolina. It will be good to be ahead so all I have to do is answer e-mails and comments. I would also like to write an article or two while there, but I would like it to be optional.

Grand Per Month has now been announced at my blog, HubPages, this blog, and the two authors' blogs. It seems to be getting a great response and I have had more visits in these 2 weeks than I did from the first month of Cash Flow Mantra. I suspect that we might be able to get over 1000 visits in January which I would consider awesome. I am just over 2000 per month with CFM six months later so I am hoping that a major growth trajectory can occur.

I am doing my best at writing good content. All the posts will be a minimum of 500 words. Mine are closer to 1000. I think the pre-launch marketing is going well, plus I plan on having a give away to celebrate the 100th post of CFM and will tie in Grand Per Month as well to get more exposure. This will end up being in early to mid-January as post number 93 was published today.

Well, since I am so busy I suppose I better get a few more things done today. I hope everyone has a good day and a Happy New Year! I doubt I will post here again until 2012.

Announcing the New Blog

2011-12-19T06:14:00.000-08:00

I have been dying all weekend to put out this post because I am so excited about the new blog that I will be starting in January. I managed to work hard on the site and actually had it pretty much ready to go last Thursday. It turned out to be a good thing because the cat was out of the bag on Friday since one of the writers who will be working with me let his readers know. Actually, it was a good thing since I could let the information trickle out and see who might be interested from different sets of readers.

However, since I try to be true to my word and said Monday would be the announcement, I waited til Monday. But before I reveal the URL, I would like to offer a little background. I wrote a post at Cash Flow Mantra wondering aloud if there were part-time bloggers who could make $1000 per month. I figured that it was quite possible for a full-time blogger to do this. After all, writing for 40-50 hours per week should be able to generate about $2 per hour. A free-lancing article or two per day plus work on other sites should add up.

But how possible was it for someone who was working 50 hours per week with 6 kids and getting up at 4:30 every morning to write and comment for 1.5 hours before work to actually make the activity worthwhile financially? I had been following other blogs and commenting in order to develop a following. This was actually quite motivating, knowing that people were reading what I had to say. I started noticing that several of these bloggers had jobs and were actually reporting very good earnings.

I saw a pattern begin to emerge and so was able to learn and adapt techniques. And so I began to make a little bit of money. Finally, in November of 2011, I was able to make just over $1000 through all of my online activities. I was shocked and figured that if I could do it, I could help others do the same. How would that level of added income change the lives of others? It could provide a decent place to stay and even transportation for a young married couple. It could be used to pay off debt. It could be used for college or retirement savings.

Thus was the inspiration for Grand Per Month, my new blog. It is about figuring out what it takes to make an extra $1000 per month which could help change someone's life. Each Monday will be a new idea for making an extra $1000 in a month's time on a part-time basis. Not all of the ideas will involve online activities. Some of them will be offline. The purpose is to help people get their creative juices flowing and think about how they might make some side income in these tough economic times. Thursday's posts will be inspirational and practical in nature. As the blog grows, we might be able to add other days for links around the web or reader stories.

I am excited to begin working on this project so be sure to stop by the site and check it out. We will begin on January 2nd with a post on making $1000 per month as a blogger. It is written by one of those from whom I was able to glean the necessary clues which enabled me to make a Grand Per Month. Won't you join us on this journey in 2012?

Work Coming Along On New Blog

2011-12-14T05:11:00.000-08:00

I couldn't really work on the new blog at all last week. I was sick in bed all day on the one day I had off to go Christmas shopping so I don't even have that started yet. This week has been a lot more productive.

Sunday night I was able to get WordPress loaded onto the new domain with only a little help from the online live chat at HostGator. It simply gets a little bit easier each time. I then found a theme that I will be starting with and spent the last few days working with it. I now have a Welcome post and the Policies page complete.

I have also placed my own picture across the top. I am not exactly computer savvy when it comes to CSS and HTML coding, but I managed to piece together enough information to figure out what I needed to do. It only took me about 1.5 hours last night to do that.

I have also created a list of all the articles that I want to post for the month of January. The plan is to post every Monday and Thursday with some Saturdays available for odds and ends. I had previously sent my list of potential topics to the two writers that will be working with me. It is simply impossible for me to write that much content with my busy schedule so I am planning on partnering with these individuals for 2 articles each initially.

The cost will be $20 per article meaning $80 in expenses for the month. I will be on the hook for 5 articles myself which will be doable. I have already received back from the authors which topics about which they want to write so I can start writing my articles when I get a chance. I want to try to plan and stay about a month ahead for when times tend to get busy or illness occurs. I have enough money in the Paypal account for six months worth of articles. I am hoping that by that time, the site will at least be covering its costs.

One of the authors has already returned his articles and I will be submitting payment to him in January. So, it looks like the blog is beginning to take shape. I added Google AdSense and Analytics code this morning. I should be ready to announce the domain name by Monday and will likely do that.

The two authors are also bloggers so I am hoping to generate a little more buzz and have a ready made audience from my own blog. This would be a lot better than when I had to start from zero at Cash Flow Mantra. I plan on announcing the domain on Monday there as well. Hopefully, I can get everything finalized this weekend. Wish me luck. I hope to be back here on Monday morning!

Starting Another New Blog

2011-12-08T02:32:00.001-08:00

Over the next few weeks, I will be starting another new blog. The plan is to launch at the beginning of January. I don't quite plan on revealing the topic yet, but I think that it will be a great topic and incredibly useful to lots of individuals.

The best part is that I am now making enough with my blog, Cash Flow Mantra, that I can afford to partner with a few fellow bloggers and pay for 4 articles per month with some of the money that I have been making. Right now, I have enough money in my PayPal account to pay for about 4 months worth of articles.

My plan all along has been to spend my time to develop an online income stream rather than any money. I have successfully done that and haven't spent one dime of my own money. Rather by starting with HubPages and eHow, I was able to earn on a platform with no upfront costs.

Then, once I got affected by the first Panda Update, I finally got the guts to start my own WordPress blog. Of course, I have to repeatedly ask myself why I didn't do so sooner. I would be much farther down the road had I done this 18 months ago. I might be making double or triple what I am making now.

If this new blog is anything like CFM, it should take about 6 months for me to be making enough to pay for the costs of paying for content and begin making a profit. Then, I could start another blog with the additional proceeds and pay for more content. The goal would be to keep my writing load the same while increasing my internet exposure and earning possibilities. It would be a lot like reinvesting dividends and compound interest.

Of course, having cross-marketing opportunities across the different blogs will help. I suspect that this new blog will grow much faster than CFM because I have some experience getting traffic but also some writing partners who will help in that realm and benefit themselves from the traffic.

It is going to be a busy December getting ready, but I am looking forward to it. Wish me luck. I will be sure to let everyone here know the name and topic in a week or two.

Amazon Streak Likely to Come to an End

2011-11-29T07:15:00.001-08:00

Well for the last 10 months, I have managed to have at least one sale through Amazon. It looks like that streak is about to end since today is the 29th of November and I don't have any sales yet. I am actually a little surprised given that this is the shopping season. Maybe all the people that link through my Amazon links are procrastinating like me.

Despite that, I am not too worried. Both AdSense income and HubPages Ad Program income are up compared to last month and traffic continues to improve so for that I am thankful.

I am also earning some money through my blog as well so that is good. I think that having a diverse income stream can be very useful should one of them have a bad month.

Plus, I am excited by the fact that my online income for this year has exceeded my income for 2010. I honestly didn't think that would happen given the changes that have occurred this year, but it did happen. I am really looking forward to 2012 for another opportunity to learn, grow, and earn more income.

PS: My kids have some Cockapoo puppies for sale. Here is an ad for one of them. You can see his picture at the left of this post.

Hoping for a Little Help From My Friends

2011-11-15T20:01:00.001-08:00

I just happened to be on the Yakezie forums on Sunday morning and joined a team that is looking to help each other with generating traffic and commenting on one another's blogs. There are 15 members so it will definitely be noticeable in my statistics since my traffic isn't all that great to begin with. We just started this yesterday and should the numbers remain consistent through the end of the year, I think this will help me succeed in the Yakezie Challenge of getting the Alexa Rank for Cash Flow Mantra below the 200,000 by the New Year.

I would hate to think that publishing 3 times per week and spending lots of time working on commenting would not produce some results over the next month and a half. I know the process can be slow at times, but I would like to see some steady growth. This is why I am optimistic. I think that I will be able to see progress and am looking forward to it.

I must say that it is encouraging to have a group that is looking out for one another and offering to assist each other. It certainly is a big motivator to know that someone has your back. Blogging can be quite the lonely venture with many hours sitting in front of a blank screen. I was wanting to write a post for CFM tonight but just couldn't come up with any decent ideas. Wouldn't you know that when I have a little extra time, I have nothing percolating in my head. I will have some time over the next few days so I will probably be lacking for any good material. Arrgh! Isn't that just my luck.

Maybe after a good night's sleep an idea will pop into my head. I did get one post written today to schedule for this Friday so I am good for the rest of the week. I am hoping to stay one week ahead so would need to get 3 posts together by the weekend. Wait, I just had an idea. I need to wrap this up so I can go write it down. Will catch you all later. Wish me luck.

Getting Ahead of the Curve

2011-11-06T18:48:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been a fairly productive weekend and I managed to get 2 posts written for my blog at CFM for the upcoming week. That means the next post will be for Friday so I am 4 days ahead on my posting schedule. It has been quite some time since I have been in this position. My goal was to get 3 done, but I will take what I can get.

I also wrote a link post this morning and got it published so I guess you could say that I really did get 3 posts written.

It seems that having a regular posting schedule is an asset for a blog so that readers can know what to expect. I also think that more publishing leads to more traffic since the regular readers need to read more and there is more material for the search engines to search and find some longer tail keywords.

My plan is to keep a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule for the rest of the year at least in order to keep up the intensity and make it through the Yakezie Challenge. I also have someone submitting to Carnivals for me which I am also hoping will help drive some traffic as well. These are my two major strategies for increasing traffic over the next 2 months.

Regular posting schedule
Carnival submissions

I am hoping to almost double my traffic over that time to 2,000 visits per month from 1,200. I think it is possible. The most positive aspect has been search engine traffic increases over the past few months. I would think that I might be able to get up to 600 search visitors per month by the end of December.

For now, though, I will be taking the rest of the evening off and try to write some more tomorrow. I hope everyone has a good week.

Why I Am Sticking With HubPages

2011-11-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

As you can see from the title of this post, I am sticking with HubPages. Now there is a lot of potential meaning in those words, and they could be taken in many different ways so I will be explaining myself. It could mean that I believe HubPages is a viable method of making money on the internet. I suppose it might work for some people, but it really doesn't mean that for me. I have found a much more profitable method of generating income.

Essentially for me those words mean that I won't be deleting all of my Hubs like many others may have done. In other words, I will retain HubPages as a source of passive income. I haven't written anything for the site since June 4 of this year and that was really to complete a grand total of 200 Hubs. Before that, I hadn't published since March. I only end up going to the site every few days and checking to see if I have any comments to address.

Despite that lack of activity, I managed to earn $14 through their Ad Program and a couple bucks in Amazon purchases and AdSense ads. Clearly, it is not the most lucrative venture but it is entirely passive at this point and pays for my hosting costs at Hostgator. That is clearly OK in my book.

HubPages got hit big with the Panda update in March of this year. I saw my traffic nearly disappear and decline through the summer. But recently, I have seen an uptick. However, my traffic is still less than half what I received in January 2011. It would be great to see a return to that level, but I won't necessarily be doing anything to encourage traffic since I feel that my efforts are more useful with other projects.

Nonetheless, I won't be complaining too loudly about income that will pay for my expenses without any effort on my part. I am pleased that I can continue to earn passive income for work that I have already done.

I Think My New Posting Schedule Will Work

2011-10-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

I have been inspired to post 3 times per week at my blog, Cash Flow Mantra. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday a new post will appear. I may even occasionally be able to post a review with links on the weekend.

I started my new schedule this past week and am pleased to see that my traffic was up about 40% as far as I can tell. It only makes sense. Before, I was only posting about 2 times per week on average. Since most of my readers currently are regulars with not a ton of search traffic, that meant a reader would see the article and then only come back later when something new appeared.

Now since there is new material more days each week, then I am likely to get more traffic from my regulars with more opportunity that one of my posts ends up in a weekly round-up somewhere. I also have that many more phrases for some long tail searches to find my blog. I figure that will only enhance any search engine traffic.

Search engine traffic is actually growing fairly nicely as well along a slow upward trend. Currently about 27% of my traffic is from Google. I expect that this number should continue to increase and might even be about 40% by the end of the year.

According to Google Analytics, for the past 30 days, I have had just over 1300 visitors. I think this is a respectable number for a blog that only started at the end of May. I would like to have about 2000 per month by the end of the year. I think with my new schedule, I could come very close. I did have a big month in September when one of my articles got linked from a larger blog. I then got over 100 visitors per day for about 5 days. That was cool! But now, I am back to my regular level of traffic.

Earnings are OK, but certainly nothing to write home about. I have been a little disappointed but I have come to realize that there will be a constant ebb and flow in that regard. Eventually it all evens out in the end. My goal is to just make about the same as I did last year and to improve upon that each year after this.

Well, I still have to get about 5 posts written for CFM over the next 6 days before I head for Honduras. I did get a guest post for one day over the next 2 weeks leaving me 5 to go. I have ideas for 2 of them but will need to spend some time thinking about the other 3. Anyway, thanks for reading my blog here. I really appreciate it and thank you for your continued support.

Trying to Write Ahead

2011-10-05T18:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I plan on heading to Honduras for a mission trip in the within the next few weeks and will be gone for 10 days. I will have limited time and internet access while there so I will be working diligently to write some extra posts over the next week or so for my main personal finance blog. I would like to get those posts scheduled to come out over the time while I am away so that I don't have 10 days without any activity.

I think this is one of the coolest features about Wordpress that I had never really embraced until I started writing for my own site. I am pretty sure that I could schedule posts here as well, but I never really felt the need. I was writing whenever I could for the content farms, and it didn't really matter to me to maintain a certain level of consistency.

But now since I am trying to build a strong blog and following, I think it is vital to interact and stay active. I have been posting 2-3 times per week, and I believe that it would be detrimental not to publish any new material over a 10 day stretch. So, I will writing furiously tomorrow and this weekend to get several posts ahead.

Well, I better get busy so this post will be somewhat short.

Amazon Comes Through Again

2011-09-20T02:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I am now 9 for 9 this year with Amazon orders and shipments. Each and every month so far this year, I have had an order from Amazon and some positive earnings. I thought the streak might come to an end this month. I did have a couple orders, but I had a return from last month so I was actually at a negative earnings number. But yesterday, someone ordered 4 books and a flashlight so my negative $1.33 will be positive. Plus I will be at 6% commission. Yay!

I can't wait to see what happens as we get closer to the holiday season. Despite somewhat crappy traffic over at HubPages, I am still making the occasional sale with Amazon, getting a few dollars per month with the HubPages Ad Program, and making a little off AdSense as well. It turns out those 200 articles are worth a little something. And now, it is strictly passive. I only wish that the traffic would grow more. I would bet by the end of the year, my traffic at Cash Flow Mantra will exceed that of HubPages, and that the earnings might as well.

Speaking of earnings, I should be getting paid from Amazon shortly. I haven't really figured out their payment schedule so I don't know if it will be toward the end of this month or early next. I will also be getting a check from Google in the next week or so. This will be my third for this year and eighth total. I can't wait until I start getting monthly checks. I figure that I need to see my traffic increase about 4 times before that happens. It would be nice to think that I could get that accomplished in 2012.

I am not sure the best way to increase traffic. I really don't plan on doing anything different than what I am currently doing. I am considering a contest or something, but I don't know how sustainable that traffic would be so haven't taken the plunge to do that yet. I will see where things end up by the end of 2011. I understand that the summer is typically slow. Now that fall and winter are approaching, I will see what happens. Many of my records have been set in October so I am curious to see what next month brings.

Congratulate Me on 200 Posts!

I only realized it when I went to write this, but this is my 200th post for this blog. It hardly seems possible to have written that much, but it has been a little over 2 years. I am encouraged to think that I have been able to stick with it for so long. Many of the blogs that I followed on Blogger haven't posted in a year or more which just goes to show that persistence plays a huge role in being able to be successful. Not that I consider myself successful, but I am closer than if I had quit.

My next goal for this blog is to get to 100 followers. You can see in the sidebar that I am at 84. I don't know why I like round numbers so much, but I do. Although if you are a regular reader and don't follow, I would prefer that to following and not reading. I want to thank everyone who reads regularly and who has supported me through your encouraging words. I don't think I could have kept at it at times without knowing that someone was out there reading. Thanks so much and good luck with all your goals for the rest of the year.

Completing the Yakezie Challenge

2011-09-10T19:25:00.000-07:00

I am excited to report that I completed the Yakezie Challenge with my blog, Cash Flow Mantra this week. What that means is that I was able to get my Alexa ranking under 200,000 within six months of starting the challenge. I actually started on July 1st, 2011 so I had until the end of the year to complete the task. As of this moment, my actual Alexa ranking is 198,607.

That being said, I certainly don't plan on quitting. I will discuss a little bit more about that in a moment, but first I would like to explain how I was able to decrease my ranking so quickly.

No Secret, Just Writing and Interaction

There really isn't any big secret that I used to decrease my Alexa ranking so quickly. I simply posted some content about 2-3 times per week and began interacting with the Yakezie community of personal financial bloggers. Actually, that was probably the most important aspect of getting traffic and growing the site.

Through commenting on other individual blogs, I was able to find some readers who took an interest in what I had to write. Occasionally, these bloggers would enjoy a post and link back to my content. This was probably the biggest factor in any success that I have enjoyed thus far.

Now, I am starting to generate a little bit of search engine traffic as well. Hopefully, both social traffic and search engine traffic will slowly increase over time such that I am able to grow the blog little by little. Up til now, the traffic growth has been fairly quick. Of course that is because I am growing off a small base. But I suspect that it will become more and more difficult over time.

Future Plans

I certainly don't plan to stop working hard at this point. I would like to see my blog grow as much as possible by the end of the year maybe to the point of getting 100 visitors per day. That seems like a stretch at this point, but I do believe that it is possible. I will probably continue doing what I have been doing and reassess my progress and plans at the beginning of 2012.

I want to thank each and every one of you readers here who have been reading my other blogs and following my progress. It is really exciting to see something develop from scratch. The other part that really excites me is that I was able to develop this using Wordpress and get something done that one year ago was really frightening to me in concept. The bottom line is that you just have to step out and get it done.

Record Traffic Day at Cash Flow Mantra

2011-09-03T05:20:00.000-07:00

Just when I didn't think it was possible to increase traffic significantly at my blog, Cash Flow Mantra, I discovered that my suspicions were unjustified. It turns out that a simple link at a relatively well read blog lead to a bunch of traffic to one of my articles. Of course I have gotten links before, but the amount of additional traffic to the site didn't spike nearly as much as it did yesterday.

My previous daily high for traffic happened almost one month ago and was 62 visits according to Google Analytics. Yesterday though I received 151 visits which is more than double! I simply can't believe it. I am so excited. The article that was linked was one of the most recent ones, My Investing Strategy for the Next Decade. Apparently many people were curious enough to read and click on the link.

I am hoping that I might pick up a few regular readers this way and that my level of traffic will achieve a new plateau. I am also hoping that the traffic may somehow help in my rankings and authority with search engines so that I can get more and more search traffic since search is more correlated to earnings than regular visitors. Of course, if I could get a few advertisers that might help but I am sure it will all come in due time.

Life and My Finances is Giving Away an iPad2

One of the personal finance blogs that I read is giving away an iPad2 to celebrate his one year anniversary. Wow! I can't imagine making enough at this point to be able to do that, but who knows. Maybe someday. Anyway, be sure to get over there and enter. You have nothing to lose and could win an iPad2. And if you don't win, you can buy one through my Amazon link above.

Thanks so much for reading.

Revenue is Bouncing Back Following Panda

2011-08-28T19:05:00.000-07:00

I could tell that revenue (and especially AdSense revenue) was bouncing back following the Panda update, but I really didn't realize that it had taken such a hit until I actually looked at the numbers. To give you an idea of what happened, allow me to list my AdSense numbers for this year:

January 2011-- $53.39
February 2011-- $42.84
March 2011-- $44.09
April 2011-- $14.73
May 2011-- $20.49
June 2011-- $23.05
July 2011-- $35.65
August 2011-- $44.00

As you can see, once the Panda update hit at the end of March, AdSense revenue fell by about 70% but has now returned to the level that I was seeing before the change.

The main reason for this has to due with developing my own blog. I have earned just over $20 this month by developing CashFlowMantra.com and working hard to get traffic and grow readership.

The effort has been a lot more than $20 worth, that is sure. But it is fun to make a little something while sharing with my readers which I am enjoying immensely. I enjoy the interaction and creating a worthwhile venture based upon my own hard work and diligence.

I am hoping that by the end of the year, I can exceed my previous AdSense revenue record of $62.53. I think I have a decent shot at it. I would also like to think that I could achieve monthly revenues of $100 by July 1st of 2012 which would still put me on track with my ultimate goal of earning $1000 monthly by July of 2016.

Needless to say, I will keep busy working on my blog and developing others along the way. If you haven't taken the plunge and developed your own site, I would encourage you to do so. I know that the idea of developing a blog can be very intimidating. I knew nothing about WordPress but got thrown into it by a big, bad Panda. I learned and am continuing to do so, but I can't help but wonder why I didn't do it sooner. There really is nothing to fear.

The Puppy Website is Online

2011-08-24T06:42:00.000-07:00

Hey, I just wanted to let all of you readers here that the puppy website is online. I spent Monday buying the domain and getting WordPress installed at Hostgator. The domain cost me $15 for the year. I know I could have gotten it cheaper, but I went through the Hostgator site so I didn't have to try to figure out or wait for a transfer. I was able to see it online within about 20 minutes of purchase and installation of WordPress. It really is getting easier each and every time.

My eldest daughter and I then found a free theme for the site and began working on the various pages. She wrote a post while I wrote the welcome page. She spent yesterday while I was at working figuring out how to make a slideshow and put some pictures of the puppies on the site. She has really figured out how to work with WordPress with no instruction and has only been at it for 24 hours. It is really easy to set up your own website and get going. My other site, CashFlowMantra.com is actually paying for itself now. You should really go to the HostGator site and get started if you haven't already.

Anyway, I knew that several had asked about seeing the puppies so if you go to AvonCockapoos.com you can see our puppies. They are so cute and are a little over 2 weeks old now. Their eyes are open, and they have started army crawling around and hobbling about. By next week, they should be walking. They will also get their teeth this week.

I would appreciate any comments you have on the site. We have gotten some great feedback from friends already and have made some changes based upon that feedback. Our goal is to sell the puppies when we have a litter, but also to provide a resource for those who might try some breeding as a hobby or those who just got a new puppy and would like to learn about development and training. I would like the website to become an authoritative site with valuable information and an Amazon store as well.

I think it will be a fun family project. Everyone has played some role in carrying for the dogs and helping with the puppies. My daughter and wife have been working on the website and with Facebook. All in all, it will be a great learning experience for everyone.

Carrying Its Own Weight

2011-08-20T09:27:00.000-07:00

I am excited (or maybe even ecstatic) that the blog, CashFlowMantra.com, is now carrying its own weight. Just this past week, AdSense earnings for the site surpassed $10 in the month of August. Since the hosting cost I am paying at HostGator is only $9.95, CFM has paid for itself.

It was only about 3 months ago that I started the site so I am pleased that it is now "profitable". Of course, it still is taking a lot of my time which is uncompensated, but I am having fun writing content, commenting on other blogs and interacting with the financial blogger community, and growing the site. I know that it is going to take a lot more effort, but I am encouraged by the early results so far.

Disappointed

I am a little disappointed that I haven't had as much time to write on this blog and track my efforts better. I also haven't been able to spend as much time developing another site as well. I would really like to be able to have more time for writing and building stuff on the internet. But until myself and my family can learn to live without food, clothing, or shelter, I will have to continue to work and only write in my spare time.

Encouraged

I am, however, looking forward to being able to use my skills to help develop another website for my family. This will be a fun project. We have 4 cockapoo puppies that were born two weeks ago. Their eyes opened just yesterday.

We plan on spending the weekend putting together a website to showcase the puppies for sale. We don't plan on having a lot of puppies to sell but maybe one litter a year or so. In the meantime, I am thinking that we can create a resource for others looking to learn about puppies or breeding or training dogs, etc. Maybe I can even convince some of the kids to write a bit of content.

I will of course be sharing with everyone on this blog our progress. The first order of business is to get the domain purchased and get a workable site together over the next 3 days or so. I had hoped to get started on it today, but circumstances beyond my control may prevent that from happening. Oh well, it will happen so I will let you know how it is going.

That is all I wanted to share for now. There are still several days left during the month of August for CFM to make a little more and actually show a profit for the month. Everything past today is simply icing on the cake.

Plans and Happenings at CFM

2011-08-06T08:12:00.000-07:00

I am sure you know by now that I have started my own personal finance blog at Cash Flow Mantra. It has been live for just over 2 months so I wanted to update you on several exciting happenings that have been occurring.

Guest Posts

I have published 2 guest posts myself at other personal finance blogs. This was a great experience although I didn't really experience much, if any, additional traffic as a result. I may try additional guest posts in the future but am discounting the true value at this point. I also published a guest post at Christian Personal Finance as part of an interview process for a staff writing position. It is a competition for 2 spots and 10 authors are in the running. I am OK with whatever happens, but I did have several visitors from the site as a result of my post. The number was in the mid-teens, but it did help me set a daily traffic record at 62!

Finally, as far as guest posts go, I actually had someone contact me to post on CFM. That post went live yesterday so I am officially a guest post host. It is nice having some content without having to write it. I could get into this and might consider one a week at the most. I did have an idea for a contest but was planning on saving that for after the first of the year or at some time when I am busy or feeling burnt out. I would like to have the majority of content on the site self-authored.

Page Rank Update

I heard that there was a Google PR update that occurred recently, and I am pleased to announce that CFM is now PR3. Yippee! I don't know if the increased traffic that I am seeing is a result of this or more exposure to my above mentioned guest post, but the last 3 days have been the most traffic ever with a record 62 visits on Wednesday. I wouldn't be surprised if I could be getting 100 visits per day by the end of the year.

Attracting Traffic

Speaking of traffic, I will be focusing on two things for my blog. Writing content and posting 3 times per week if at all possible and commenting on other blogs. I have found that this social interaction is great for generating interest in my blog. It is one of the ways that I discover new blogs. Someone who leaves an interesting comment and has a link that I don't recognize is likely to have me visit. If I like what I see, then I am likely to subscribe and interact. That blogger may then visit my blog and become a regular reader.

I am still convinced that traffic has to figure into the Google algorithm somehow as an incredibly popular site must mean it is more sought after. The result would seem to be a virtuous cycle of increasing traffic, improving PR, and better search engine placement leading to increasing traffic and on down the line. I don't really know how the algorithm works, but it would seem logical. Not to mention the fact that it seems to be working for me so why argue?

Yakezie Challenge and Alexa Rank

On July 1st, I joined the Yakezie Challenge with CFM. The goal is to be a supportive community member and by working together help others market their blogs. I have been working on this and other financial bloggers have been reading my blog as well. This also goes back to blog commenting. We are all pulling together to improve our visibility on the web. My particular goal is to drop my Alexa Rank below 200,000 in the first 6 months.

Well, it seems to be working since my Alexa Rank is 340,083 but the 1 month ranking is below 200,000 so I am thinking that if I keep at it, I should be able to achieve my goal. Now is not the time to slack off but continue to post 3 times per week and keep interacting like I have been.

Oh and by the way, I will occasionally make a little AdSense income as well.

So as you can see, there are lots of good things happening in just a few short months. I expect many other good things to happen as well. You could do it too. It is simply a matter of getting out there and getting it done. Host Gator has been a big help also. I you are thinking of making your own site, I would recommend them. They helped me out with their live chat every step of the way. CFM works and will soon be paying for itself. Feel free to click on my affiliate link banner for Host Gator above.

A Different Kind of Guest Post

2011-08-02T16:38:00.000-07:00

I had a guest post published today on ChristianPF.com. You see, Christian Personal Finance was looking to add another couple staff writers to their blog so I figured I would send an email and ask about it. It turns out that there were many, many responses to this post offering these 2 positions. In fact, there were about 100 responses.

So the owner of the site decided to hold a little guest posting contest. The editors narrowed down the field to 10 bloggers based upon previously submitted writing samples. I simply provided the link to my blogs and HubPages articles thinking I didn't have much of a chance against 100 others.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I had been included in the top 10. The next portion of the "interview" was to write a guest post for publication and let the blogosphere help make the decision. Of course, the deadline for sending in the post happened to be midnight on the evening that we were driving back from Dallas where I had crappy internet access and little time for writing. At least the deadline was midnight Central time. Since I was in the Eastern time zone, I had until 1 am to get it done. When I sat down at 11 pm after driving for 16 hours, I got an extra hour to get it in.

Let me tell you that writing a post late at night after driving home 900 miles from Dallas is not that much fun. I certainly wondered if I should even bother, but I have always been one to do my best no matter the circumstances. Besides, the worst that could happen is I get a guest post published along with a link so that I might get a new reader or two to my personal finance blog.

On the other hand, I could end up picking up a staff writing position and making a few dollars per month for blogging while reaching a much wider audience than I can currently. Either way, I was honored to be considered as one of the top 10% of writers who had expressed interest. I still consider myself an amateur writer and blogger so to be considered is a great accomplishment for me.

Anyway, if you want to read my article on lessons we can learn from Solomon, please feel free. I would be honored if you consider it worthy enough to comment upon, tweet or retweet or digg or stumble or share on facebook, etc. If not, then that is OK also. I am just pleased to be making progress one day and one post at a time.

Thanks for reading this blog as well as my other writings. I really appreciate it.

Back From Vacation Trying to Catch Up

2011-07-25T14:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been back from vacation for a little over 36 hours now and trying to get caught up after not doing any of my daily activities for the past week. I did manage to get through the large stack of mail this morning and have started to slowly unpack. Since we stayed in a house, we were able to do laundry and so came home with mostly clean clothes.

I still haven't been able to get much written yet. I did write a post for Christian Personal Finance last night as part of a paid writing position. I figure that it could pay for hosting fees for my other online projects and provide a potentially larger audience for my blog. If I pass the "audition", then great. If not, then nothing is lost. I will let you know when it is posted so that you can go and vote for me to become one of their two new writers.

I am also working on the list of articles in my Google Reader and commenting here and there. I had over 300 to go through. I have knocked that total in half currently. I hope to get it done by later tonight so that I can keep up again. I would also like to get posts written for Cash Flow Mantra, Options Dude, and Options Dude A to Z. I am wondering if I am trying to get too much done in the next 12 hours.

The good news is that I have a very good idea of the topics that I will be discussing. The bad news is that it will probably take some time (about 2 hours or more) to get it all done. And I have a softball game plus some other work at the desk to do for my rental properties plus I would like to sleep some time tonight. Oh well, if nothing else, I should be back on track by tomorrow evening at the latest.

The biggest problem with vacation is that you have to get 2 weeks worth of work done in one week in order to enjoy some time off. The work doesn't necessarily stop, but simply gets compressed into a shorter time frame. Anyway, it will be a bit busier for a few days. I would also like to get ahead on some posts for Cash Flow Mantra since I really liked being able to schedule my posts during vacation when internet access was spotty and very slow at best.

Heading to Dallas--Gotta Love WordPress

2011-07-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

So my family and I are heading for Dallas today. Gotta pack since we leave in 2 hours or so, but had to do a quick post to let you know that I may not be all that active for the next week. I don't know the internet access situation in the house that we will be renting. If I have to live without, that is OK and might be better for me.

However, I have managed to schedule 4 posts that will happen at CashFlowMantra.com over the next 9 days while I am traveling. I think that is absolutely awesome so be sure to check them out. I put a lot of effort into getting four posts ahead the past week so that I could continue posting and not have people lose interest in that site. I see a lot of momentum building and want to maintain that progress.

I just love the scheduling feature on WordPress. I think it is so cool. There might be one here on blogger, but now that I am getting into the WordPress action, I am loving it. So, why didn't I do this sooner? Fear of the unknown, plain and simple. Anyway, this is a quick post since I have to get packing. Enjoy my new posts on my main personal finance blog. You can go directly or catch them here in the right side bar.

Six Month Goals for Cash Flow Mantra

2011-07-09T17:37:00.000-07:00

I have started a new blog that is a little over a month old now called Cash Flow Mantra. It is a personal finance blog with the primary focus being cash flow. You can link to my latest posts in the sidebar at the right. In fact, many of you have been doing so because this blog is responsible for 7.5% of my traffic over the last 30 days according to Google Analytics. I want to say that I sincerely appreciate your support in helping me build traffic over there.

I have mentioned in previous posts that I would share with you my goals for the remainder of the year with this new blog. I honestly haven't had much of a chance to sit down and consider them in detail. I also haven't had the opportunity to put them down on paper so I will actually be developing them on the fly as I write this post.

First, I would like to be able to publish some quality and thought provoking articles. I am realistic and know that I won't be able to do that for every post. I simply don't have that many good ideas but at least a couple absolutely knock-out articles each month is possible along with lots of other good articles on personal financial topics. As part of the Yakezie Challenge, I will need to publish at least twice per week. I certainly want to be able to maintain that pace at a minimum. I would like to have a total of 100 posts by the end of the year. I am currently at 17 and feel that 12 per month is reasonable.

Next, I would like to be able to get my Alexa rank down to 200,000 by the end of the year. That is one of the primary goals of the Yakezie Challenge. I think that this is possible but I will need to grow traffic and probably need to increase it 4 or 5-fold. As the number of posts increases, the amount of search traffic would be expected to increase as well and could actually surpass my current levels of traffic. I would also retain and hopefully grow my social readers at the same time.

I don't expect to earn a lot in the first six months, but I would like to see the total slowly grow. I think this might happen as the search engine traffic grows. I will not be targeting keywords necessarily but plan on writing what I view as quality content letting the chips fall where they may. I would expect that by after one year, I should at least be able to cover my hosting expenses of $10 per month. I currently have enough money in my PayPal account to cover one full year's worth of hosting expenses. Plus I am getting close to payout with the HubPages Ad Program which would provide another $50 or five months of hosting fees.

I would like to also get some advertising on the site which could help. As the traffic builds and Alexa rank declines, I might be able to get someone to advertise on the site. Right now I have a special going, so hop on over and check it out. Now would be a good time to get in on the ground floor as I build up the site.

These are the main goals that I would have for the site for the remainder of 2011. I think they are reasonable and achievable but will require that I put forth some effort. I can't simply ignore the site after a few posts. I am continuing to interact with other financial bloggers by commenting which has helped me enjoy the best initial traffic success that I have ever had. I will have to keep working hard in order to meet my goals, but plan on having some fun in the process.

Making Record Money in My Sleep

2011-07-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

I woke up yesterday morning and couldn't believe my eyes. While I was sleeping (which was only for 5 hours), I had managed to make over $19 on AdSense. I thought I had accidentally picked a month's worth of stats since I haven't been making all that much in AdSense since the Panda attack. But there it was in black and white. A month's worth of earnings in only a few hours. So this is what it feels like to be Felicia from nojobformom.com. I think I like it.

Needless to say, today is back to normal, and I am sitting on 13 cents. But that's is OK with me. I am excited about the prospects of continuing to build up various blogs and sites in the months and years to come. I have a long term horizon as I outlined in my article on compounding my online income. As you can see from the table, I only need to be making $53.87 this month. Plus I have a year before I need to make $100 per month to stay on track.

I honestly think that I will be able to do this now that I have my own WordPress blog. I may not quite make it this month with just AdSense, but adding in Amazon and the HubPages Ad Program may help although HubPages traffic keeps declining. But traffic at CashFlowMantra.com is taking off. I am entering the Yakezie Challenge with that site and will be pushing it hard to gain traffic which can only help. I am enjoying using WordPress and look forward to being able to make a few more sites this year also.

Sorry to make this a short post, but I have to get out and fire up the grill for dinner. In the next few posts, I will be posting my quarterly earnings and some goals for the rest of the year.

I Got My Work Cut Out For Me

2011-06-27T19:58:00.000-07:00

Recently, Felicia at No Job For Mom was celebrating a $100 day with AdSense. Clearly she is deserving as she has spent quite a bit of time building up her residual income and is the consummate online professional in my book. But she offers a brief glimpse at her humble beginnings in a follow up post where she explains that she earned all of $16.25 for a whole year. Needless to say, that is quite a journey and one that I would like to achieve if only one-tenth as much.

It got me to thinking. What does it take to get a $100 day on AdSense? Felicia has talked about having multiple blogs, but what does it actually mean? So I asked and found out that she has 16 active blogs of which 4 bring in the majority of her income. She is batting about 0.250 for all you baseball fans. Not enough to make it to the Hall of Fame, but certainly respectable to have a decent career in the Show. I figure if I can just make it to triple A ball, I will be blessed.

Now what will it take to make it to triple A? A lot of work, that's what. I figure that I could probably achieve decent success with maybe 10-15% of my blogs. Decent would be defined as earning $5 per day. If I could simply put up 3 blogs in each of the next 12 years, I could probably hit my goal of making $10 per day with AdSense or even so sort of affiliate program. I have a couple ideas that can get me through the rest of this year already.

The best part of Felicia's strategy is that she doesn't do any backlinking to speak of. That is great news since I really don't like that type of busy work. I am doing some blog commenting but that is more social and getting to know fellow bloggers. She does writes great content and let's nature take its course. My content will probably only be decent, hence the 10% success rate. But even getting 3 blogs moderately successful at $5 per day would lead to almost $500 per month which is nothing to sneeze at.

That being said, I really have my work cut out for me to get 36 blogs online with a fair amount of decent content for each one. But breaking it down over the course of a decade really shouldn't be all that difficult. So my goal is to actually act on the two ideas that I have for the remainder of the year and get something up and running. I don't think that part will be all that difficult. The hard part will be maintaining my patience while waiting for traffic to develop and not giving up entirely. There are times that I wonder why I am putting in so much effort. But, you know what, it is simply a lot of fun!

I Just Need Twelve Years and Ten Dollars

2011-06-22T19:05:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to play golf yesterday afternoon for the first time this month. Take a busy June and mix in plenty of rain and there is little time for golf. But the schedule was light at work, and I was able to get out at 2:30 to meet a friend at the golf course and play 18 holes starting about 3:30. We got the twilight rate for $20 which included green fees and a cart. We managed to only get sprinkled on for one hole and finished before the rain came in full force.

I had such a good time that it got me to thinking of retirement. If I could get all my debts paid off including mortgages over the next 12 years, then I could use the income from the rental properties to pay for living expenses. Then if I could just get $10 per day from my blogs and other online sources, I could golf 3 afternoons per week at the twilight rate. The youngest child would be 23 years old and out of the house so I would have plenty of time on my hands and could even have lots of time to do other things like travel.

Now, I just have to come up with a workable plan on the debt since I figure I can get to $10 per day in the next decade fairly easily.

My Newest Site

You can now check out my newest site, Cash Flow Mantra, by clicking on the feed on the right. I figured that I might as well share it for several reasons. First, the majority of my referral traffic for OptionsDude comes from this blog so I would gain a likely source of traffic for the new one. Second, it isn't some super lucrative niche that is easy to monetize so I am not all that worried about anyone stealing my ideas. My ideas aren't all that brilliant anyway. If someone thinks that my stuff which will be lucky to get $1 per month is worth stealing, go for it. Third, I am sure that someone here might have some good comments or suggestions on the new blog so feel free to visit and comment.

Currently, you can get to most of my online ventures through this blog. It is like the central hub for everything and allows you to see feeds from HubPages, OptionsDude, and Cash Flow Mantra. I do have a few other content sites that have a little bit of material on them, but they earn nothing. These three will be the main sources of income for this year. I would like to develop another blog possibly geared toward sales and Amazon affiliate income. I have an idea but I wouldn't even start that until after a few more months if I do it.

I am pleased with the progress that I am making with Cash Flow Mantra. I have been working my fingers off commenting on personal finance blogs and gathering an audience. It does seem to be working. I bet by the end of the month, I will have as much traffic as at OptionsDude. If I get any boost of traffic from this site, then I know I will have more. It is probably because the site has a more broad topic than simply options. Options are a fairly specific investment topic with a limited audience.

Feel free to stop by my newest site, read a few posts, comment on them, or come back here and let me know what you think. As always, thanks for reading. I appreciate it immensely.

A Great Day for My New Sites

2011-06-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a great day for my new sites. Both of them had some AdSense earnings! This was actually the first time I had earned anything at all on my newest site. It is about 3 weeks old so I am hoping that this is a good indication of things to come. Now these results are relative because there are many days since the Panda Update that I don't earn anything on AdSense. I will be lucky to get to $20 total this month.

But I am encouraged that I am starting to get some traffic at both of these sites. I am hoping that I can continue to build the sites and post so that eventually I could have a couple hundred posts each at these sites. I plan on spending about 2 years to develop and work on content. I have already spent two years on HubPages and have 200 Hubs so I figure that the precedent is there. I think that I will actually be more motivated since these sites will be all mine. I don't have to worry about them being removed from the internet unless I take them down.

This is a short post, but I just wanted to share my excitement. I have a few posts that I want to write for those sites this weekend and lots of other stuff to do so it will be challenging to be sure. But I have the ideas in my head so it seems like it just may be a matter of writing it all down. Sorry this is so short. Have a good weekend.

A Nice Surprise From List My Five

2011-06-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

I had pretty much given up on List My Five. It is one of those content farms that got slapped by the Panda Update. My earnings there hadn't done much. I didn't even earn a single penny during the month of April so I figured it was totally dead. So, imagine my surprise when I logged on a couple weeks ago just for kicks and noticed that I had made over $3.00 in the month of May. In fact, I had made $3.83 which was enough to get me over the $10 Paypal payout threshold.

So as a result, a few days ago, $11.23 was deposited into my Paypal account. Yippee! What a nice little payment considering I hadn't even really thought much about List My Five. That will pay for one month's worth of hosting giving me a little more breathing room to get my own sites up and running. At least now, I don't have any balance and can restart accumulating some earnings if that is even going to happen all that often. So far for the month of June, I have earned nothing. I would be thrilled if I could get one payout (and hence one month of hosting) each year.

It shouldn't be that much longer and I will reach the payout threshold of $50 for the HubPages Ad Program which would be paid through Paypal as well. That would mean that a full six months would be covered. If you have been keeping up with this blog, you know that it has been my desire to not spend any of my own money and only utilize my time for this hobby/part-time venture. So far, I have been able to do that thanks to the content farms. I would like to continue to find some sites that will pay via Paypal and use that for all of my expenses with any Amazon or AdSense payments representing 100% profit.

Anyway, I just thought I would share and let everyone know that even though I haven't done anything at all on List My Five, I was still able to make a little bit of money. It isn't a lot, but I am not one to turn down $11.23 if I have earned it. Has anyone else had a nice surprise lately, whether on the internet or not? Feel free to comment below. As always, thanks for reading and enjoy your summer. The weather has been very nice here almost like spring. I need to get out and golf a little more.

Perfect So Far as an Amazon Affiliate

2011-06-10T10:38:00.000-07:00

The changes to the Google Algorithm have really hurt my online earnings. Considering HubPages traffic is still declining (although I think it might be flattening out), eHow will no longer provide me with any residual income, and my new sites are just getting off the ground, there is really little positive news on the earnings report with the exception of Amazon.

Mind you it doesn't take much to make me excited but I have had some orders for each of the first six months of 2011. Some of the orders have even been somewhat large. I have gotten one payment from Amazon so far this year of $22.33 and should be getting another one in the near future. It took me 18 months to receive my first payment of $11.47 in November of last year. Then just 5 months later, I got another. Now I have been selling something every month and will be getting another payment. I could even get a third before the end of the year. Who knows? I might even be getting monthly payments in the next year or two.

This silver lining offers a little bit of encouragement for my new sites. I know that I am starting over, and it will take about 2 years for me to really get some decent traffic and establish these sites. There are days that the effort seems fruitless. I remember those dog days of summer two years ago just hoping that someone would read one of my Hubs. I remember logging on to the AdSense account just hoping but seeing day after day of nothing. It is the same now but I am encouraged. Amazon gives me hope. Just by working daily and publishing a few times each week will mean over 100 new blog posts each year. Little by little the traffic will build, and I will begin to see the results.

I think for the next post, I want to post my writing, traffic, and earning goals for the remainder of the year. I realize that I am having to go back and recalibrate in the light of all the online changes, but I believe I am on the right path and will be in for a big surprise come 2 years from now.

Excited About Blogging Again

2011-06-07T09:37:00.000-07:00

Well, I started my own WordPress blog on HostGator, and I must say that I am excited again. It is fun and challenging to try and start from scratch and try to build traffic and an audience of consistent readers. Right now, I am spending a lot of time commenting on other blogs to try and get my name out there and develop social traffic at the same time that I develop links. This seemed to be a good strategy for my other new site, OptionsDude.com. As such, I think it will be a good thing for my new blog as well. Since the topic is a little more broadly based, I am hoping that I can generate a little more interest. I will know more over the next few months.

I am starting to make plans and goals for the new site as well. I am not quite ready to post yet but in the next few days will be solidifying my plans for the remainder of the year. I am hoping to be able to make up for the lost time that I suffered at the hands of the Panda Update. It sure put my income back by almost a year as far as I can tell so I do have some catching up to do. However, now that I am getting the hang of working on my own site, I think that things are more promising than before.

My new site is getting indexed in about 48 hours as best I can tell. I have about 5 blog posts that are indexed and 2 more that have been recently written which should be in Google by the end of the week. Having the site as part of Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools seems to help. Plus the fact that I am commenting on other blogs after each post to take advantage of ComLuv also seem to help. This is another reason that I think the blog will grow relatively quickly compared to my other work so far. It is certainly nothing compared to what the professionals are able to do, but I am OK with that. I am just a part-time blogger anyway.

Anyway, I am having a blast building something from the ground up and am curious to see what the possibilities will be. I have been writing online for 2 years now. The majority of that time was spent with the content farms and sites like Xomba, eHow, and HubPages. I can't help but think where I might be if I had spent the time developing my own site or several. I might have 200 posts on an authority blog rather than 200 disparate Hubs. If you are even considering getting your own blog, I would suggest it. HostGator has been easy to use and the installation of WordPress was pretty easy. I can't believe I waited so long. Just click on the HostGator banner above to start building your own blog now.

Earnings During the First Three Months of OptionsDude

2011-06-01T16:27:00.000-07:00

I thought I would take some time and make a brief report about my progress and earnings at OptionsDude.com since it has been a full three months since I started the site. I am also wanting to document this information so that I can compare the progress with my newest financial blogging site to see where the two will compare. My goal is to have the site pay for itself during the first year of life. After that, I would like to see it grow earnings ever so slightly so that it could be profitable after that.

The cost to set up the site with Weebly was $40 which included the domain and hosting. Weebly takes a 50-50 split on AdSense impressions so that the cost of hosting is actually supplemented by my future earnings. It turns out to be an easy way to start a site which doesn't involve much technical knowledge at all as well as an inexpensive way to get started. It does come with a cost and that is 50% of your earnings. There also seems to be less flexibility from a design standpoint.

I can see where a Weebly website would have a place. I appreciate the opportunity to work on my site and have found that I am mainly blogging about my options trades and adding in a few other blog posts. I have some articles at the site and will add some more content over time. Initially I thought a more static site would be the way to go, but I have found that I prefer the blogging format to a much greater degree.

That being said, I think I still have a decent future with OptionsDude. I have developed a following among several financial bloggers. I think many are interested in the information that I am publishing and the practical experience that I bring. I am also getting search engine traffic which is slowly increasing. I am excited to see what the remainder of the year has in store. I think that I could double my traffic and maybe even see triple the search traffic that I am seeing now.

Increasing the search engine traffic is vital to being able to increase the earnings since social traffic will not click on any of the AdSense ads. That is OK though. I have always believed that overall traffic has some impact upon search engine results and authority.

As for the earnings, I have earned a total of $3.47. That may not sound like a lot, but I anticipate that it will be gradually increasing so that by the end of the year, I would expect to be earning a solid $5 or more per month. I believe that I am truly on pace to earn the $40 I would need by the end of the first 12 months. Added content is indexed fairly quickly. Plus, I plan on adding a couple blog posts per week which should help add to the visibility of the site.

I Finally Started a WordPress Blog

2011-05-29T14:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I had the day off work Thursday and spent the whole day (or at least 6 hours of it) setting up my own WordPress blog. The great Panda update gave me the motivation to get my butt in gear and actually do it. I don't really care whether or not it makes a ton of money. I simply know that it will probably at least pay for the cost of hosting.

More importantly is the fact that I was able to actually get the thing accomplished and looking half-way decent. That means the next time around, I can improve that much more. I learned so much on Thursday. Let me recap what I did.

The first thing I did was set up a hosting account at Host Gator and purchased the domain name at the same time. The cost to my PayPal account was $22.96 after it was all said and done. I got the middle level account where I can get unlimited domains, disk space, and bandwidth. I am assuming that I can have more than one blog for the same low cost of under $10 per month. It is called the "baby plan". If I am wrong and mistaken about my assumptions, let me know. I don't plan on worrying about it for a few months since I doubt I will start another blog before then.

Then I managed to find the WordPress one click download to the server through the cPanel whatever it is. Okay, I admit that I had to spend time with the Live Chat on Host Gator cause I never would have found it myself. But once this was online, I was able to find and download a free theme for my blog. It isn't the greatest visually appealing theme, but I think it is pretty good for my first time. Plus it was free. I then spent some time playing around with the different widget locations in order to get AdSense onto my site.

Next, I wrote an introductory post to get a little content on the site. This actually worked out pretty well. I am getting a lot better at using the WordPress blogging interface and am liking it a lot. I also got my site set up to be tracked by Google Analytics. I had some trouble getting it registered with Google Webmaster Tools and had to go to Live Chat a second time. I like the convenience of the Live Chat option.

I am pleased so far with Host Gator, have heard good things, and so signed up for their affiliate program. If you want to sign up to make money on the internet with your own blog, consider using my affiliate link.

I now have 2 posts on the site and plan on adding another 2 in the next week. It is a blog that focuses more on general financial topics as opposed to the limited topic of options investing. I am hoping that this more broad scope will lead to more potential traffic. So now I am slowing commenting on other blogs to solicit a little bit of social traffic to the site. I know that it will take about a month to start generating any search traffic at all, but hope by the end of the year to have made some money off the site.

I have just over $60 in my PayPal account which is all money that has come from eHow payments. Those will be coming to an end but I should have plenty of funds available in that account to pay for hosting for the rest of the year. Add the eHow one time purchase and the HubPages payment program, and I can safely say that hosting will be covered for at least 2 years. I would hope to see some growth over that time.

Then if I build another blog by the end of the year, I can have 2 sites and begin my own little online empire. LOL! It has been quite a lot of fun. I am excited that I was able to create something on my own. It may not be the prettiest, but it is all mine. The bottom line is just do it. If I can, anyone can.

Photo credit: lanare Sevi

What I Have Learned in Two Years Online

2011-05-26T04:48:00.000-07:00

This month marks my 2 year anniversary of writing online and trying to earn a little bit of income. In fact, it was 2 years ago on May 26th that I wrote my first Hub at HubPages. Actually, I didn't even really think of the income aspect as much as I wanted to spend my time online doing something productive rather than spending too much time playing games or wasting time on Facebook.

More Than a Hobby

Although I initially thought of blogging as more of a hobby, it has become a little bit more for me now. I view it as a passion and a challenge. The passion comes from writing and sharing my thoughts. The challenge comes in trying to actually make a little bit of money on the side and create an income stream that can be used to pay off some debt. I have not been very successful at that aspect yet but I have learned a lot.

Meeting New Friends

There are a lot of people that I have met online and lest I forget anyone will not name them one by one. Suffice it to say that I have a blog roll full of those whom I follow closely. These bloggers offer much advice and encouragement. They will post their results whether good or bad. If you are just starting out, find several bloggers that you can follow and with which you can grow. I have learned that bloggers are a rather friendly lot who will help you out.

Build Your Own Site

Yesterday, my OptionsDude.com traffic was higher than HubPages or any of the other content sites where I have articles. I have been blogging there and then commenting on other blogs. I am not earning a lot but the fact is that in 3 months, I have been able to get more traffic there than anything at HubPages or even this blog speaks volumes. First, I am doing a much better job of marketing the site through blog comments. I even have a guest post out there. Second, I am so much more motivated to make it a success because I don't feel as if I am working for someone else.

Diversify for Income

This is a biggie if you want to make money. The Panda update really demonstrates the need for diversification. I was very dependent upon HubPages and its authority to get traffic and earnings from AdSense. That isn't happening any more so it is vital to develop my own site. I think I like the blog format and WordPress better than the static type site so I will be starting my own WordPress style blog using HostGator over the long holiday weekend and seeing what I can do over the next 2 years. I would bet that I will be much farther along.

These are just a few of the things that I have learned about making money online over the last 2 years. Of course, I have gained a lot of technical type knowledge about SEO, backlinking, etc but that wasn't the main point for me. The point is that I am enjoying what I am doing, am meeting new people who enjoy what they do, and have this wonderful opportunity before me to make some extra cash that is only limited by my own effort. Time to get started.

My First Guest Post

2011-05-14T06:51:00.000-07:00

As you know, I have been working on a new site since the Panda update. It is through Weebly and I had to pay for the domain name and hosting for a year. It cost me all of $40 but half of the AdSense views go to them and half to me. It is a format with which I was familiar having written for the "content farms" which share revenue. Since that model is broken, I decided to start my own site. My only goal is for the site to break even by next February and then I can decide what to do from there.

I have been working hard to develop traffic by doing blog commenting and regularly interacting on other personal finance blogs to develop my name and personality. I decided to contact one of these blog owners about writing a guest post. He was receptive to the idea so I sent him a post, he liked it, and posted it on his site. I am so thrilled! It has a link to my site. I can use Google Analytics to report on the impact later. I am sure you are curious so here is the post:

Options Trading: Intrinsic Value and Time Value

Mark at buylikebuffett.com has a great site. He is a professional investor and writes great posts. If you have any interest at all in stock investing, be sure to check out his site. He is also a great blogger. I appreciate his willingness to let someone untested guest post for his site. I do need to get busy later today and write the follow up piece. I will let you all know when it is up and let you know about the results as well.

Anybody here ever write a guest post? What did it do for your traffic? Did you keep any regular readers? Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Photo credit: The McClouds

eHow, HubPages, and Future Plans

2011-05-09T06:05:00.000-07:00

Rest in Peace

Needless to say, there have been a lot of changes in the online income game over the past few months. The rules of the game have changed. It is survival of the fittest. It is time to adapt or die. I refuse to be a buggy whip manufacturer but will stay as nimble as possible and continue to do what I can to continue this hobby of mine and maybe even make enough on the side to pay for my other hobby, golf.

eHow Cancels WCP

Several of you may have heard that eHow will be shutting down its Writer's Compensation Program. The choices are to accept a buyout offer for the rights to my articles or watch them get deleted. Now I could claim them for myself and publish on another site, but I really don't have any place to put them. So, I plan to accept the buyout offer. It works out to about 6 months of revenue so I can't complain too much. I have earned my fair share for the amount of effort that I put into those articles.

HubPages and the Ad Program

My HubPages traffic continues to dwindle. It seems yet to find a base. I signed up for the HubPages Ad Program figuring that I might be able to some revenue from the limited number of views that I get daily. I am not sure how well this is working. It is really hard to say since my AdSense revenue is now nonexistent. No revenue at all for the month of May is unsettling to say the least. It is reminding me of the first few weeks of writing on the internet although at this pace, I will have earned more then.

Is the HubPages Ad Program having a negative effect on my AdSense? It is hard to tell what I might make with the massive traffic decline. The Ad Program does replace several of the AdSense blocks. I will say that the eCPM for the Ad Program is similar to what I was able to get with AdSense so maybe the impact is negligible.

Future Plans

Since my 2 main sources of online revenue have been destroyed, it is time to start over again. I have learned quite a bit these past 2 years and plan on using that newly acquired knowledge to make a real go at earning online income. I plan on taking this hobby thing to the next level and officially making it a part time venture with the goal of creating online assets that will supplement my golfing fund in retirement.

I can think of no better way of spending my time than getting up early and heading to the golf course while letting my wife sleep late. Then I can come home, blog and work on sites for a few hours after lunch, then have the evening free. Sounds like a great life to me. Unfortunately, it is probably about 15 years down the road. But that gives me plenty of time to develop a few sites, right!

I plan on using the eHow buyout to fund a hosting account and domain. I figure that would give me about a year to get the site supporting its own hosting costs. If I can't get it making $7 per month in a year, then I will have to re-evaluate my abilities. I might have to retire as a starter at a golf course instead.

I should also be able to reach the $50 HubPages payout in another couple months. I am about halfway there now. Once I get to that point, I will try a little experiment and discontinue the program to see what the AdSense impact truly is. That $50 can also pay for some of my hosting expenses and maybe even another domain or two should I come up with a couple good ideas.

Well, that is the approach that I plan to take for the rest of this year.

Readers, what are your thoughts about my plan? How have you altered your online strategies with all of the recent changes? Are you defeated or adapting? I would love to hear from you.

A Brilliant Idea from Kristi

2011-05-06T02:55:00.000-07:00

I just had to share with you something absolutely brilliant that I read about at Kikolani.com. You can see that I have had Kristi's blog in my blog roll for quite some time and for good reason. She had a wonderful post about using Google Reader for blog commenting. I found the title interesting and decided to check it out since I have been trying to do the same thing to help with getting OptionsDude off the ground.

It turns out that her idea was absolutely wonderful. First of all, I never really understood what Google Reader was or how it worked so I learned something there. Secondly, I actually started subscribing to various blogs and doing what she suggested. Since I already was in the habit of checking my gmail account a few times each day, I just click on the Google Reader link and check it out as well.

Google Reader will bring up all the new posts for every blog to which I am subscribed. I can then quickly decide whether to read the article or comment. This has helped me immensely. In fact, yesterday's traffic to OptionsDude was the highest it has been. I plan on subscribing to as many blogs as possible and networking in this fashion. This will help with linking as well as provide ideas for content. I can also even locate blogs for writing guest posts.

I have to thank Kristi for this great idea. I think that it can help you grow your site which is something that we all need to be doing. You should really go and check out her post.

April Worst Month for 2010 and 2011

2011-04-25T02:52:00.000-07:00

Even though April is not quite finished, I have no doubt that this will be the worst month for AdSense revenue in 2011 so far. It very well may end up being worse than 2010 for that matter. I started writing online at the end of May 2009 so by April of 2010, I had been at it for almost one full year. I was actually quite surprised with the results at the time and suspected it had something to do with the fact that I wasn't very active during the early part of 2010.

Now I recognize that there can be seasonal variations in online revenue and traffic. I suspect I am seeing some of that seasonal variation in addition to the changes at Google. At least I hope that is what I am seeing. It would make sense to me. With the majority of my traffic coming from the United States, it would make some sense.

April is the beginning of warmer weather in the Northern parts of the U.S. and people (including myself) are anxious to get outside. Yard work, walking the dog, jogging, and golf are all activities that haven't been enjoyed for many months so at the first signs of spring, everyone gets away from the computer to head outdoors. It seems logical and is what I am telling myself.

The next few months should really tell me a lot about what the future might hold for online income. It has been a struggle to stay motivated with so little revenue coming in. It seems like an entire year's worth of work has been for naught. Of course, it doesn't help that I have been incredibly busy or that the weather is nicer. Oh well, I will keep on working on my new site as I am able and add content. If I can get it to pay for itself, then I might take the plunge and do another one.

Starting to Get Search Engine Traffic

2011-04-09T18:36:00.000-07:00

It may not be the best traffic (photo credit: Derek Harper), but I am starting to get some search engine traffic at my new site, Optionsdude.com. It seems that the majority of that traffic is coming to the various posts on my blog through several longer tail keywords. I can't tell you how exciting this is so soon after starting the site. Unfortunately, the bounce rate is pretty high and minimal time has been spent on the site, but there has been one visitor who spent more than 1 minute!

I am also generating daily traffic by commenting on blog posts from blogs that I find on the Yakezie Personal Finance Blog Network at Yakezie.com. There are a lot of good bloggers that are part of the network. I know that I will never be able to have a blog like one of those, but maybe someday, I could come close.

By commenting daily, I am able to get a handful of visits daily which provides just enough motivation to keep going. I did have one day last week which had no traffic at all, but that was the only one over the past 30 days. My plan is to continue to read various blog posts and make relevant comments on ones that I might be able to add to the discussion. I will do this as I continue to try and add content to my site. Adding content is a little slow going right now, but I did add a page this past week. Maybe I can get something up tomorrow also.

I would like to see the number of visits to the site surpass the number to this blog by the end of the year. It will be tough going, but I think I can do it. I will need to post some links to some of the various articles after I get more content up. I really have yet to try and backlink any individual pages other than with a few blog comments.

I also want to say that I am seeing some of my pages in Google for some of the longer tail keywords that I have been following. I am on page 2 for one and page 4 for another. Too bad there is little monthly search traffic for these words, but at least I know the process is working. Again maybe by the end of the year, I can get some serious ranking done for some of these keyword phrases with backlinking.

The bottom line is that the progress is somewhat slow for me since I don't spend 8 hours per day on the internet. But at least there is progress. Oh and by the way, I have earned $1.10 on the site, so I only have $38.90 to break even!

Online Income Earnings Report 1st Quarter 2011

2011-04-02T09:28:00.000-07:00

If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you will realize that I don't publish monthly results since the variation can be unsettling. Instead I prefer to publish quarterly reports and compare to the previous 3 month time frame as well as the results from a year ago. I think this gives a better sense of true progress and smooths out variations that may occur with various seasons and holidays.

The first quarter of 2011 saw some interesting changes for the prospect of earning passive income online. The Google update caused my HubPages traffic to drop. According to Google Analytics, I am looking at a 25-30% drop in overall traffic. I think that this will have some impact on AdSense earnings going forward. I am hoping that some of the other sites will make up the difference.

HubPages also added an Ad Program that did make up the difference during the month of March. It is based upon impressions and traffic so if you want to read a few of my articles, feel free to check them out through the widget in the sidebar. I will be including the revenue from this program in the results below.

I did benefit from the Google change through my eHow articles. In fact, March was my highest month ever at eHow. I am curious to see if this trend will continue and I will see improved earnings or if this is a new plateau. Either way, I will take it.

So here are my online earnings for the first 3 months of 2011:

January 2011 (Compare to Jan 2010 of $58.40)

AdSense $54.06
eHow $20.83
Total $75.50

February 2011 (Compare to Feb 2010 of $55.97)

AdSense $42.92
eHow $21.33
Total $65.59

March 2011 (Compare to Mar 2010 of $47.49)

AdSense $44.26
eHow $26.01
HP Ad Program $13.25
Total $84.03

You may notice that the total doesn't add up. I didn't report very small totals like the amount from ListMyFive or YouData but did include in the totals. I also do not report Amazon income until I actually receive it. I did this because it took 18 months to make the first payout.

In the fourth quarter of 2010, I made $231.93. This quarter I made $225.12 so I have seen a quarter to quarter decrease in income (although counting the roughly $18 I made on Amazon in Feb and March would have helped). I will, however, remain optimistic that compared to one year ago I improved my earnings by $63.26 or almost 40%. Last year, the summer was a slow time for me so I plan on busting my butt over the next 3 months. I will post those goals and plans next time. I hope everyone will make it through all the interesting changes and continue to build larger and more varied income streams.

I'm Still Making Money Online

2011-03-26T08:45:00.000-07:00

Even though it is easy to get discouraged with the recent algorithm change at Google and the impact that it has had on my HubPages traffic, I am still making money online. I really don't think that AdSense has been impacted all that much. Plus, eHow earnings have been very solid and are even a little bit better since the change.

There are other sources of potential income that have been added to my portfolio as well. I was able to join the HubPages Ad Program which pays based upon the number of impressions. So for those Hubs which didn't convert a lot of AdSense ads, this will just simply add to my revenue totals. I have also started my own website which is slowly growing with additional content and traffic. I am please with the progress so far this month and will likely report on it in a future post.

I just went back to look at a Hub I wrote about compounding passive income online. When I look at the table that I posted which would enable me to earn $1000 monthly within 6 years, I find that by July of 2011 I only need to be making $53.87 per month in order to remain on target. I have exceeded that total for each of the first 3 months of this year.

In fact, I have earned more than I did last month already and could likely surpass January's total. The HubPages Ad Program has helped in this regard but even without it I would still be on target for making $1000 monthly within 6 years. I know that it sounds like a long time, but I don't consider it that big a deal for a part-time gig. The skills that I am learning could easily be used to supplement a retirement income someday.

Anyway, I just wanted to offer some encouragement and hope to those who might be feeling discouraged. I know that I have felt that way at times this month watching the traffic fall by the wayside. Even with this minor setback, I don't think it is the end of the world. I still have the ability to make money online and am doing so. I can still write Hubs and make some money from the views. Plus I now have a website that I can grow and earn from as well. I hope everyone else has been able to bounce back from the rough month. Here is to a good summer. Can't wait for the warmer weather. I plan on doing some golfing soon!

Plans and Goals for OptionsDude.com

2011-03-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I am sure that many of you have had a chance to go and visit my new site which was finally put into being as a result of the most recent Google Update. I felt that it was important to get my own content on my own domain and begin to develop an authority site on a topic which I thoroughly enjoy and for which I have quite a passion.

I have enjoyed working on the site and have published 11 static pages with articles explaining such things as covered calls, puts, and collars. I have also begun a forum which doesn't have any members other than myself and a blog with 2 posts which will serve as a more active portion of the site allowing me to explain some of my trades and comment on the current state of the market.

I would like to take this post and lay out my plans for the site between now and the end of the year. This serves two main purposes. First, it forces me to sit down and write out what I plan to accomplish. Second, it lays it out there for all to see and provides a measure of accountability that will force me to act in order to avoid embarrassment publicly. So let's get started:

I plan on having about 100 pages of static content with articles explaining various aspects of trading options. I will be able to get several more articles on covered calls and puts. I will be able to write about the various types of spreads and explain some of the nuances of options pricing. I could easily come up with about 50 article topics in the next 20 minutes. My goal is to get these posted by the end of the year. 90 articles in 9 months is 10 per month or about 3 per week. This would fit with my earlier goal for HubPages of publishing one during the week and one each on Saturday and Sunday.
I would like to add a section on book reviews. I will first start through my library and write reviews on the books I have already read. I will probably re-read several of them and offer some useful tidbits on what I find in the book and make a recommendation on whether to buy, buy cheap, borrow or don't bother.
I will continue to post to the blog section approximately once per week on average. I will likely have more to say at certain times than others. I got commentluv working so when I go to comment on other blogs, the most recent post from my blog at optionsdude.com will appear. I have also placed the posts at the uppermost part of the sidebar on this blog so if any of you have interest in options, you can link to them here.

Ultimately, as a result of this content generation and developing links, I would like to actually begin to get some search engine traffic and earn my first income from the site in the next few months. I would like to see the Alexa ranking in the top 500,000 by the end of the year with some steady daily traffic. I would like to have a vibrant discussion on options and options trading with several members on the forum and through blog comments.

I know that some effort will be required, and I expect that. I am looking forward to it. I enjoy taking the topics that seem confusing to others and explaining them in such a way that anyone can understand. I think options trading can be one of those topics. I believe I can offer an everyday individual's insight into this aspect of investing and am looking forward to the challenge.

Photo credit: Keith Williamson

Introducing My New (and First) Website!

2011-03-09T14:37:00.000-08:00

It turns out that the Google algorithm change was just the kick in the pants that I needed to get out of my comfort zone and start my own website, although using the interface at Weebly is not that uncomfortable. For this lack of having to deal with uploading various parts of a site to a hosting service, I do have to share AdSense income 50-50 with Weebly, but it is worth it to me.

The interface has become fairly easy for me to use and navigate in under a week's time. In that time, I have published 7 pages of content most of which are between 400 and 500 words. The best part is that 5 of those content pages have been indexed by Google! The site is only 10 days old. Plus the home page, about page, policy page, and the 2 article content pages have been indexed. Only my 2 most recent articles have yet to appear.

I was able to use one of the themes on the site and modify the picture to some that are appropriate for my topic. It is an informational site colored by my personal experience in options trading. It is monetized with AdSense on the left and an Amazon capsule at the bottom of each page. I like the layout but would appreciate any comments or suggestions as this is my first attempt.

Like I've mentioned before, my new website is not the greatest site out there, but it is mine! I have purchased the domain for the next year and am able to publish my articles quickly with the push of one button. It is very easy, and I am enjoying it. The total direct cost for this service to me was $40 which I paid using PayPal. My main goal would be to make my money back over the next year and get on the first page of Google with a keyword or two.

So, without further delay here is the site: optionsdude.com! I hope you enjoy it, but mostly I hope that it is informative and educational and even profitable for anyone who visits.

Felicia at No Job For Mom posted about Decision Makers. I am not sure where the last 10 days have fit for me, but I do seem to enjoy the direction I am heading. Between the improved eHow earnings, the new HubPages ad program, and getting started on my own site, I have a positive outlook on the future.

Movicon credit: Alfredjulius

My Best Week Ever at eHow

2011-03-07T13:19:00.000-08:00

Following the Google Farmer update, I have been absolutely amazed at the impact on my personal repertoire of articles at the various sites. The main bulk of my activity has been at HubPages. You may know from my circling the wagons post that my Google traffic was down 50-60%. It bounced back a little but still is down about 30-40%. Despite that and the usual slump of weekend traffic that I constantly see, I had a really good weekend. This goes to show that it is simply impossible to predict what might happen, and the only thing that I can be doing is writing and publishing.

Furthermore since the Google update, it has been stated that eHow was somehow unaffected. I have several thoughts about why this might be and published those in my latest Hub on 3 reasons I think eHow might prosper. I would suggest that you read this and offer some input as well either here or at my Hub. Evidence that this might be true is the fact that this most recent 7 day stretch has been my best ever at eHow. If the pace continues, I will surpass my best earnings month for that site. I can't believe that it is coincidence but am pleased that it is picking up the slack.

Speaking of slack, HubPages has added a new revenue model of which I am pleased to be one of the early invitees. It seems that they have gone out and secured advertisers on their own and are paying on an impression model. Just another reason you should be reading all of my Hubs and sending them out to your friends (LOL!). I think that this new model may help take the sting out of the recent changes. I will post on my early impressions after I have a few more days under my belt.

I want to save my next post for introducing my new website which was launched as a direct counter-attack to Google's offensive on content farms. I am seeking to create a fairly large informational site on trading options which is a passion of mine so it should be easy to get motivated.

So, how is everyone else fairing following the Google Update? It seems like those with their own sites have seen little negative impact which is a good thing. That makes me hopeful that building my own is the right path to take.

I'm Not Going to Wait

2011-03-05T04:42:00.000-08:00

Not 12 hours after saying I was going to wait and see what happened with Google's Farmer update, I decided to take matters into my own hand. I started my own website and have published 5 pages of content on it this week.

I know that some of my regular internet marketing readers will be somewhat disappointed, but I decided to go with Weebly for my site. I did purchase my own domain name but I know that some will bristle at the 50-50 split with AdSense. But listen to my rationale first before throwing stones.

First of all, I don't feel as if I have a complete understanding of setting up my own site. I know that I could stumble my way through it, but I wanted to get something up on the net and quick before I got totally discouraged and lost momentum. I wanted to be able to focus on content.

Secondly, cost was a factor. Since this is a great unknown for me, I decided the cost of getting a domain name at $10 plus hosting at a cheap $8 per month is $106 for a year. I would have to make that amount back before profit began. My cost for a year of hosting at Weebly plus my own domain was $40. With a 50-50 split, I only have to make back $80.

With this arrangement, I am able to avoid the frustration of dealing with building my own site and getting frustrated. I can instead focus on content. I am getting more valuable use of my time. Plus the hurdle to make back my costs is much lower. For me, it was a win-win. Not to mention the fact that I was able to pay with PayPal which only had $50 in it. That was money that I had earned on eHow. So my "hobby" still hasn't cost me anything other than time.

Finally, I want to say how excited I am to report that one of my content pages has been indexed. The home page, about page, and privacy policy page had been indexed within 72 hours, but last night my first content page showed up. It wasn't the first that I wrote, but I am ecstatic nonetheless and am looking forward to seeing others show up in the next few days.

I have noticed that many people don't share the name of their other sites. I am not sure why that is, but I am tempted to share and post a few links once I get up to 10 pages of content. Please provide some comments and guidance as to why it may or may not be a good idea to share the site name.

Circling the Wagons After the Latest Google Update

2011-02-27T09:38:00.000-08:00

There has been quite a bit of consternation to say the least about the recent update to Google's algorithm which has been targeted at spam sites and "content farms". Personally, I am all for an improvement in the search results that get delivered since some results are very poor and lead to many worthless sites.

That being said, I can't help but wonder what implications the Google definition of "content farm" might hold for HubPages. I have been enjoying my little hobby of making money online and am a little disappointed by the decrease in traffic that I have seen over the last 48 hours. I would say that my Google traffic is down about 50-60% overall.

As a result, I will probably be writing very little over the next week while I see what transpires. I may end up having to develop my own website but don't really like the idea of paying for a domain and hosting just to find out that I can't get any visitors. I have enough difficulty getting traffic as it is; I don't need to pay for the privilege of having difficulty.

It may turn out that this truly remains only a hobby with less effort on my part and that I would just allow the chips to fall where they may. I was enjoying the challenge of seeing what I could accomplish, but now that there is some questions as to the rules of the game, I think it is best to just wait and see. I do plan on being able to get some reading done this week so that is a plus.

The general consensus over at the HubPages forum is to wait a week before panicking and seeing what happens. That certainly seems like good advice so that is what I will be doing. Apparently, there is the belief that good content will still matter and many reports are that personal websites have not been hit with traffic declines. Some are optimistic that an entire site won't get harmed as much as individual pages. I am not quite so sure personally. Again that might mean that now is the time to develop a personal website. I will be looking into that option over the next week as well.

In the meantime, I am glad that I am not reliant upon Google for my livelihood. I am able to just walk away at any time. That is not the case for everyone. I feel really sorry for those who had lost jobs and were writing to help supplement income. In that respect, the unemployment picture may have just gotten worse. I also feel sorry for those who may have quit employment to work more on the internet only to have this happen to them. Double whammy!

As for me, I can certainly find plenty to keep me busy so that I don't end up watching too much television. Besides, summer is coming along with golf and softball so my writing time would have been more difficult to come by as it is. The bottom line for me is to just watch and see what happens in the next week or two, do a little reading, a little thinking, and come back with a plan for the future.

I wish everyone luck with these monumental changes especially those supporting themselves or family members. I would appreciate any comments on how these changes are affecting your traffic and business, what your plans might be, etc. Thanks for reading and sharing.

Slight Struggle to Keep the Pace on Publishing

2011-02-18T15:45:00.000-08:00

Based upon my desire to publish one Hub during the week and two on weekends, I am struggling just a bit to keep the pace. By this point in February, I should have had 7 Hubs published. Instead, I have only five. I guess I shouldn't say only since that is still a decent number.

Plus I have to consider the fact that the past week I felt like I was fighting a virus and required a lot of extra sleep. I was incredibly tired and slept about 3-4 extra hours each day compared to my usual. Now I feel like I am 100% so I would anticipate being able to get some more work done this weekend despite all of the home responsibilities as well. I am feeling energized and motivated!

I haven't been as diligent at publishing backlinks either. I am seriously wondering about their effectiveness with Google going after content mills if some of the linking sites will be on the radar. I would hate to think that any effort at SheToldMe or Redgage would be all for naught. That is why I am thinking I should continue to focus more heavily on content creation than anything else.

I may even consider writing some product Hubs at HubPages in the near future as well. I am starting to see some results from Amazon and am seriously thinking that might be a valuable method to diversify a little of my writing. I still feel awkward recommending any products that I have personally not tried. Nor do I feel that I could write a Hub on "the best" such-and-such since how do I know it is the best?! To me that seems like opinion only unless there is some data supporting such an assertion.

Anyway, I am still debating the product angle. I will continue to work hard and write at HubPages until I can consistently earn $100 per month. Then I will diversify some more since it is impossible to know when a particular site might fall by the wayside. Can't have all my eggs in one basket. In the meantime, I better get working so that I can get 3 or 4 Hubs done this weekend and get back on track.

Photo credit: Bo Nash

I Sold an Amazon Kindle!

2011-02-12T03:57:00.000-08:00

I have been somewhat disappointed by the month of February so far. I have been working diligently to increase my AdSense income by publishing more than I did last year and creating more backlinks as well in order to drive traffic to my Hubs and blog. The traffic has been good but the earnings haven't.

However, I have noticed a pleasant surprise as a result of the added traffic. My Amazon clicks have increased, and I am actually getting a few sales now and again. I even sold an Amazon Kindle this past week along with a leather case and a two year warranty. I was excited! This is the biggest order that I have had. I don't even write sales Hubs but simply put the Amazon capsule on each article.

With just that one order, I now have enough to get paid by Amazon in the next month or two. What a great side effect of the additional traffic that I am getting. I guess that it is important to diversify potential income sources when dealing with online efforts. This doesn't only apply to sites but also to methods of getting revenue whether selling products, relying on ad clicks, or getting other affiliate income.

For now, I will keep doing what I am doing but will be considering Amazon as a source of income more seriously in the future. And by the way, if you want to buy a Kindle....

A Record Month for Traffic

2011-02-01T08:07:00.000-08:00

It is always a good feeling when you get to experience positive results from your efforts. Whether it is lifting weights, shedding pounds or making money online, seeing results from your efforts offers plenty of positive reinforcement.

As many know, I have undertaken the task of tripling my AdSense income in 2011 and am seeking to do this by increasing traffic with a combination of additional publishing of Hubs at HubPages and increased backlinking efforts at sites that provide AdSense revenue sharing. I figure that I need to triple traffic at a minimum if I hope to triple my income.

As it turns out, January 2011 was a record traffic month for me. I bested my previous record by about 4 percent and my worst month in 2010 by about 150%! It was also the best month for me in total revenue opportunities (ad clicks) but alas the CPC average was lower than I have seen. That is OK because my AdSense revenue was still greater than double my worst month in 2010 but less than triple.

So while I am behind the pace to triple AdSense earnings, I am still very pleased with my progress. I also have a target for February 2011 that is not too much greater than January's target so maintaining the same level of effort should lead to additional traffic and additional revenue opportunities.

I would also like to mention that a side benefit has been 4 shipped Amazon orders for the month of January. I am putting Amazon boxes on all of my Hubs which occasionally lead to a sale. I also got more clicks for Amazon in January 2011 than in the entire first quarter of 2010. This is only going to get better with more traffic.

I must confess that it has been somewhat difficult to keep up with the publishing although I did manage to do that. I did fail on the backlinking effort and did not get 3 links out per day. But each day is a new day, and I refuse to feel defeated. If I miss a day, I miss. I will simply strive to set 3 links daily as an ongoing goal and even if I get it done on half the days, I will be a lot farther than when I started. I am seeing Hub traffic from SheToldMe so I know that it is working.

So if you want to sign up and make money writing Hubs, you can join HubPages. It is a great way to start making money on the internet without spending any of your own cash.

January Efforts on Target...

2011-01-28T06:28:00.000-08:00

...at least for the most part. Too bad I can't say the same for the results. Since it is getting close to the end of the month and I took some time away from publishing Hubs during my golf trip, I decided to look and see how the publishing efforts looked against my goal of one Hub during the week and two on the weekends. I took the calendar and counted out the number that I should have published and came up with a total of 14.

Then I compared it to reality and found that I have published 11 Hubs so far this month. I also have the rest of today to publish another as well as this weekend to do two more so I am officially on track. I haven't been as lucky with my linking efforts. I know for a fact that I didn't get 3 done each and every day. I would estimate that I got it done on about half the days, but I still have done more linking than any month previously. I plan on finishing out the month strong with 3 more Hubs and doing my links each day.

Unfortunately, it looks like I am only on pace to double the income of my lowest AdSense month in 2010. That is OK since I couldn't expect a flurry of activity to have immediate results. This is by far a record traffic month so that can only mean that better results are on the way. The biggest problem is that my CPC is down compared to other months. I guess that having more traffic with more clicks probably averages them out to a lower overall value. I just haven't quite made up for it in volume yet.

In the meantime, I hope everyone is having a solid start to the year. I will say that eHow income has been solid, much better than last January. I will also say that I am impressed with my Amazon clicks this month. Looking over the stats for 2010 showed that my clicks increased each and every quarter of the year. That is probably due to increasing traffic levels. At the current pace, they will increase again this quarter so that is good considering it is not a big shopping time of the year. I can't wait to see if I can get another payout sometime in the next few months.

Photo credit: Casito

Celebrating Small Victories

2011-01-22T04:49:00.000-08:00

I just got back from my South Carolina golfing trip about 48 hours ago and am getting back into the swing of things here in Indiana. I got to come back from some short sleeve weather to 6 inches of snow and single digits temperatures. What a shock!

But just like on the golf trip where I have to compete in the "A" bracket against guys shooting about 15 strokes better than me for skins and pins, so it is on the internet. I have to celebrate the small victories. It is a major accomplishment on the course when I get a few skins (meaning I got a better score on a hole than all of the other "A" golfers which for me meant a par). Likewise, I have a few major accomplishments to celebrate for 2011 even if I don't quite match up with some of the other internet gurus.

So, I would like to list my accomplishments to encourage myself and others:

Before leaving for golf, I was able to maintain my publishing schedule and publish 9 Hubs (I even published one while in South Carolina but it is difficult to keep up when physically tired from 27 holes each day).
Even though it doesn't look like I will meet the earnings target this month, I am already ahead of my worst AdSense month from 2010 with several more days to go. I am also getting some earnings virtually every day.
Traffic is more than double compared to January 2010. In fact, my worst day this month was better than every day except one in January 2010.
I had 58 Amazon clicks in the first quarter of 2010 with no orders. In January 2011, I have had 85 clicks with 7 orders.
Linking at SheToldMe is paying off since it now shows up as a traffic source for my articles at HubPages.
I have added followers on this blog and HubPages. I am almost at 600 followers on HubPages.
My Alexa rank on this blog has been steadily declining and is under 400,000 for the 1 month ranking.
EHow earnings have almost doubled compared to January 2010.

Even though I am missing the earnings target tripling goal, I am seeing plenty of positive response to my efforts and will have to keep up the intensity. The earnings will be a lagging indicator but from what I am seeing above, they should be improving in the next several months. I am really excited about Amazon since that is something on which I am not focusing and I am still seeing positive results. I also have to remind myself that the effort I am putting in now will benefit me next January and the January after that and on and on as well.

I hope this has been uplifting for someone. I know it can get discouraging to feel that you are making no progress but looking back at a year ago will reveal otherwise. That is why it is helpful for me to keep the data that I do. I hope everyone has a solid remainder of the month.

Yakezie Challenge Seems to Be Working

2011-01-12T05:53:00.000-08:00

If you happen to read this blog, you will know that on New Year's Day I joined the Yakezie Challenge. Yakezie,com is a site that as best I can tell is a confederation of personal finance and lifestyle bloggers seeking to help others through their blog as well as giving back. They even have a scholarship fund that allows them to give out scholarships to prospective college students. Be sure to check out the site.

The challenge calls for several steps with the ultimate goal of improving the Alexa ranking of your blog. For example, this blog had an Alexa ranking of over 600,000 when I started. The goal is to improve that ranking to less than 200,000 by July 1st. Obviously to do this, I will need to increase traffic. This is where fellow challengers can help. It is asked that you help your fellow challengers by mentioning their blogs and so through combined efforts we all increase in our rankings together.

It sure makes sense. There are so many blogs out there on the internet that it is hard to get noticed. I am constantly finding new blogs and writers some of which I like and others which I don't like as well. And that is OK. It is nice just to be able to sample some new sites from time to time.

So, I would like to recognize those fellow Yakezie challengers who have sent some traffic to this blog according to Google Analytics. I am sure this list will ultimately get bigger, and I will share more links with future updates but for now I would at least like to mention:

debtfreedivas.org -- I love the name by the way! This is a pretty neat blog. And the divas have even taken time to come here and comment. I appreciate that immensely.

faithandfinance.org -- Another nice site with great content and great design. I wish I had as good looking a blog. Oh well, Thou shalt not covet!

frugalzeitgeist.com -- Being frugal is always important. Gotta get back there to read the Dogs of the Dow post from yesterday.

investitwisely.com -- Another blog with great design and an awesome name. Not to mention, it is one of my favorite topics.

So, how have I been doing with the challenge so far? I had started to notice an increase in traffic toward the end of December and heading into the new year. I have noticed an additional increase since starting the challenge also. In fact over the past month, my traffic is up about 50%. Even better is that my total search engine traffic is now 20% of the total. I would like to see that increase to about 30% by the end of the challenge.

So far, my Alexa rank is now under 600,000 but under 400,000 for the one month report. This is definitely a good trend and a positive sign that getting to under 200,000 by July is possible. Of course, it will take additional work but I can certainly handle that. I will be sure to keep you updated as time goes on. I will be curious to see the overall impact in the months ahead.

That is all that I had for this post. On a side note, I am getting ready to go on a golf trip to South Carolina. Hopefully the snow will melt in time. I plan on a post or two from down south.

Earnings Report for Fourth Quarter 2010

2011-01-06T09:44:00.000-08:00

As is my custom, it is now time for reporting quarterly earnings. I have shied away from monthly earnings because of the variability whereas I would hope to be able to see some positive progress when comparing one quarter to the previous and especially when comparing a quarter to the previous year.

I am pleased to report that the fourth quarter of 2010 did indeed show progress. I experienced several firsts during the quarter. It turns out October has been fairly good to me. I saw my first (and only so far) double digit earning day in October on record traffic for the month. I can only hope that October continues to improve into the future and that I can continue to improve traffic levels throughout 2011 until that time of year.

Here are my earnings for the final 3 months of the year:

October -- AdSense $62.71 eHow $15.55 ListMyFive $1.29
November -- AdSense $56.54 eHow $13.59 LM5 $1.73 Amazon $11.67
December -- AdSense $55.17 eHow $13.28 LM5 $0.40

Grand Total -- $231.93

Compare this to the final quarter of 2009 when I earned a total of $191.71, and I managed to increase my earnings by almost 21%. That is certainly respectable but my plan for this year is to triple my AdSense income over the year. It will take quite a bit of effort with a subsequent increase in publishing and traffic compared to this year. But I think I am up to the task and have it broken down into manageable pieces during the year.

I would also like to add my own sites to the AdSense mix somehow. I am still working on that and will keep you up to date on those plans. In the meantime, I will continue with what I started in terms of publishing on HubPages and building links. In reading many of the other online earnings reports, it seems like the fourth quarter was decent for many people. Let's hope that momentum continues into this new year.

I Have 2 Website Ideas, But...

2011-01-04T05:13:00.000-08:00

Oh no. There's that word again. My teenager can't complete a sentence without using that blasted 3 letter contraction. It drives me nuts, and here I've gone and done it. She does it because she only sees the world from her egocentric position and thinks she is always right. On the other hand, I have a more open mind and more experience in the world so my "but" is legitimate.

Mind you, I am not making excuses either. I really want to develop my own websites but..

You see, I have 6 kids although one is in college. Still I spend 1 hr and 15 minutes total commute time each day and work full time. It is 45 minutes each way to get the 4 youngest to gymnastics, and they are there 6 days each week. I have many days when I leave the house at 6 am and don't get home until 10 pm. I often get up at 4 or 4:30 just to have time to write what I do get done. So I don't view these as excuses but as reality.

I am a fairly quick study. I have often read something and been able to do it. Occasionally it takes more time which you can see is a limited resource, especially when it comes to learning something new. Nor am I really afraid of doing new things or failure either.

I have 2 website ideas, but I am simply thinking that time is at a premium and so I need to outsource some of the development. Which is why I am coming to my readers for assistance in this area. I know that several of you are more experienced than I am in development and design of websites. Some even did this and sold on Flippa. I have looked there for sites but would prefer to have my own project. Plus, I trust my readers more than some of the characters I have seen on Flippa.

That is why I am soliciting bids (and especially comments regarding viability from those with more experience) for these 2 projects. First, I would like to develop an article directory. There have been some for sale at Flippa, but I simply don't feel comfortable purchasing from some of those individuals. One has been up for 4 separate auctions. Of course, not having $3000-$5000 helps make my decision as well. I know that many sites are designed and sold for a few hundred dollars which is more my speed.

Second, I would like to develop my own authority website on financial topics. I know that the space is crowded. However, if you have taken the time to read most of my Hubs, you will find that it is a strong interest and passion of mine so it will be easier to work on it over a period of time than picking something I don't enjoy.

So, if you are looking for a client or could make a recommendation, I would sincerely appreciate it. I am not in an incredible rush and should be an easy-going client. I am also not necessarily inclined to take the lowest price but am looking for quality work at a fair price.

I understand that you might not want to conduct business via comments so feel free to contact me privately through my HubPages profile. It will be easy to access through the HubPages article links at the right. Also, feel free to offer any public advice or comments on this blog to help others who are reading and may be considering their own site as well.

I am thankful for the knowledge and expertise of my readers. I appreciate all the encouragement so far in this journey and am looking forward to the next several steps. So remember, I am not making excuses but simply outsourcing. LOL!

I Joined the Yakezie Challenge

2011-01-01T08:23:00.000-08:00

I ran across a new site today called Yakezie.com. It seems to be a community of bloggers focusing on personal finance topics. I am still exploring the site and trying to figure it all out. But I did run across a challenge that I knew right away was something in which I wanted to take part.

The challenge relates to Alexa ranking and is something that I have been trying to improve on my own. The target seems a bit aggressive but I think it will be possible with a little help from fellow challengers. If I am understanding correctly, networking becomes a large part of the community. I know that I have met several wonderful bloggers in the internet marketing and online income worlds so I figure those who write about personal finance are equally as friendly.

As a result, over the next several weeks I will probably be reading several new personal finance blogs and introducing you to those that I think are the most helpful and interesting. Maybe this will end up being the inspiration I need to start my own financial blog. I have been kicking the idea around and know that I would be better off having my own site.

Anybody reading more than a few of my Hubs knows that I enjoy the topics of finance and investing. I especially enjoy stocks and options. Hopefully my knowledge and practical experience in options can be useful to the Yakezie community. Now back to the challenge itself.

The challenge is a six month challenge and calls for those with an Alexa ranking of greater than 200,000 to move into the top 200,000. I have placed the challenge badge on the right side of this blog next to the Alexa ranking widget to help you keep track of my progress. I need to post 2-4 times per week which is something I do anyway so that is not going to be hard. I also need to help promote others in the challenge which again is something that I have had a tendency to do anyway.

I am excited about the prospect of improving my ranking on this blog. The target is more aggressive than I would have selected but I still think it is doable. Clearly there are many others who have taken this same challenge and succeeded. I am looking forward to it. What a great way to start the New Year! That and corned beef and cabbage later today along with football and I am set.

My Online Income Goals for 2011

2010-12-29T05:34:00.000-08:00

This is the time of year that many put together New Year's Resolutions, and I am no different. I certainly have plans for 2011 but want to keep them reasonable. I have a tendency to over commit and then find myself unable to accomplish what I had originally envisioned. So this year, I plan on keeping it somewhat simple. That means simply focusing on the task at hand and allowing the chips to fall where they may. I do have the expectation that I will be able to get it done, however.

I hope to continue to develop my passive income over the next year and triple my AdSense income. Of course I have no direct control over the amount of income that I make with AdSense but I do have control over my publishing and linking efforts. My general sense is that I will need to triple my traffic to triple my income since CTR and CPC have been within a range over the last several months. As a result, here are my main goals for 2011:

I plan on publishing 3 Hubs at HubPages per week. I figure that if I can write one during the week in bits and pieces and one each on Saturday and Sunday, by the end of the year I will have an additional 156 Hubs to add to my 173. That is almost double the number of articles.
I plan on submitting 3 backlinks per day each and every day during 2011. This will provide me with over 1,000 backlinks to my Hubs. I would think that this should at least increase my traffic by about 50% or so.

When taken together, these two activities would be expected to triple my traffic. I have been practicing over the past several days submitting 3 daily links. I have been using Xomba and SheToldMe. Once I finish down the list of Hubs with these 2 sites, then I will move on to Snipsly since it also offers AdSense revenue sharing. I am hoping that using revenue sharing sites will help with the ultimate goal of tripling my AdSense income.

As a result of the above 2 efforts, I would like to see the following happen. I don't have direct control over these results but would hope for:

Tripling of my AdSense income--I simply need to triple each and every month of the year and will be able to track my progress by taking the lowest AdSense total for 2010 and multiplying by 3. My three worst months for 2010 were April, May, and June with $22.86, $24.54, and $28.10 respectively. Therefore for the month of January 2011 I simply need to earn $68.58 to remain on target.
I would like to increase my followers on HubPages to 750 by the end of the year. I am at 520 currently. I would also like to see the number of followers on this blog increase to 80. This will be more difficult since I seem to be adding followers more slowly here.
I would also like to see the amount of traffic at this blog increase by a factor of 2 and hopefully see the Alexa rank decrease below 500,000. I am starting to see an increase in the amount of search engine traffic appearing at this blog. It is up over 15% now so that is encouraging to think that I might be getting some increased visibility.
As a result of increased traffic at HubPages, I would like to see my Amazon results improve as well. It took 18 months to get to my first $10 payout. I am now at about $7 on my way to the next. I think it would be wonderful to get 3 payouts in 2011. I will just have to see what happens since I won't be writing very many product Hubs. But who knows?

These are my main goals for 2011. I plan on hitting HubPages and linking in a consistent fashion in 2011 and letting the results speak for themselves. In doing so, I would expect by the end of the year to be getting monthly checks from Google AdSense.

There has been a lot of talk and suggestions from others that I get my own site. I would like to address that in the next post so be sure to read that one if you are a regular. Also, be sure to comment and briefly list some of your own goals for 2011. I will be looking out for the posts as well. I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year and a productive 2011.

A Look Back at 2010

2010-12-27T06:40:00.000-08:00

I feel that it is important to make short term and long term goals. But I also think it is important to look back and see what happened over the course of time and whether or not those goals were met, why they were not, and how they might have been changed and altered.

So before posting goals for 2011, I would like to look back at my post of goals for 2010 and compare those goals to my actual experience over the past year. If you want to look at the original post from December 2009, you can access my goals for 2010 but I will reproduce them below and then provide commentary in italics:

250 total articles on Life123. I plan on writing about 20 per month on average and maintaining a steady pace throughout the year. Life123 suspended their author compensation program within a week or two of establishing this goal. As a result, I was only able to publish a limited number of articles on the site. To Life123's credit, they paid the maximal possible income to each author who had published so I received a one-time payment of $400 for 20 articles.
150 Xombytes (articles) on Xomba. That would require about 10 per month. I also want to post links on Xomba almost every day of the year. I plan on posting links to all of my articles that I have written so far plus adding all of the new ones. I currently have a spreadsheet that tracks what links I have added to my writings on Xomba, Shetoldme, and Snipsly. I need to do a better job of linking when I don't feel like writing. I have done a lousy job of linking this year. I also did not publish many more articles on Xomba. I don't feel that Xomba has turned out to be a great source of residual income for articles and so I decided to focus my limited amount of time elsewhere. I have placed backlinks, but not nearly the number that I should have or could have.
150 articles on HubPages. I have 115 so that means I will just sprinkle some here and there during the year. I would like to see my HubPages results improve. Finally I was able to meet a goal. It turns out that the majority of my effort has been spent on HubPages this past year. As a result, I have 172 total Hubs so at least I can point to some positive results for 2010.
50 articles on eHow. I have 38 right now. I would like to add some to see if that helps the earnings there. Despite not writing anything for a few months, eHow continues to earn some money. The site has great potential, and I hope that maybe the break will have allowed me to get back into it. I still have 38 articles since the compensation program changed at this site as well. My income at eHow seems fairly consistent but that is it. It really isn't growing and I really don't expect it to grow much either.
I plan on continuing to write every 2 or 3 days for this blog. That would mean 10-20 posts per month. I will be linking to these posts as well and trying to bring traffic to this blog. Overall, I have published just over 80 posts this year which is less than 10 posts per month. I am not too upset since I would only want to publish if I have something to say. I do think traffic has increased although I would like to have seen it increase a bit more.
I hope to get up the nerve to create a niche website. I have a few ideas but would like to make a little more writing content first. But now that I am putting it out there, I will be forced to attempt to deliver. I didn't create a site in 2010. I know I should, but I didn't and that is all I can say.

I will post my goals for 2011 in the next post. In the meantime, I am curious to know if anyone else has taken the time to look back to see how 2010 went for online income. This is always an interesting time of year for reflection as well as planning.

PS--I have published a Hub on "Swimming with Dolphins" in Cozumel from our recent cruise and vacation in case you missed it elsewhere.

Back from Vacation and A Passive Income Report

2010-12-25T09:11:00.000-08:00

I am back from vacation and plan on writing several Hubs about the experience. I will post the links on this blog when I get that done for those who might be interested. We had a great time especially in Cozumel where we swam with the dolphins as you can see from the accompanying picture. The sun was great that day!

Anyway, I thought I would report on the passive income that I received while away with no internet access. I will include the time from starting travel on Sunday, December 19th and count through this morning as I write this report. This is the time that I didn't do anything on the internet in relation to online income making all revenue totally passive.

This only counts AdSense income as I did not note how much I had earned on eHow prior to leaving. I do know that while away I had an Amazon order for a book but it hasn't shipped yet so I don't know how much that will earn. I expect it will be about 75 cents to a dollar.

I did receive decent levels of traffic while away, but traffic did decline between Tuesday and Christmas day. I am not surprised since I suspect many people had last minute preparations for the holidays. I was somewhat disappointed that I did have a few days with minimal revenue, but I did have 2 good days. The total for those 6 full days and 1 partial day was $10.93.

Overall, not that bad considering it is on par with what I might expect to earn for a 7 day period based on my recent monthly earnings. Needless to say, I plan on being able to increase this total over the next year and will write a post on this in the near future outlining my goals and plans. In the meantime, I have several days off work to be able to relax and write a little bit as well. I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays and is getting ready for a wonderful 2011.

A True Test of Passive Income

2010-12-18T05:45:00.000-08:00

What do I call a true test of passive income? Those times when I travel and know that I won't be having internet access for several days in a row. Well, starting in about 48 hours, I won't have internet access for 5 days. I am leaving the snowy, gloomy Indianapolis weather behind and boarding a Royal Caribbean ship in Tampa, Florida with my wife and 6 kids.

We decided that rather than purchase Christmas presents for each other this year, we would take a cruise instead. I have been looking forward to the time to get away from work, email, and any other responsibilities for awhile now. Of course, while I am traveling, I will still be able to make some passive income. I can't wait for the day that I make enough while gone to pay for the trip.

I can say, however, that the amount of income that I have made since starting in May of 2009 is paying for 2 and a half of us. LOL! The time will mostly be spent on the ship since we are going to leave Tampa, sail to Cozumel, Mexico and then go back to Tampa. But that is OK. I look forward to the sun and laying by the pool.

Anyway, I will be curious to see what kind of income I can make over the next week or so. I am hoping that it continues to average about $2 per day so that I can report back when I return that I made over $10 while cruising on Caribbean. We begin driving to Tampa in less than 20 hours so if you don't see a lot of response to comments just know that I am still busy packing. I hope to come back refreshed and ready to tackle 2011.

Earning Two Dollars Per Day

2010-12-12T13:52:00.000-08:00

Even with the somewhat seemingly slow start to the month of December, I have now reached the point when I have earned on average exactly $2 per day. Two dollars per day has been my next big target since it is a logical round number on the journey to $3.33 per day or $100 per month. I first have to consistently earn $2 per day before I can get to $100 per month and the monthly Google AdSense check.

This is the first time I have averaged that much. I may not end the month with this average, but if I do, then December 2010 will be the best month ever for AdSense. The best that I have done for a full month has been in October 2010 when I averaged $1.91 per day. Even if I don't quite make it this month, I am aware of the fact that I have seen a slow and steady increase in earnings. I have to look back over several months and see where I was during May and June of this year and can see the progress.

The best part is that progress has occurred despite being incredibly busy and not able to do as much as I would like. I just have to keep reminding myself to do what I can and that eventually the results will appear. I may be on a longer time table than those who are able to devote more time to developing internet income, but it will come in due time.

Even at this seemingly glacial pace, I am still about 6 months ahead of a pace that would allow me to make my goal of $3000 monthly by the time my youngest hits college. Just check out the table in my Hub entitled "Compound Your Passive Income Online". I don't include it in the Hub, but if you carry out the table for 3 more years, you will be making $3000 monthly.

Right now, I am making over $53.87 per month and have been for the past 3 months but still need to break above $60. Anyway, I plan on hitting over $100 per month next year sometime. I will explain how I plan on doing that in my post on goals for 2011 in a few weeks. I am excited about the $2 daily average and hope that revenue continues to grow. I plan on putting in as much effort as possible given my limited amount of free time and only time will tell.

A Traffic Surprise

2010-12-09T09:49:00.000-08:00

I am not sure how I feel about surprises. Usually if someone says they have a surprise for you, it is good. Otherwise they say they have bad news or ask you to sit down first. In keeping with that tradition, my traffic surprise is a good one. At least as far as my online writing goes, the only surprises that can occur when it comes to traffic are good ones!

At HubPages, there are little red arrows next to your articles in the stats section that mean your traffic is going up. Two little arrows mean that it is going way up. Well, I have two articles there today which had two little arrows by them. I was totally shocked and wanted to figure out where all the traffic was coming from. I went to the articles and clicked on the stats section that reveals details about that particular article. (I think it is wonderful to have this information available at the click of a mouse courtesy of HubPages.)

The first one that I looked at had essentially doubled its views over the past 24 hours. It turns out that someone had posted a link at Reddit.com so a lot of the additional traffic had come from that site. The article is about Lasik surgery and getting a free TV. Obviously, someone found that somewhat interesting. Here is the link to the actual article:

Have Lasik Eye Surgery and Get a Free TV!

The other one has been published for quite some time (since July 2009) and was something I wrote as part of the weekly HubNugget topics. I hadn't noticed but 20% of the views have come in the last 30 days with a significant portion in the last 24 hours. Mind you significant to me means double digits. Nonetheless, I went to the stats page and noticed that the traffic was coming from Google. There is also a tab that allows you to see the search terms that are leading to the article. I did this and found that people were searching the phrase "golf as a hobby". I did this myself and found that I was in the first position. How exciting!

Needless to say, I am pretty pumped and hoping that the mini-spike in traffic will persist. I am hoping to get another article written today. I already made a few links and just plan to keep working since you never really know what can happen when you have content out on the internet. Here's to many pleasant surprises to all who read this blog!

December Off to Mediocre Start

2010-12-08T04:34:00.000-08:00

So far, December has just seemed kind of "blah", like I am stuck in the snow. Not only is that the way that I have felt, but that is the way the results seem to have gone as well. I had wanted to get to 200 Hubs by the end of the year, but that is not going to happen. I am currently at 166 and just don't have enough ideas or motivation to get the job done. I will keep striving for the 200 total and will make some goals for 2011 that I will share toward the end of this month.

I had also hoped to make payout at Listmyfive.com but that doesn't look like it will happen either. I needed to get several more lists published if I wanted to have a chance at making it to the $10 mark. I didn't get those done either. Obviously, I have done less writing than I would have liked. I currently have 13 lists and am lucky to earn a few pennies each day. Right now it seems that my effort is better spent at HubPages since the majority of my AdSense income comes from that source. I want to build to the level of monthly payments from Google before I go out and try to diversify.

Speaking of Google AdSense, the results there are mediocre as well. I am getting respectable amounts of traffic comparable to last month. Traffic overall is down from October but that was a record month. Earnings seem somewhat slow to start. It only takes one or two good days, however, to make for a decent month. I am simply hoping to get to payout so that I can start counting on a check every other month. I did get to make a Google AdSense check deposit yesterday which was cool. That was my fourth one for this year! I did make it more than halfway during the month of November so it should be close provided things don't continue to decline.

With my busy life and the holidays coming, I think that I will abandon all goals this month and just do what I can when I have the time. I will make some goals for 2011 and for the month of January and post those so that I can try to establish a little intensity after the first of the year. Last January, I got ill and it took several weeks to get back to 100% so hopefully that won't happen again.

I hope everyone else's December is off to a better start. I know that several have Amazon sites and have been focusing on those for the holidays. That is a strategy that I haven't utilized but often consider. I don't feel that I have the knack for selling so it would be a lot of learning and a big stretch to accomplish something like that. Maybe someday. I still need to work on getting traffic to my current stuff first.

Made First Amazon Affiliate Payment

2010-11-29T02:43:00.000-08:00

As part of HubPages, it is possible to make money with Amazon as part of the Amazon affiliate program. Simply add an Amazon capsule to your Hubs. Now I am not a salesman so I have very few product Hubs. Most of my Hubs are informational. I will place many books next to my Hubs related to the topic I am discussing. I certainly don't push any products.

Despite this, I have managed to get the occasional sale through Amazon. It has taken 18 months to get to the point of receiving payout even with the low $10 minimum. Nevertheless, a few days ago I received a direct deposit into my checking account for $11.47. Not a large amount but totally passive in nature. I didn't really do much to earn this money. I simply took the time to place the capsule next to most of my Hubs.

This month has been my best month for Amazon yet. I have shipped out 6 products and am just over half way to the next payout. I would be thrilled if it took less than 18 months to get the next payment and eventually was able to generate enough traffic and interest to make over $10 monthly through the Amazon affiliate program.

Like anything online (especially for me), it is a gradual process that starts out slow and picks up. I will just have to see what happens. Again, I am not a salesman. I can't write for the purpose of selling. I can only advocate those products I use myself and enjoy. Anyway, just thought I would share that I finally got paid through Amazon.

Doing More Linking At Xomba

2010-11-20T03:43:00.000-08:00

I have been doing more linking at Xomba over the past week. I haven't felt much like writing so I haven't done much. I have some ideas but am fairly busy and just haven't taken the time to sit down and put them on the internet. Sometimes getting the motivation to write is difficult for me even if I have significant goals.

So instead, I have been doing more backlinking at Xomba. I decided that if I couldn't write, at least I could be doing something. As a result, my traffic at Xomba this month is already double what it was last month. Unfortunately, this confirms for me that which I had already figured out.

Xomba has not turned out to be the best place for residual income. I really tried to use the site for that purpose. I have 47 articles published on the site which represents the second highest number of articles following HubPages (of course I am excluding this blog). And yet last month, I didn't even earn a dime from Xomba despite a decent number of views.

I have earned some money this month but that is only because I have been so active over the past week. I have placed 7 bookmarks on the site. It is only when I have actually done something that I saw the traffic spike along with a little bit of revenue. I had hoped that the site would turn out to be a decent site for residual income. I do get a few views each day. In 2010, there was never a day when I haven't had any ad impressions. And I have made $42.85 so far this year. But I would liked to have seen in the neighborhood of $10-20 per month which hasn't happened.

So, I will continue to simply post my links on the site and make what money I can. The site may help a little with traffic at my other sites, and I may get a little payment for doing it. But I won't be writing any more articles since I think that writing elsewhere will turn out to be a more productive and lucrative use of my time.

Photo credit: Toni Lozano

Hot or Cold

2010-11-11T06:24:00.000-08:00

The weather in central Indiana has been very interesting so far this November. Last week during dinner, we saw a few snowflakes drifting down out of the sky. There was no accumulation, but it was interesting to see. This week, the temperature has been in the upper 60's and mid 70's. In fact, I have a 9 am tee time tomorrow with a forecast of sunny and 74 degrees.

The weather shifting from cold to hot on a dime is the perfect allegory for my online earnings this month as well. It is either ice cold or fiery hot. So far in the eleven days of the month, over half my earnings has come from 2 days. Last month seemed incredibly consistent with what seemed to be a steady stream of traffic and earnings. This month, traffic has remained steady but great swings in the earnings department. Needless to say, I would rather have consistency like in October. It is a lot more encouraging to see consistent results from my efforts whether than wondering if I am wasting my time or not.

I guess that is just the way that it will be. I will continue to keep writing and accept what happens. I am pleased to say that I have published 5 Hubs so far this month as opposed to 3 in October. I think this momentum will help maintain traffic levels and provide some encouragement to keep up the efforts through the end of the year. As mentioned in previous posts, my goal is to get to 200 Hubs total by the end of the year. It will tough to get done and I might need to pick up the pace a bit, but it is still entirely possible at this time. I have 36 left to go.

Well, I hope your month hasn't been as hot and cold as mine (unless of course we're talking about the weather and you plan on playing golf). Here is to hoping that the rest of November will be HOT!

Photo credit: Guaoguao

You Know Revenue is Slow When....

2010-11-05T12:41:00.000-07:00

eHow income is ahead of HubPages income during the first 5 days of November. After a record month in October, I would have expected a slow down in earnings considering there are lots of ups and downs in revenue from month to month. But I didn't expect to hit a brick wall.

It isn't even that traffic has disappeared either. Sure it is down somewhat compared to the mid-October spike, but daily traffic is higher than it was in September. The big problem is just what you might suspect. I don't have any of my own sites and don't offer any products or major affiliate links. I do have some Amazon capsules on many of my Hubs, but don't get many sells since my Hubs are usually educational or informative.

Oh well, I am sure that things will pick up. I have to remember to look at the bigger picture and keep writing and publishing. It is just that every so often I need to give myself a little pep talk. It has seemed for the most part that the beginning of the month can be especially slow with things picking up later on. And I am still at the point where it only takes a few solid days to make the month decent. I have yet to get enough traffic to see consistent daily revenue which is one of the things that I would like to achieve.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my mini-rant. I am just going to keep going. I have 39 more Hubs to complete by the end of the year and 9 lists at Listmyfive.com to get finished by the end of the month. I should be able to get this done and will see what the effort brings. I really want to just be sure that I surpass November 2009 earnings. I am not quite on pace to do that yet, but it is still early.

Set Several Records in October 2010

2010-11-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

October has turned out to be a very good month for me in terms of AdSense and traffic. I have set several personal bests for the month that I would like to share with you without getting too specific. I wouldn't want to violate any terms of service.

First of all, I enjoyed record levels of traffic (and thus ad impressions) at this blog and at HubPages. I am really excited by this since it is only through increasing levels of traffic that I can really expect earnings to consistently increase. I don't know that I can repeat this level of traffic since I had one really good article at HubPages which contributed quite a bit. But, it continues to get residual views and my lowest traffic levels of the month were higher than the lowest levels in any of my previous months. That demonstrates that at least a positive trend exists and that I have possibly reached a new plateau.

Along with the record traffic came a record number of ad clicks. Again, I don't expect to earn too much more in the next two months, but I am hoping that as things level out, it will be at a higher level. I do plan on continuing to write more. I would like to get to a total of 200 Hubs by the end of the year. To do this would require that I publish about 20 Hubs per month in November and December. It is certainly possible but will take some work since I only published 3 in October. If I am able to do it, then the levels of traffic may very well stay close to my current record.

The last thing that I would like to mention is that even though I still have days without any ad clicks, they are getting to be fewer each month. I long for the day when I can earn some ad revenue each and every day. Personally, I think that by July of 2011 I will be able to say that I have enough traffic that I am earning something each and every day. I would also hope to be able to see a monthly check by that time as well. I have been getting closer each month and will get another check for 2010 based upon my results in September and October.

Well, I just wanted to share that things have been going well. October of 2009 was the best month of the fall last year and turned out to be good to me in 2010 as well with a big boost in traffic and earnings not to mention my first double-digit AdSense day! I plan on working hard the next few months and seeing what happens. I can't wait til October 2011 to see what it has in store.

Update on List My Five

2010-10-28T18:34:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile since I wrote an update on listmyfive.com. For those who don't know, I started writing some at the site having joined the writers compensation program. If you want, you can read more about why I signed up for ListMyFive. I have also written a few other updates in this blog as well which you can find in the archive along the right side of this page.

The site seems to be picking up more and more traffic. As I write this, the site's Alexa ranking for 3 months is 121,543 and for 1 month is 61,007. Compare these to the rankings on October 5th of 245,519 and 86,673 respectively. So, the trend is definitely positive. There are a lot of former writers from eHow who seem to be working to market the site and add content. I think there is a lot of potential with the site.

Personally, I have written 10 lists so far. I published 7 in September and only 3 in October. But, I was out of the country for 10 days and was sick for almost a full week following that trip. I am only now just starting to feel back to 100% of normal. I had hoped to have more lists published by now but it is what it is.

I do seem to be getting a reasonable number of views, but it is hard to assess what it actually means since the number of views increases rapidly when tweeting. I am excited since my most recent list was indexed in Google within 48 hours without any help from me. That means that the site is getting more internet respect which is also promising longer-term.

I am somewhat disappointed with my earnings this month. I had hoped to make payout by the end of the year. I still think that is possible but I would have been more encouraged had I earned more than $1.21 so far in October. That puts me at a total of $3.50 meaning I will have to earn $6.50 during the next two months.

It is possible but I will have to publish quite a bit more I believe especially in the month of November. I don't think I will make it unless I get to 20 or 25 lists by the end of next month. On a positive note, I do have about 10 different ideas already written down, and it doesn't take all that long to write and publish once I get going. Now that I feel better, I suspect I will be able to get some more done. Well, that is all I had to report. Things seem to be going according to plan and about the way I would expect. Now I just need to get it in gear and publish a little more so that I can realize the potential of the site.

Indecent Proposal?

2010-10-24T19:06:00.000-07:00

I recently received an inbox message from an individual who was willing to help market my eHow articles. The essence of the proposal was that I would send him links to my 5 highest earning articles on eHow, and he would market them through his social networks. If my monthly earnings increased over 2.5 times what they typically run, then I would keep 60% of the total earnings and he would get 40%. If my earnings failed to increase by that much, then I would keep everything.

On the surface it doesn't sound like all that bad an idea, but I have a few reservations. As the father of 6 kids, I am always looking to the longer term risks and worst case scenarios for any request that I get. So, here are my thoughts. First, why would I want anyone to know which articles are my best earners. Granted I don't earn a whole lot on eHow, but sending out the URLs to my best work simply asks for competition. Even if that isn't the intent, the other scenario that I can envision is a lot more sinister.

There would obviously be an incentive to increase my earnings so that this individual can benefit directly. How can I possibly verify that the means of increasing my earnings by 2.5 times normal occurs through legitimate means? Can you say "click fraud" anyone? If anyone is at risk, then I am the one would could lose the eHow account. Even my AdSense account could be at risk if this "scheme" were to be traced back to me. Why on earth would I want to even take that chance? It makes no sense at all.

I am not saying that either of these scenarios is what this individual has in mind. He could be perfectly honest and genuinely looking for a win-win business proposition. But I have no idea who this person is. This was an unsolicited message. Besides, if something sounds too good to be true....I think you know the rest. So, does anyone else have any thoughts on this proposal? Indecent or not? What would you do? Feel free to comment. I am interested in knowing if anyone else has been approached with something similar as well.

PS--Don't know if you ever saw the movie with this title, but it was interesting. Photo credit: Koshy Koshy

First HubPages Sign-Up

2010-10-21T08:07:00.000-07:00

You may have read that I had a great week of passive income while I was gone. I had written an article about List My Five which has generated lots of traffic and has led to increased followers both at HubPages and at this blog. The increase in traffic has also been responsible for an increase in AdSense earnings as well as my first double-digit earning day.

What I didn't know at the time that I wrote my first post is that during the same week I had my first two HubPages referral sign-ups. That is such wonderful news. One hasn't done anything on the site, but the other individual has written 11 Hubs already. I am hoping that he will end up like Ryan Kett and get lots of traffic which can only enhance my passive online income.

HubPages will place your AdSense code on 60% of the page impressions that people read and their code on 40% of the impressions. If anyone signs up under your referral code, then 10% of the time your ad code will appear next to their work. This comes out of HubPages cut so the split becomes new Hubber 60%, HubPages 30% and referrer 10%. Ideally, you will refer lots of people to write for HubPages, they will work hard and that 10% will end up making you a lot of extra money.

Anyway, I am hoping that is how it works out for me. It hasn't worked out all that well yet since I have had over 2000 clicks on my referral code and only 2 sign-ups. I had begun to think it wasn't working, but obviously it is. If you look over my blog you can see what kind of money I am able to make at HubPages writing part-time. If you really want to be aggressive in writing like Ryan Kett, you can make serious money.

So, if you are interested in writing for HubPages, be sure to sign up for HubPages using my referral link.

In the meantime, be sure to visit the profile of my most prolific referee, Romian1, and read several of his Hubs and make a comment or two.

A Great Week of Passive Income

2010-10-17T13:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I just got back from Honduras and had limited access to the internet. As a result, I did absolutely nothing for developing my online income. You may have noticed that it has been a while since I last wrote a post. I left last Thursday early in the morning and got back late last night which was actually 9 days total. I am still tired and am gradually trying to get back into the swing of things. I figure it will take about a week to catch up with everything.

There were several great things that happened while I was away in terms of the work that I am doing online. My articles and blogs continued to earn money. While I was gone, I earned a total of $29.55 with AdSense. One of those days was even in the double digits! My first one ever!

Traffic is also at record levels. I am amazed by the amount of traffic that I am seeing. It seemed to run consistently above my typical average. Not only is traffic high, but I added followers on both HubPages and this blog. I am now over 400 followers on HubPages and over 50 on this blog. These are numbers that I didn't expect to hit until the end of the year.

I think the key to my improved traffic and earnings is the level of effort that I put into passive income development during the 6 weeks prior to my leaving. By publishing at a rate that was higher than I had been publishing this year, I was able to enhance my visibility during the time that I was away. This visibility led to increased traffic and ultimately, increased earnings including my first ever double-digit AdSense day.

I am encouraged that as I get back into the swing of things and begin publishing again, I can maintain traffic levels at a higher plateau than I had enjoyed previously and will begin earning more on a consistent basis. I suspect that I could even achieve another double-digit earning day by the end of the year. It won't be long and I will be making enough with Google AdSense to receive monthly checks.

So if you feel discouraged about your online income, remember that hard work will eventually pay off. You may not know when it will happen but give it time. Ultimately good content will rise to the top.

Photo credit: *Micky*

Update on List My Five, LM5 Taking on eHow

2010-10-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

I thought I would provide an update on my efforts and results at List My Five before I have about ten days with limited internet access. For those who don't know, List My Five is a new writing site that is reminiscent of the early days of eHow. I wasn't around for those early days, but I can definitely see the similarities.

Since I have articles at eHow and am writing for List My Five as well, I thought it would be fun to compare the sites as well as providing an update on my LM5 activities. My first list at LM5 was published on 9/17/2010 and by the end of September had published a total of 7 lists. I have published another in October and hope to get several more done by the end of the month. With those 7 lists, I earned a total of $2.29 by the end of September.

I started writing at eHow on July 23, 2009 and by the end of the month had published 8 articles. I had not earned anything by the end of the month but did manage to earn a total of $13.76 by the end of August so I made the payout. I did publish an additional 18 articles bringing the total to 26 for that first full month. Currently I have a total of 38 articles at eHow and that is all I will ever have. I will typically make payout earning between $10 and $20 each month in totally passive income.

So far this month, I have earned $0.78 with eHow and $0.11 with LM5. It will be fun to watch what happens with earnings as I get more and more lists published. It would be cool to make payout by the end of this month, but I certainly don't expect to get to that level until the end of the year. I am happy to say that each list except the most recently published has earned something. I suspect that is because it hasn't been indexed yet. Here are the two lists that I know haven't been indexed yet:

Top Five Online Stock Brokers I Have Used

Top Five Activities When Suffering from Writers Block

I am not sure how long it takes for lists to be indexed since apparently it helps to post one link to those lists. I think that it won't be long (by the end of the year) and LM5 will be recognized as a decent, legitimate content site. It is growing by leaps and bounds. When I checked today, its Alexa rank for 3 months was 245,519 and 1 month was 86,673. Also each time I look at the site, new people are signing up daily. I wouldn't be surprised to see it have a 1 month Alexa rank under 50,000 by the end of the year.

Overall, I have had 820 views of my lists. I am adding about 15-20 views per day. I even had one of my lists make the front page. That is exciting. I am really pleased with the progress at LM5 and feel that it will provide decent residual income to add to my Paypal account each month. I just want to make sure that I get more published than I have at eHow. I would like to get it done by the end of the year. Getting 50 lists published seems like a decent goal to me.

Well, I will continue to make periodic updates. Has any of you joined List My Five and published any lists?

Photo credit: Nanami Kamimura

Online Earnings Report for Third Quarter 2010

2010-10-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

I enjoy reading about the earnings of others since it can help to motivate and encourage. I think knowing about the struggles that others face can also be encouraging knowing that we all go through similar experiences. I also think that it is good to see the progress that is made despite the struggles. I think that is why the earnings reports are my favorite posts. It allows me to look back and when I feel like I am not making any progress, realize that I actually have.

I choose to do quarterly reports since there can be a little more variation in the monthly reports. It allows me to look at larger trends in my earnings. Of course, I am constantly keeping the data so that I know when one month is bad and work to improve the next month. But comparing this quarter to the last and to the quarter one year ago allows me to see where I have been and to see the results of my hard work. Even though I am not working on online income as a full time venture, it is a lot of hard work when I do have the time to spend on it. So, here are my earnings for the third quarter of 2010:

July 2010 - AdSense earnings: $34.86 + You Tube: $4.51 + eHow: $19.16 = $58.53

August 2010 - AdSense earnings: $44.34 + You Tube: $1.41 + eHow: $13.01 = $58.76

September 2010 - AdSense earnings: $56.37 + You Tube: $2.76 + eHow: $11.17 = $70.30

When I look at the earnings above, I clearly see a markedly positive AdSense trend. I believe that this is a result of increased publishing of Hubs at HubPages. I have seen an increase in both traffic and earnings as I have been more active recently so I think it would be wise to continue to put forth a decent amount of effort without burning out. I also have noticed a decline in the earnings for eHow. I am not sure what I can do about this since the format changed and I haven't added any additional material. My plan is to just allow it to fluctuate and remain totally passive income.

Compared to the second quarter, my earnings are also up. In the second quarter I earned $123.56 whereas in this quarter the total is $187.59. That is a very substantial increase in my opinion. Furthermore, compared to the third quarter of 2009 when I earned $101.01, it is up over 80%. Obviously I am making progress. My goal is to continue to earn more each and every quarter. If I can simply increase my earnings by 5% on average each and every month, I will be making a substantial amount within a few years.

If you look at my Hub on compounding passive income, you will see that I am almost a year ahead of schedule. I want to keep up that intensity and be making over $100 monthly by next summer so that I can be getting monthly checks from Google. With September's results, I am more than halfway to that goal. The other cool thing about the third quarter is that for each of the 3 months, I averaged more than $1.50 per day with AdSense. Of course there were days when I only earned a few pennies, but others when I earned significantly more. Overall, it seems like I am having more consistently better days, and I like that.

I am still waiting for that double digit AdSense day, but I feel that it will be coming up before the end of the year, especially if I can continue to publish at a decent pace. I have had some really solid days over the past month so I think I am on the verge of a breakout. It will just require a little more traffic. I am looking forward to the day when I have so much traffic that I am routinely seeing double digit days. That will be phenomenal, and I will be sure to let you all know when it happens.

I know that several have had good earnings in September. Here is to a great October and rest of the fourth quarter of 2010. I offer everyone the best of luck and my best wishes.

Best AdSense Month Ever!

2010-09-29T20:10:00.000-07:00

Not that I make a ton of money mind you, but September has turned out to be the best AdSense month I have ever had. I am kind of surprised given the somewhat slow start that I saw. Traffic is down a little bit as are clicks, but my amount per click is what really did it. It is also as high as it has ever been. Of course, it is just by a small amount but the combination of decent traffic, CTR, and amount of revenue per click was enough to make it happen.

This pretty much guarantees that I will actually get another check by the end of the year. I should be seeing one in the mailbox any day now. Plus with September's results, I would expect that October and November will put me over $100 again so that I will get one in the mail during the month of December. Eventually, I will get one every other month and then monthly. It would be great if I could be getting monthly checks from Google by the end of next year.

I am looking forward to putting together my quarterly report in the next post. I figure that will come this weekend sometime after I have had a chance to see the final tally from eHow. That site always takes an extra day or two to update earnings information.

I am a little disappointed in the fact that I haven't put together as many Amazon Hubs on my secondary HubPages account as I would have liked. I am just not the salesman type so it is like pulling teeth to get me to write anything with the idea that I might sell something. Oh well, I will plug away and eventually build up a portfolio of Hubs for that account as well, but it is going to take awhile. In the meantime, I still have plenty that I can be doing.

I still have one more day left in September and it is possible that I could even make it over the $50 mark for AdSense alone. That would be great, but I especially want to continue to see some consistency. I have been able to publish more this month than I have since April of this year when I published 12 Hubs. This month I was able to get 9 done. I would like to keep working to get at least 20-30 more done by the end of the year which would put me within striking distance of 200 for the main account.

Well, that is all I have for this post. Like I said, I can't wait for the quarterly update when I will report earnings for the last 3 months and compare them to the 3rd quarter in 2009. That is where it is really possible to make growth comparisons and assess progress.

List My Five Update

2010-09-25T16:26:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been one week since I joined List My Five so I thought I would record what has happened during that time. Of course, I had hoped to have more done during that time but isn't that always how it goes. It seems that I always set out my goals and try to get too much done in the amount of time I have. Life just always seems to be too busy overall.

Despite a busy week, I did manage to get 4 lists published. I linked my first two in my last post and will link my next two in this post. I am not sure if there is a connection, but the first two were indexed in Google by the next day. My most recent two have yet to be indexed so I wonder if the reason my first two were indexed so quickly is the fact that I placed links here. I guess I will learn something fairly soon. Here are lists number 3 and 4:

The Top Five Ways to Make Extra Money with Your Body

The Top Five Dividend Yielding Stocks of the Dow

Needless to say, if those two lists get indexed now, I will have to be linking all of my lists for a little while from this blog. I would hope that after another month or two, the site will command some authority of its own. Looking at the Alexa Rank from today, the 3 month rank is 432,672 and the one month rank is 162,638. That tells me there is some fairly rapid growth. I would suspect that in the next week or so, the one month rank should be in the top 100,000.

So far, I have had 325 visits to my lists. I have no idea if there is any search traffic at all in that total. I have also earned a total of 12 cents. I am somewhat encouraged by this since it took me several weeks to earn anything at HubPages. My goal will eventually be to make the $10 minimum payout each and every month like I am at eHow.

I think it would be awesome if I could make the first payout by the end of the year. There are 14 weeks until the end of 2010. That means to make a $10 payout would require me to average 71 cents each week. At 3 cents per list for this week, I could probably get it done with 25 more lists made over the next week. HA! Like that is going to happen as busy as I usually am. But at least it is theoretically possible by posting only 3 or 4 lists each day.

Well, I will just have to see what happens and will post an update in another few days. In the meantime, I guess I should start making a few more lists and get some work done.

Signed Up for List My 5

2010-09-17T19:58:00.000-07:00

I want to thank Maria for introducing me to List My 5. It is a relatively new online writing site with a writer's compensation program that is reminiscent of eHow. Feel free to read Maria's post about List My 5. I certainly don't want to rewrite what Maria has to say.

What I would like to say, however, is that I have signed up for the site, joined the writer's compensation program and published my first list in about 30 minutes time. Now it is just a matter of seeing what income might possibly result. In the spirit of the site, allow me to list my 5 top reasons for joining and writing on listmy5.com:

Opportunity for Residual Income--The site seems to have a similar business model as eHow paying writers residual income. I suspect it is somehow tied into views and ad clicks as well as possibly activity on the site. It is not entirely clear how the money is made, but I am sure AdSense revenue plays a big role.
Payments are via Paypal--I really felt like I wanted to have some more money coming into my Paypal account. I am using my Google AdSense checks as extra payments on a credit card. My plan is to use Paypal money for increasing my web presence and possibly even using for hosting and other related fees when I get to the point of creating my own website. Extra money in my Paypal account will allow me to do more sooner.
Low Payout Threshold--Like eHow, listmy5 will make monthly payments when you reach $10. The amount also rolls over to the next month if you don't make it. I like the prospect of being paid monthly assuming I can make the minimum each month. I suspect it will take a little while but maybe by the end of the year.
Opportunity to Diversify--I like the idea of being able to diversify my income stream away from HubPages since it represents quite a bit of my AdSense income currently. List My 5 seems like a site that I can get excited about and publish a fair number of articles rather quickly.
Quick and Easy Writing Format--The writing format seems to be something that suits my personality. I was able to write my first list with ease in about 20 minutes, not to mention the fact that it was published instantly. While some lists will require research, others might simply be personal favorite lists or preferences. I was able to come up with about 20 different ideas for lists on my drive to pick up the kids from gymnastics practice. Not all of them were good, but the brainstorming was rapid.
(BONUS) Ownership Rights--OK so I am a geek and will read the Terms of Service from time to time. I liked the fact that I retain all ownership rights to my content. Ultimately, if the site disappears then I can republish on another site. Just be sure that you keep a copy of your content on your personal computer. I have been rather lax about this lately at HubPages and should go back to copy and paste.

OK, so I guess you get the flavor of the site. And don't use my list above as a list on the site since I have already done that.

My goal is to publish several Lists over the next several days and wait a few days before posting some backlinks on the various sites I use such as Xomba, SheToldMe, and Redgage. Then I will see how long it takes to develop some earnings and determine how much time and effort I would like to spend on the site. In the meantime, you can see the two lists that I have published so far:

Reasons to Invest in Silver
Reasons to Join List My Five

Well, that is all I had for now. I will be sure to keep everyone up to date with my progress on the site. I am not sure if the view counter is working properly since it says I have over 50 views between the two articles within minutes of publication. Maybe it is counting Google ad spiders. I suppose that could be a good thing if Google is visiting the site frequently. Oh well, like I said, I will let everyone know how it goes.

Feel free to offer up any comments or assessments. Photo credit: woodley wonderworks

Gathering Publishing Momentum

2010-09-12T18:47:00.000-07:00

I think that one of the keys to success when it comes to making money on the internet is to constantly publish new material. I also think that I am gaining some publishing momentum and need to keep working hard as long as I am able to keep coming up with new material to publish. It is those times when I can't think of anything to write that I should use for creating backlinks.

To give you an idea of the momentum, I have published 4 Hubs in the last 5 days. This compares to 4 Hubs for the entire month of August, none at all in July and only 1 in June. So as you can see, my production has increased dramatically. I am not seeing it in the way of earnings yet but I do think that all of this effort will pay off by the end of the year. My biggest hope is that I can continue to work at this pace through the end of the year. Then I will start thinking about taking some time off.

As mentioned in some earlier blog posts, I also want to devote some major effort to some Amazon product Hubs. I have also written one of those in the last 5 days as well and plan to at least begin another one tonight. Of course it will take some time for me to see the impact on Amazon affiliate income, but I would like to see a nice increase in activity by the end of the year also. I may be too late to have a major income boost for this Christmas season since I don't think I am all that great at generating traffic yet. But a slow consistent effort should pay off over the next year and put me in a decent position for next year.

My goal is to capitalize on all of this effort in order to see an approximately 30% increase in traffic by the end of the year. Last month was my best overall month for traffic and even though this month is down from August, it is still better than many of my other months in the past. I am trying to get past the ups and downs and focus on the longer term trends which are clearly up at this point. I would love to hear your plans from now through the end of the year so feel free to share and comment.

Photo credit: Bergfalke2

Having Fun Watching Traffic

2010-09-08T03:41:00.000-07:00

I recently put a Live Traffic Feed widget from Feedjit on my blog. In case you hadn't noticed, it is down the right side at the very end of all of the other widgets and links, etc. that populate that area of the blog. I think it is a fun little widget to follow. I am enjoying seeing all the different world locations of all the visitors that are coming to read this blog. I have seen visitors from Russia, Indonesia, Australia, England, and all over the United States.

I can also look to see when the visitors have stopped by. It is obvious to me when I am looking at my blog, and I can see who stopped by while I was sleeping. Some folk on the internet have some crazy hours! I can also keep a mental note of how much traffic is stopping by between my own visits and how far apart visitors are stopping by. I can tell that traffic has slowed down just a touch since there is a little bit longer time between visits. Someday, it will be really exciting to see the whole widget filled with visits in the past few hours only.

Anyway, just thought I would point out this nifty little tool that I placed on my blog and how much fun I am having with it. It is nothing earth shattering but does help me realize how much smaller the internet is making the world. I always enjoy visiting new places and am enjoying seeing all of the world locations. Why don't you comment and let me know where you are from so I can see you on the Live Traffic Feed? LOL!

Looking Back at Earnings and Traffic from June 2009

2010-09-04T17:05:00.000-07:00

Someone over in the forums at HubPages asked how long it was before everyone had earned anything with AdSense. This, of course, got me curious to look back and see how long it was before I had earned anything. My first ad impressions were on May 26, 2009 and it took me 13 days before I saw my first ad click and revenue. Needless to say, there were many, many days when I earned absolutely nothing. In fact, that first full month of June 2009, I earned a whopping $4.16! I also took notice of my levels of traffic. Though I think they are pitiful now, my average traffic is about 4-5 times higher now than then.

It sure helps put things in perspective. Today will likely be one of the worst days of the month as far as traffic goes considering the Labor Day Weekend. Despite that, my traffic will be about the same (if not a little better) than my absolute best day in June 2009. Furthermore, despite the horrendous start to the month as far as revenue is concerned, I have earned more between AdSense and eHow than I earned for the entire month of June 2009.

It certainly makes me wonder where things will be a year from now during the Labor Day Weekend of 2011. I would certainly expect to be earning monthly AdSense checks by then which means I ought to be making over $100 per month with just AdSense. There is no reason why I shouldn't be able to achieve that goal provided I continue to put in at least a modest amount of effort generating additional content and getting more backlinks.

Anyway, I found it interesting that I felt kind of disappointed with the last few weeks considering what an awesome start I had in August. I know that there will be ups and downs in traffic and earnings. I had gotten quite accustomed to the fluctuations but thought that I was getting the hang of it a little bit more so that I would see a little more consistency overall especially when it comes to AdSense. Alas, it is not to be, at least not yet. I am still seeing some fluctuations and figure I will have to wait until 2011 before seeing the monthly AdSense check from Google. But that is OK. It will be all the sweeter when that day comes. And I will be sure to let you know when it happens.

August Is Best AdSense Month for 2010

2010-09-01T02:48:00.000-07:00

Well, August 2010 slowed down a bit at the end but it still turned out to be the best AdSense month of 2010 for me in several different areas. First of all, it was my best month EVER for ad impressions. This obviously means that my traffic was the best ever for the month. I am hoping that this is the beginning of a positive trend that will last for the rest of the year. If I can continue producing content and creating backlinks, I think that I can increase traffic by about 30% by December 31st.

It was also the best month EVER in terms of absolute number of ad clicks. Again this is another encouraging sign that I am hoping will continue as we move into the fall and winter. In 2009, October was a very big month for me. I am not quite sure if there are seasonal variations yet since I have only been doing this for a little more than a year and haven't had time to see a pattern. I do know that there are plenty of ups and downs in traffic and revenue but I am hoping that the trend remains positive.

Finally, August 2010 was the best month of the year (and 2nd best ever) in terms of AdSense earnings. Needless to say, I would especially like this trend to continue. I would eventually like to get to the point where I am able to earn enough to get a monthly check from Google. It is difficult to know exactly when this might occur since I am not quite halfway there.

I was very pleased with the overall consistency that I saw for the month of August. I was able to earn something most days for the first 3 weeks. It slowed down the last week of the month, but I was very encouraged to see a positive response to my online efforts after taking the month of July off. I will still be very busy during the rest of the year but plan to make an extraordinary effort to write and backlink.

As you know, I would like to develop some product Hubs for Amazon to see if some concentrated efforts will lead to increased sales. I would like to end the month with 30 Hubs devoted to products. Since I have 3 already, I would have to make 27 more. That will be quite a bit of work for the month and would represent getting almost 1 done each day. Obviously, I can't let myself get behind. I will be doing this on another HubPages account so that I can keep them separated from my other articles. I think it will be easier to follow traffic in this fashion although I won't keep Amazon stats separated. I will still be able to tell if my Amazon clicks increase.

Well, I know that there are several who had a good month of August. I know that the earnings trend was positive for many people. So, how were your results for August? Traffic up? Earnings up? Get a lot of work done? I would love to hear how it went and look forward to being able to share some encouragement with one another.

Photo credit: Nachoman-au

Hoping for a Strong End of August (Plus Free Golf)

2010-08-27T05:32:00.000-07:00

August 2010 has been one of the most consistent months for AdSense earnings that I have seen in a long time. It is very encouraging, and I hope that it is a sign of good things to come for the rest of the year. Even if things don't quite go as expected, I need to keep things in perspective and realize that I am building on the future. Everything that I do now will benefit me a year and two years from now.

Also keeping things in perspective is the fact that last August my AdSense earnings were $20.85, and I have already doubled that total with a few days yet to go. I am also closing in on my all-time best AdSense month of $45.95. If I start seeing this type of consistency in the last four months of the year, then it might be possible to receive a check from Google every other month.

As mentioned in the previous post, I want to start working a little on Amazon earnings since I am very close to a $10 payout. I want to have 30 product Hubs (up from a current 3) by the end of September so I will have quite a bit of work to do next month and have to find the time to do it. That is the biggest problem for me currently. Finding the time to compose Hubs during soccer season is incredibly difficult. I will go to work in the morning, go to my daughter's soccer game from work, and then go to pick up the others from gymnastics practice. The end result is that I am gone from 6 am until 10 pm three or four days each week.

Oh well, I can only do what I can get done and not let it get me down. I have to maintain my physical condition and mental sanity which is why I have been taking a decade long approach. I am in a marathon and not a sprint and will have to make year to year comparisons rather than focus on month to month as much.

Anyway, I hope that everyone is doing well. The weather here in Indiana has been fantastic for August with mild evenings and low 80's highs. There is plenty of sunshine as well. I have the day off from work to go to a charity golf outing that was unexpected. A colleague had a group fall through and asked me to go instead since the fee had been paid. I can't think of anything better than free golf. Don't worry, I won't feel too bad if I don't get any Hubs written today as long as I am putting well! LOL!

Goals for Rest of 2010

2010-08-22T16:40:00.000-07:00

I took a look at my online income goals for 2010 recently and realized that they had to be modified quite a bit. So, I thought I would take the opportunity to review those goals and make some changes based upon new circumstances and directions that I plan on taking for the last four months of the year.

I will list the old goals first, followed by the modification of that goal in bold text. This will save you having to flip back and forth between posts.

250 total articles on Life123. Life123 had suspended their writers' compensation program early in the year. They did pay out for all work previously done which was nice and professional. However, this goal is no longer applicable.
150 Xombytes (articles) on Xomba. I currently have 45 articles. I am not entirely convinced that Xomba is the greatest source for residual income. Thus I should focus my goals on sites that will actually make me money until something happens with those sites. I do think Xomba is a great site for posting links and will continue to do this. I hope to have every single article at HubPages linked at Xomba by the end of the year. If you want to join Xomba for linking purposes with the probability of making some extra cash, that would be reasonable.
150 articles on HubPages. I already have 145 Hubs. HubPages has become my main money making site. Last month, it was responsible for the majority of my earnings. This month, it is not quite 60%. I think I want to go for 180-200 by the end of 2010. I also want to have a second account and put up 30 sales Hubs by the end of September to get some Amazon sales heading into the Christmas season. I would also like to have over 300 followers from the current 285.
50 articles on eHow. eHow has changed the format to Demand Studios. I still have 38 articles. I looked at some of the titles offered and did not like them. For me, eHow is no longer applicable. I simply hope to finish making additional links and make the $10 payout each month.
As for writing for this blog, I have kept up but at a pace closer to 2 per week instead of 3. I don't plan on making any changes. I still think I have a shot of getting in the top 500,000 Alexa rank and will continue to strive for traffic and followers.
I am putting my own site on the back burner for now. I bought Michelle Adams' ebook on virtual real estate. It is good, but it looks like a lot of work. I would rather write. I think I might look into having one built for me when I get a little more cushion in the paypal account to pay for a site and some hosting.

As far as earnings are concerned, between Life123, Xomba, HubPages, and eHow, I thought that it might be possible to make $195 monthly by the end of 2010. Most of that ($100) was going to come from Life123 which no longer exists for me. If I subtract that out, I still think hitting a $95 month with the other 3 sites is possible but will take some additional effort. I will need to see Xomba pick up some which could happen if I am busy using the site for links. I think I might be close to $60 this month so $95 in a month by the end of the year is not outside the realm of possibility.

So, what are your goals for the rest of the year? Have you even bothered to look at your original plans for 2010 to see your progress? Feel free to shout out and comment.

Photo Credit: Elliot and GoAvs

Another Day, Another Dollar

2010-08-18T21:05:00.000-07:00

"Another day, another dollar." How often have you heard that expression when referring to a menial, dead-end job? People always seem to say it with a feeling of despair and hopelessness.

But, I am here to tell you that I am excited for that dollar! Why should I be excited about a dollar which doesn't go near as far as it did 10 years ago (although if it is a silver dollar, it would retain its purchasing power)? Because that is my AdSense income for today. I am excited about the fact that my daily income so far for the month of August has been fairly consistent. In fact, this is the 11th day out of the 18 so far that I have earned at least $1. That compares to a total of only 8 days for the entire month of July.

I am incredibly pleased with the amount of consistency since I haven't seen this type of steady traffic and revenue for quite some time. After a very non-productive month of July, it is very encouraging to see these results. I am motivated to keep working hard for the rest of the year. Now I should probably sit down and work out some productivity goals for the remainder of the year. I think I will do that and post them in a few days. Well, it is getting late so I am going to get some rest.

How has the month of August been treating you so far? Are you productive? Are your earnings up?

My SEO Theories About Traffic and Backlinks

2010-08-15T20:46:00.000-07:00

If you read my last post about the SEO experiment, you know that I have been thinking about search engine optimization, traffic and backlinks a lot recently and have come up with a few theories regarding these topics. I am not sure if they are correct, but my thoughts make sense to me and seek to logically explain some of my own experiences and observations.

First of all, if I am running a search engine, my goal is to deliver relevant pages so that people will find what they are looking for and click away from my page. At the same time, I want them to find my search results valuable so they continue to use my search engine when they next need to find something. Having repeat users allows me to create a business model based upon advertising.

So, how do I decide what pages are relevant to an individual search? I can use computers to look at the content of each page and try to evaluate the context of that page based upon the words and composition of language. I can also use the results of past users' searches to determine if they found a particular page helpful based upon their actions when they initiated that search.

Essentially, what I am saying is that Google will place some recently indexed material fairly high in the search results and see what sticks. If the site is enticing to users, then the site will see a reasonable amount of traffic. The site will continue to appear high in the SERPs and as long as users keep responding positively, then a positive feedback loop is established until something more enticing or relevant comes along.

This traffic theory helps explain why I will see PR0 sites along with PR5 on the first page search results. It helps me understand why, despite my ineptitude at backlinking, some of my articles will still rank fairly high and others will be nowhere to be found. This also explains the development of authority sites that consistently rank high based upon readership and traffic levels giving them an inherent advantage in the SERPs.

By thinking of it in this way, I need to determine what will drive a self-sustaining level of traffic to each individual article. Maybe the article needs a better title that will capture attention or a better summary that will encourage readers to click on the result. Maybe I do need to create more backlinks in order to advertise the article to more potential readers so as to obtain the traffic that will start a virtuous circle. For those articles on page 1 already, maybe very little will help enhance traffic, and I should focus my efforts on some of my other sites.

Unfortunately, this means that I might have to put a little bit of thought into what each article needs in order to maximize its potential. Blindly posting backlinks may not be all it takes or it may be exactly what is required. But it at least gives me an idea about the effectiveness of what I am doing if I can compare the traffic results of certain changes or efforts. I know that I had one Hub that was getting no traffic at all. I made a simple change to the title and now that same article has seen 10 times the level of traffic as before.

I know that many SEO experts will castigate this post but I think that my theories allow me to understand that which is mysterious to many people. You can't tell me that Google result #2 is any more relevant to a search than result #32. But the decision regarding the order has to be made somehow, and I suspect that traffic and the silent votes of actual users plays a big role.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Am I way off base? I appreciate any and all comments especially since I am willing to learn.

Photo credit: LosHawlos

My SEO Experiment Revisited

2010-08-12T05:26:00.000-07:00

Just the other night, I decided to look back and see whatever happened to the SEO Experiment that I conducted in October of last year. So I typed in Google search "SEO Experment" and found my blog post on page 70. That was quite a shock considering I had been on Google page 1! In fact, there was quite a bit of buzz and interest at the time.

This is the original post on the SEO Experiment in case you missed it or weren't reading the blog in October 2009.

Needless to say, this got me to thinking a little about SEO, SERPs, relevance, links, and traffic. I had created several different articles and posts related to SEO with backlinks to the original post. Obviously, this enabled the post to reach page 1 in a relatively short period of time. But, what caused the dramatic decline over these past 10 months? Is the post that much less relevant to the keyword search phrase? Do I need to build additional links each and every month? Will this post generate additional buzz and help in the SERPs?

I have a few thoughts about SEO that I will share in the next post but in the meantime, I would like to hear what you think about SEO, SERPs, relevance, links, and traffic. I look forward to your comments.

Also, here are several of the articles from last October that were related to the SEO Experiment:

SEO Experiment The original post
Why Am I Doing an SEO Experiment? This has consistently ranked as well
Making Money Online: Climbing the SEO Ladder Start with less competition and work your way up
How to Build a Link Wheel for SEO
Understanding SEO: The Link Wheel
SEO: Black Hat vs White Hat
Google First Page in 16 Days Celebration Time
5 Things I Learned From My SEO Experiment
Update on the SEO Experiment This is a blog post from December of 2009

August Off to a Great Start!

2010-08-09T10:26:00.001-07:00

Well I must say that so far, so good for the month of August. I would dare say that I am off to one of my most consistent starts ever in terms of traffic, earnings, and doing work. I haven't produced a lot of content, but I have been making links and trying to do a little bit on most days. Things are certainly better than they were in July.

Traffic at HubPages is up over 10% over the last month. I would expect that if things continue at this pace, my traffic will set an all-time high before the end of the year. I am also impressed with the fact that my earnings are fairly consistent. So far, I have had more good days than bad days, which I define as earning over $1. I should easily be able to earn at least what I did last month provided things continue as they are.

The start to August is offering me more encouragement to keep working when I get the chance and not waste so much time on the computer. I have been playing lots of games rather than working since I have been burned out. The games are just a mindless activity that I can do, especially when tired. But I think that I am getting more and more motivated with each passing day.

I think I may even write an article or two in the next week. I know that I have another blog post for my Real Asset blog which I will write after I get done with this one. Plus, I think that I should be able to write another Hub or two. Well, I am feeling that motivation so I suppose I should get writing. Thanks to everyone for reading.

Putting Long Term Thinking Into Perspective

2010-08-05T17:39:00.000-07:00

I just read a great post by Felicia over at nojobformom.com about big dreams and long term thinking. Of course, this got me to thinking about my longer term goals for making passive income online.

In case you hadn't read previously, my goal is to make $3000 monthly by the time my youngest is on her way to college. That means I have about 8 years and 10 months left to achieve this level of passive income. Considering that I made just over $58 last month, it would seem that getting anywhere near my goal in less than a decade would be impossible.

But, what happens if I start by making just $30 per month and increase earnings by 5% each month for the next 106 months? Certainly a 5% increase doesn't sound that unrealistic, does it? That would simply mean going from $30 to $31.50. At the end of 6 months, that would be $40.20. I am sure that I can be making over $40.20 monthly by the end of this year.

However, if I carry this out for the full 106 months, then I would be making over $5200 per month! That is well above my goal of $3000 monthly. So, the question becomes: What does it take to increase earnings by 5% each month?

Well for August 2010, it probably won't take a whole lot since I will likely be above the $31.50 without doing much. But what I do this month will make a difference 2 or 3 years down the line when the 5% increase is a much bigger number.

But just like compound interest can work to the advantage of the saver, the work I do now will compound and work to my advantage. Each backlink will metastasize into several backlinks. Each article will be read multiple times and will continue to earn month after month long after my effort has ceased.

Thinking about this is mighty encouraging. Even though growth seems fairly slow now, I realize that it doesn't take a lot of growth to add up into some seriously big numbers over time. It makes up for the burned out feeling that I was having last month and will inspire me to keep going and shooting for 5% growth each and every month. It will also provide me with a target each month to track my longer term growth. This means that in December 2011, I should have made $69 to stay on target. I think I can do it!

Photo credit: TakingITGlobal

Lost the Fire, But I Feel Better Now

2010-07-31T04:16:00.000-07:00

For those of you who follow this blog, you may have noticed my absence for essentially the entire month of July. Well, the fact is that I was burned out. I wasn't necessarily burned out with my online income venture, but was undergoing lots of stress at work and was physically and mentally exhausted. I just didn't have anything to give and was simply surviving.

Well, I know that I feel a lot better now and am starting to get motivated to write again. About a week ago, I went to bed early at 8:30 and slept for just over 12 hours. Boy, did that make a huge difference. I had another long night of sleep this week (about ten hours). Even though my back is sore this morning from working out Thursday and playing golf yesterday, I still feel pretty good.

I began to question why I was putting so much effort into developing passive income and lost all motivation to continue so I took the month of July off. Between the last post on this blog about earnings and this post, I did nothing at all. And despite doing nothing, the income kept coming in! Granted, it isn't great but it was a little better than last month.

So, I have some motivation back, and I am going to bust my tail to develop links for the articles that I already have written. I want to work on the eHow articles and have all of those completed by the end of August. It will take a lot of work, but I actually feel up for it now. I may not end up writing a lot of new content, but will definitely do more writing than I did in July.

Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know that I took a little unplanned vacation from developing passive income, but that it was well worth the break. What do you do when you get burned out? I would especially like to hear from those who are doing this for a living since it would be tough to take a month off.

Earnings for Second Quarter of 2010

2010-07-06T04:52:00.000-07:00

First, I would like to apologize for not posting for the past week. I was out of town and had very limited internet access (not to mention time) so was unable to post anything. I still haven't gotten to the point where I schedule blog posts in advance. I simply write on the spot and off the cuff. Maybe someday, I will be so organized.

As a result of the time off, I feel like I am way behind in my regular life. I still have a week's worth of mail to go through and bills to pay. I plan on catching up this evening after I am done at work. In the meantime, I have a few minutes to post my earnings numbers for the second quarter of 2010.

I am encouraged by these numbers since the June earnings were slightly better than I earned in May. Hopefully the downtrend will be broken, and I can start to see some gradual improvement. Of course the earnings are much better compared to last June since that was my first full month ever online. I am really hoping that the numbers are looking better in the fall and winter months since last year seemed to be pretty good considering I was still early in this venture.

So here is what I earned for the past 3 months:

April 2010: AdSense = $22.86, eHow = $22.94, Total = $45.80

May 2010: AdSense = $22.49, eHow = $11.34, Total = $35.88

June 2010: AdSense = $24.51, eHow = $13.78, Total = $41.88

It looks like maybe I have found the bottom. Of course, one month does not define a trend, and I will have to see what this month brings. So far, the start of July seems to be promising. I need to get to work building more links and will be doing that for the next several months to be sure.

I hope to get back into the swing of things over this next week. It is always tough for me to come back from time off. It seems like I spend a lot of time trying to get things done before leaving and time catching up when returning compressing 3 weeks of work into 2. Anyway, it will be good to get back into a rhythm again. I will try to do a little each day and keep plugging away at building that passive income.

Encouraged by Affiliate Income

2010-06-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

I have recently started seeing a few orders from Amazon capsules associated with HubPages. To me that is very encouraging since I didn't think that I would ever really sell anything. Most of my articles are informational and aren't product related.

I know that there are several Hubbers who do very well on a monthly basis by creating prodjavascript:void(0)uct based Hubs and selling via the Amazon affiliate program. I also know that this holds enormous potential through independent websites as well. It simply becomes a matter of writing enticing ad copy and driving traffic to your Hubs.

Now I certainly don't expect to make a fortune doing this, but I can state that it is likely another piece of the puzzle and an area which deserves my consideration. Now that I am getting better at seeing more consistent traffic, the likelihood of seeing some sales will be increasing.

Here are my Amazon results since I first started writing online at HubPages:

Amazon Q2 2009—4 clicks

Amazon Q3 2009—87 clicks

Amazon Q4 2009—100 clicks, 1 order, $0.94

Amazon Q1 2010—58 clicks

Amazon Q2 2010—91 clicks, 6 orders, $3.90

As you can see, I have not quite made $5 yet but the number of clicks has increased from the first quarter of 2010. I would like to see that number increase and add some more sales so that I could make the $10 payout by the end of the year. As a result, I will be working on adding Amazon capsules to those Hubs that don't have any and continue to work at driving traffic.

Granted, I have not earned a lot but I am starting to see some possibilities with this form of revenue. If I can continue to develop this source of income as well as AdSense, that would be a good thing. Let's see if I can get to that magical $10 mark by the end of the year.

Creating Links for eHow

2010-06-21T05:22:00.000-07:00

I am busy creating links for all of my articles since I believe that improving my traffic will do a lot to improve my passive income. I decided to start with eHow since on a per article basis, it is my most profitable article site. HubPages makes more but has 4 times the number of articles and only makes about 2 times the income. Now not every one of my Hubs are evergreen so I can't expect all of them to be making money.

All of my eHow articles have links on Xomba, and I am getting close to being done with Shetoldme. From there I plan on moving to Redgage, Snipsly, Folkd, and StumbleUpon. I am trying not to do too much at one time since I would like it to seem somewhat natural. The Xomba links were done last year so any new links will be fresh.

It will take some time to get all of them completed but I am hoping that I will be done with all of the eHow links by mid-August. That would give me 9 months before my second anniversary to see if there is an impact upon earnings. I believe there will be and that I might be able to see my average earnings up 1.5-2 times. At least all I can do is try.

Then I plan on moving on to my HubPages articles. I will probably mainly link the evergreen articles. It will take quite some time (probably to the end of the year) since I have 143 Hubs. Again, I think it will be very useful for increasing traffic and building up the income at the same time. My HubPages traffic has been increasing naturally throughout 2010 so I think the links will give it an added boost.

What do you find helps you with traffic? Are there other sites than the ones I mentioned that you would recommend for link building? Thanks for reading and commenting.

Photo credit: Petritap

My Online Income Worth $36,000

2010-06-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

I read this amusing rant about domain values by Sara shortly after I had reviewed the worth of this blog which just happened to show up in some search results. I also found it rather humorous that this blog was valued at $2637, had 1,238 estimated visitors per day and made about $4 daily. Shoot, if a day is internet code for about 6 weeks, we might be on to something.

But then I started thinking about it a little bit and decided to do my own valuation. And I came up with right at $36,000! How on earth did I get that number? Did I pull it out of my hat? First of all, let me say that it is not the value of this blog by itself. It is the value of all of my internet articles--everything that you have been reading about right here. It includes all of my Hubs, eHow articles, and everything else all combined.

Of course you are still wondering what I mean so allow me to explain:

The same day that I ran across Sara's post I received a notification in my email that a $100 dividend had been paid on 2000 shares of Valero Energy (VLO) that I own. This dividend is paid quarterly and represents about a 1.1% yield which is comparable to the rates on a 1-yr certificate of deposit. In other words, it is passive income!

Compare that to my current online income for all of the work that I have done over the past year. All of the articles at the various sites are currently yielding about $100 every three months between AdSense and eHow payments into my Paypal account.

Since VLO is trading right around $18 per share (closed at $17.99 today), it would take me $36,000 to generate the same amount of passive income via dividends or even a CD deposit that I am making with all of my blogging and writing. So as you can see, I have valued my online activities at $36,000. Assuming that I have worked 360 days over the past year, I have created $100 in value for each and every day of the year.

It is encouraging and makes me feel good to know that I have created that much value. At $10 per hour, that is the equivalent of working for 10 hours each day and shoveling all of that money directly into savings. Everything that I do over the next year will only serve to increase my passive income and enhance the value creation. Boy, it makes me want to get cracking to create $100 in value today.

On a side note, I was able to complete my Highlight Video of the 2010 Indy 500. This video is shot from our seats. We are located on the front row of the stands across from the first few pits so we always get to see some good pit action where the outcome of the race can be decided. I am hoping to get 500 views over the next year and add to my YouTube earnings.

Anyway, have fun creating some valuations for your online enterprise and let me know what you come up with. Are you an online millionaire in terms of passive income? You never know.

Thanks to My Blogging Friends!

2010-06-13T15:04:00.000-07:00

Over the past year, I have spent several posts reviewing statistics and goals. One of those goals for 2010 was to end up in the top 500,000 websites according to Alexa traffic rank. Well, I am pleased to report that I am getting very close. Although I am still over 600,000 for the 3 month rank, for the last few days I have been below 500,000 on the 1 month ranking.

I decided to take a look at the Google Analytic statistics and found that there are several sites that have referred traffic to this blog over the last 30 days. It made me realize the importance of being connected to the blogging community. Granted, I don't think this helps directly in terms of income. But it does provide me with a great measure of satisfaction and comfort knowing that there are those who care enough to take time reading this blog and sharing their comments and experiences.

This has been one of the greatest things for me over the past year, enjoying the acceptance and encouragement from other bloggers, many of whom are online professionals. Being embraced by the blogging community has meant a lot to me as a part-timer. I want to take this opportunity to thank those who have allowed me to be part of their community, who have referred traffic, and have commented consistently.

Starting in the order of appearance on Google Analytics:

Ruth at webcareergirl.com. I especially want to thank Ruth for sending an average of 1 visitor each day. She placed a link to my blog on her very aesthetically pleasing site. Thank you so much for that! Ruth is working on the web for a living. She is kind and professional. I view her as a web friend and a mentor.
Brian at blogengage.com. Brian runs a wonderful site for fellow bloggers to interact and post their articles. Blogengage has helped to deliver traffic and followers to this blog and is responsible for a fair amount of referral traffic. I want to thank Brian for developing and running such a wonderful site.
Michelle at passiveincomeonlineblog.com. I just recently ran across Michelle's blog and was so impressed that I placed it on my blog roll the first day I found it. Michelle is a single mom working hard to make a living online. Her tenacity and spirit are admirable. She also provided me the honor of adding me to her blog roll. She is a frequent commenter on my blog. If you ever need to look at anyone for inspiration, Michelle is the one.
Felicia at nojobformom.com. Felicia is in a class all by herself. She made the transition from working at a traditional job to working on the internet. She is incredibly professional and it shows on her site and in her writing. Even though she doesn't have a blog roll, I still get a fair amount of traffic simply from commenting on her blog. She also comments frequently on mine. I view Felicia as one of my first web friends who has encouraged me many times along the way this past year. For that I will be forever grateful.
Kelly at kjflemming.com. Kelly is one of my newest friends in the blogging world. She is trying the internet marketing thing and trying to get to $15,000 per month with her sites. I wish her the best of luck and am so thankful and pleased that she decided to add me to her blog roll. I just happened across her site clicking on a comment one day and saw that I was there. I was honored to be sure!
Deanna at Write Moms. Deanna is a published author and in a class all by herself. She has been a long time friend of this blog and has included me in her blog roll. I have gotten lots of traffic from her site over the past year. In fact, hers is the leading referral site for 2010. Deanna has been incredibly encouraging when I have been down and not feeling like writing. Thank you so much, Deanna!

There are also several friends who have been around for quite awhile, reading and following this blog and commenting from time to time. I want to acknowledge these individuals as well since I truly appreciate them.

bestmommy is a writer on many of the same sites on which I have articles. She is one of my friends on all of them. She has several blogs as well including momsonlinemoneymakers.com. She has been a friend for almost my entire first year of writing.
bristolboy is a great Hubber on HubPages and follows this blog on a regular basis as well as comments frequently. He is a great source of advice and encouragement. Thanks, BB!
David Guion writes the All-Purpose Guru blog. David is a part-timer like me and has been following me since the early days. I appreciate his comments and continued support.
prerna is a frequent commenter I met at Blogengage. Thank you so much for all your comments.

Finally, I want to make a special mention of Nelle Hoxie at HubPages. She is a very busy internet marketer who makes quite a bit of money with the Amazon affiliate program. She is a big source of support and encouragement at HubPages and follows this blog regularly. Thanks, Nelle! I am amazed at your ability to produce product pages and make money in that fashion. I may try to do this someday but not yet. Amazon just doesn't work for me yet.

If I never make my goal of $3000 per month online in the next 8 years, that will be OK with me. I know that I will be farther along than I am now thanks to the support and encouragement of all my current and future blogging friends. And I will surely be richer for the experience as well. Here is to another year of developing friendships!

Good News from eHow

2010-06-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

I went to my eHow account this past weekend to look it over for the purpose of improving my links to my 38 published articles and found out that every single article had at least earned something. I found it exciting and encouraging to see those results.

If you read about my goals for my second year online, you know that I am going to try and increase my earnings through continued publishing of content but also through improved efforts at linking and "marketing". I decided that I should start with eHow since I won't be tempted to write more content. Besides, the payments come via Paypal which I plan to use for funding the development of any niche sites.

My original goal was to start making money online without investing any of my own money. I could only invest my time and use whatever money I made to reinvest in the online venture. So far, I have done this. I used the money in the Paypal account (from eHow) to purchase Michelle Adams' Virtual Real Estate Development Guide for $57. (I am almost halfway through reading it. It is long and detailed, and I at times have to re-read a paragraph several times. But that is good for me as a novice.)

Anyway, I thought that I should begin with linking and marketing eHow so that I could increase my passive earnings there and use those funds to start making niche websites. Then I could continue to use AdSense checks for paying down debt. That is why I was looking over my eHow articles.

So far, I have created a link to each of my eHow articles on Xomba. This was done last fall. I also have about half done on SheToldMe which were again done last fall. But I have none on Redgage, Folkd, or Snipsly which I plan on completing over the next several weeks. It will be interesting to see if there will be any impact. Needless to say, I certainly hope so.

Once I have completed this task, finished reading the VRED guide, and made a little more for the Paypal account, I plan on starting a niche site. Don't worry, I will keep everyone posted. It won't be incredibly quick since I am a part-timer. But I'm OK with that. I am still having fun.

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Revamping Old Content

2010-06-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I mentioned that one of the ways I hope to generate more traffic in the upcoming year is by revamping old content. I managed to do this successfully with one of my early articles on HubPages simply by changing the title.

The article was first published on June 8, 2009 and did not generate a lot of interest. It took learning about keywords and search over the ensuing 3 months or so, but I figured that the problem with the article was the title. To illustrate, compare these two titles:

(1) Ease Into Stocks Positions a la Livermore

(2) Trade Stocks Like Jesse Livermore

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the first title was the original which did not generate a lot of traffic (I think it might have been under 30 views through October). After learning a little about keywords and search, I changed the title (without altering the article at all) to the second iteration. Now the article is getting an average of 1 view per day.

Granted that may not seem like a lot of traffic for some niches and authors, but for me, I am pleased that the change was positive. I suspect that if I look at some of my other early articles from last summer, I could make similar adjustments with additional positive results on traffic.

Currently, this article is on Google page 6 when searching for Jesse Livermore. The only link that I have made to the article is at Xomba. Plus I have the HubPages RSS feed on this blog. I will often see this article show up as a "Hot Article" since it will tend to get a few surges of traffic now and again. With a little more promotion, it is possible that I could do even better.

Anyway, the point was that maybe I could review several of my poorer performing, evergreen articles and revamp the titles and my keyword targets. Maybe this would result in more traffic. Having a better sense of what people might be searching for in Google is one of the keys to making money online. Like I said, I have learned a lot in the past year and plan to keep learning.

The Next 365 Days

2010-05-29T06:30:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I took a look back at my first year of making money online and found that I had written more than one piece of content per day on average and earned $2.22 on average for each of those pieces. The results were actually better than I expected but were influenced by the payment from Life123. I think it will be challenging to overcome that payment, but I would like to at least make as much this year per article. That way, when I end up adding more articles, I will end up making more total. At least the Life123 payment represented just under half of my total income for the year.

So, if I look ahead at the next 365 days, what is it exactly that I hope to accomplish, and how do I propose to accomplish these goals? First, I want to say that while it is useful to make income and traffic goals, I really don't have any direct control over those results. I first need to make sure that I figure out how I intend to accomplish those end goals and get those tasks finished. So, let's look ahead at the next 365 days:

HubPages: My goal with HubPages is to continue generating traffic at the current rate and then double it. That means going from 25,000 views to 75,000 views over the next year. It won't be easy to pick up an additional 25,000 views over my current pace, but I think it can be done.

Getting 50,000 views in the next year would require 136 views per day which is about one per article. There are occasional days that I am getting that much traffic so my goal may actually be low. I plan on writing more articles and having between 200 and 250 Hubs by a year from now. I also plan to revamp some of my more poorly performing articles (My next post will be a useful example). Doing a better job of linking should also help drive more traffic to my existing Hubs.

eHow: I will not be writing any more articles so will have to live with the 38 that I have. I can drive traffic through better linking and plan on doing this during my various linking campaigns. I would like to more than double my views from 8,900 to 25,000 using this strategy.

Xomba: I plan on adding more articles to get my article total to 100 over the next year. I will also be adding links at the site to my other work. Combining these efforts, I would hope to get my total reads around 18,000. This might be difficult as that would mean getting about 20 reads per day. That may not seem like a lot but the total reads from last year include reads by bots. Now it is only counting human reads, and I know what my current daily reads are.

My Online Income Blog: I plan on adding content steadily throughout the next year--on average 2 posts per week. I don't make a ton of money here but enjoy the interaction with other bloggers. I would like to add some followers and have about 60 total by the end of the next year. I would also like to watch my Alexa rank climb into the top 400,000 or so. I think that is possible if I can double traffic over the next year.

Miscellaneous sites: I will continue to post periodically to my other blog, but am not sure what I will do with Triond, InfoBarrel, or Squidoo. I also don't know if I will pursue other sites.

Niche site: I do want to create a niche site this next year. This will take me out of my comfort zone, but I think it is important in order to move to the next level. I want to at least get one done by the end of 2010 so that by next May can begin to see some results. I will probably begin to work on this in the next few months after getting done with the current Hub Challenge.

Well, it seems like I have a lot of work in store for me. I didn't realize how much I could get done this past year while working full-time and running 6 kids all over the country for their activities. Here's to the next 365 days.

What are your plans? What do you hope to accomplish? How will you follow your progress?

One Year Online--A Look Back

2010-05-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

Well, it is hard to believe that exactly one year ago on May 26, 2009, I published my first online article on HubPages. I don't exactly remember how it started or why I did it, but what started as a small, little experiment or hobby has developed into a "part-time" quest for developing passive income.

I ended up starting this blog to chronicle my journey and share with those other "part-timers" (or anyone else who might be interested) what I am learning along the way. I have also shared my goals, frustrations, and the results of my various efforts.

One year ago, I had no idea what a keyword or a backlink was. I didn't know the difference between "follow" and "no-follow". Now I can use Google Adwords Keyword Tool to try and enhance my CPC. I have a rough idea of how to drive traffic and improve my SERPs even though I may not be very good at it.

For those of you who have followed this blog, you know that it has been my goal to ultimately earn $100 daily online by the time my youngest reaches college. My thoughts are that this will help pay for her college and then ultimately provide a supplemental source of retirement income. That day was nine and is now eight years away.

I am really only about 1% of the way toward my goal, but I still have 8 years left. So, let's look back and see what the actual results of the last year have been starting with content and traffic.

HubPages: I have published 141 Hubs, have 256 followers, and have received 25,000 views during the past year.

eHow: I published 43 articles of which 38 still exist. These have been viewed just over 8,900 times.

Xomba: I have 44 articles and 212 bookmarks. The total number of reads is 10,795.

My Online Income Blog: This is post number 117. I really don't have easy access to the number of views, but there are 35 followers through blogger and 8 Facebook followers.

Real Assets Blog: I have 14 posts with 3 total followers.

Infobarrel, Triond, Squidoo: There are 6 articles on IB, 5 on Triond, and 5 lenses.

Life123: I published over 20 articles on Life123 before the program for authors was discontinued.

All told, I have 390 pieces of original content published on the internet. These were all completed in one year's time which averages out to just over 1 piece each day. Personally, I find that pretty amazing considering all the days that I did not write.

For all that effort, however, the earnings will seem rather minuscule. I have to remember that those articles will be out there with the potential to be earning each and every day. I have done nothing on eHow since October of 2009, and yet those articles continue to earn month after month. Not a lot, but something.

With those comments, lets look at the earnings. As of this evening, my total earnings are as follows:

AdSense: $325.72 -- I have received 2 checks already and will get the next one in late June. This took 5 months for the first, 3 months for the second, and 4 for the next one.

eHow: $157.74 -- There has been only one month that I didn't make payout, and that was when the UK site was started. I should make it this month, but it could be close.

Life123: $440 -- I really liked writing for Life123. Too bad it couldn't continue. They were honorable and paid the maximal amount of $20 for each article.

My expenses for the year consisted of $1 for advertising and $57 for the Michelle Adams Flipping Guide. So my net profit for the year amounts to $923.46 - $58 = $865.46. Divide that by 390 articles, and I got $2.22 per article this past year. Of course, this is heavily influenced by the Life123 payment but I'll take it.

I hope to improve upon these results in the next year. My next post will discuss my goals for the next 365 days and what I hope the impact of my activities will be.

So, how has the past year been for you? Productive? Profitable? What will you be doing to improve your results?

Making Money on You Tube

2010-05-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I didn't realize this before. I suspect it is because I am dense and not fully in tune with the process of making money online. At least it is not a full time profession for me or I would be homeless.

I'm not exactly sure how it happened. I was either on You Tube or looking at my AdSense stats and saw the reference to You Tube. I'm not even exactly sure how I did it, either. But if I was able to do it, it was easy and only involved a few clicks.

Somehow, I was able to integrate my AdSense account with my You Tube account and begin showing ads next to the 2 videos that I had posted about 2 years ago. It is interesting in that those two videos have gotten almost 25,000 views combined. As a matter of fact, they are pulling in more traffic than all of my other articles that are showing AdSense ads.

I figured it was worth doing since I was getting some traffic and was so easy. But, guess what?! Now after only 8 days, I have earned 45 cents. Granted it isn't all that great, but it is totally passive. A couple bucks a month would easily pay for a domain name. Plus, there is a lot of potential as noted in this article about Michael Buckley.

Now, I don't suspect that I will start a parody of the news and quit my day job. But, I would consider posting a few more videos or making some educational videos on options or stock trading. Of course, I need one more thing to do in my spare time.

Anyway, if you have a You Tube account with some videos and an AdSense account and haven't started showing ads next to your videos, why not go for it and see if you can earn some extra cash? Who knows, you might just pick up an additional 6 figure income!

Here are the videos for those who might be curious:
Vee's High Intensity Training Chin Up
High Intensity Leg Extension

By the way, Vee is my personal trainer. I see him once each week.

It Is Important to Get Backlinks

2010-05-16T06:26:00.000-07:00

I have always suspected that it is important to get backlinks, but I suspect that I really didn't fully comprehend their true power. The second part of the 60 Day HubPages Challenge is to promote the articles that were written during the first part.

Content may be king, but backlinks and promotion will determine the size of your kingdom. That concept really hit home while brousing the HubPages forums last night. One of the Hubbers posted a thread stating that he was on track to make $100 in AdSense that day. $100 in a day! The key thing was that he has only written 19 Hubs.

Someone asked how this was possible with only 19 Hubs. He stressed that it took good keyword research and lots and lots of backlinks. I think that I have done a decent job with the keyword research, but a terrible job with the backlinks.

I think that is why I am excited to participate in the 60 Day Challenge as I will be forcing myself to focus on obtaining links to my articles. Then I will be able to assess the true impact on the traffic that is generated. I did spend time doing some keyword research and trying to pick decent topics based upon the results of the research and my spheres of interest and experience.

I think the overall success of my writing is going to depend upon my ability to generate traffic through the use of good promotion techniques. I have never been a salesman and have a difficult time with self promotion so it will take quite a bit of effort.

My plan is to start today taking those articles that I have written for the challenge and start with Xomba. Then I will move to Redgage and SheToldMe. I will also search to see if there are any other good social bookmarking sites that offer revenue share. I might as well see if I can earn additional money while trying to get traffic. Then I will move on to other sites. I do have a Snipsly account also that offers revenue share.

Just working with these four sites will likely take me the better part of the rest of May, but it will be interesting to see the results. Of course, I will be sure to let you know what happens. I am encouraged that my traffic had been slowly rising without my doing much during the past few months. Maybe expending some effort will be fruitful. I did notice that I would get much more traffic to this blog when posting a few links here and there, so maybe the impact will be positive.

eHow vs HubPages: A Comparison of Passive Income

2010-05-13T05:34:00.000-07:00

I just got paid by eHow this week for the month of April; $22.94 was deposited in my Paypal account. For me, eHow has been totally passive since last October. I haven't written anything, nor do I promote in any fashion. 100% passive income.

Contrast that to HubPages. I have been writing Hubs in April as part of a challenge. Granted I didn't get the 30 Hubs completed, but it was still a lot of work and a substantial amount of effort taking up many, many hours of research and writing. Furthermore, this month I will be doing some promoting of the Hubs that I have written trying to stimulate traffic. For the month of April, I earned $22.59 from HubPages.

I am actually surprised that the totals are as close as they are. Considering the amount of effort devoted to HubPages and the number of articles (141 vs 38), I would have thought that I could have earned more than eHow.

And look at what has happened so far this month. eHow is at $4.50 so far and HubPages is at $1.97. I am incredibly disappointed and surprised that I am not earning more considering the effort. Traffic seems reasonable. It is certainly not decreasing. It is actually slowly improving. The amount of search engine traffic seems to be reasonable as well. HubPages is showing over 75% search engine traffic according to Google Analytics.

I have tried to keep a decent attitude and haven't had near the number of emotional ups and downs as when I first started. But, I must admit that 3 months of declining revenue after a decent February is starting to take its toll. I suppose this could all be related to my lack of effort during the early months of this year. Maybe all of the effort now will be paying off this fall.

But I am really getting down and having some difficulty getting motivated to keep plugging away considering we are almost halfway through the month and I don't even have $2 of earnings at HubPages. That is quite depressing to think about considering how much I earned last month. I would think that increasing traffic with a decent proportion of search engine traffic should at least allow my earnings to hold steady.

Anyway, thanks for letting me vent. I will start promoting several of the Hubs that were written as part of the challenge and report the results. So far, I think writing and publishing has helped generate a little more traffic but, as you just read, no improvement in earnings.