An August Goals Review and Setting Goals for September

Ok, so in this post I would like to look back at my August goals and summarize my accomplishments and then set the goals for September. I think it is very important to do this so that you can get more done by trying to stay focused. I think I may write a hub on this as well since I still have to get 3 done today to make it to 70 total (yeah right!). It may be possible, but I'm not gonna stress over it. I would like to thank everyone who is coming by to read this blog. I hope that it can help someone who might be trying to make money online.

August Recap

HubPages: The goal was to have 70 Hubs done by the end of the month. Currently, I have 67 with about 19 hours left to go. It could be done but depends on how much time I have later in the day. I had hoped to have total views of 1500 for the month and actually ended at over 1600. I had also hoped to earn $10 this month and exceeded that amount by quite a bit. Overall, a good showing with HubPages.

eHow: The goal was to get 30 eHows done, and I did this. I haven't written there in about a week since I was done (had pushed this one) and have been playing catch-up with the Hubs. I wasn't sure what to expect on views but will end the month with over 1000 total views. I had hoped to earn $2 but made it over $10 and will be getting paid in September. Yippee!!

Squidoo: This site is pointless for me. I only have one lens in the top 85,000 and have yet to see any revenue other than from an Amazon sale. I haven't really worked on this site and will spend my time focusing elsewhere. I will likely drop this from the goals and focus elsewhere.

My Online Income Blog: My goals were to get 5-10 views per day average although in another post, I had hoped for 15. The first is what ended up happening. I have been getting a slight amount of increased traffic since the blog carnival. Plus, I did get one click so this blog actually earned something in the month of August.

September Goals

September is going to add a little something new to the goals and essentially become a month of link building experimentation to see how much I can drive traffic. I still want to produce content and will actually be writing a lot but will also link build as much as possible.

HubPages: My writing goal will to be at 80 Hubs by the end of September. Originally, I had thought that I wanted to be at 200 Hubs by the end of the year, but that was before writing for eHow. Now, I am just planning on having 200 articles total between the two sites. I am not sure as to the distribution but will be pleased to achieve this as I will have a project or two at work to get done which will cut into my online money making time. I also hope to add 2000 views of my Hubs which would put total views at 5650 since starting. My earnings expectations for HubPages for September is a bit of a stretch at $30.

eHow: My writing goal will be to produce 20 eHows by the end of September bringing the total to 50. Coupled with HubPages that is 30 articles for the month or 1 per day which is still a lot of writing. I am at just over 1000 views total. I hope to add just under 1500 for the month to bring my total to 2500 views. I also hope to earn in the neighborhood of $20.

Xomba: I just started on Xomba in the last 3 days. It is a social bookmarking site that displays your Adsense code. I have actually earned a little bit already. My goal for September is to add links to my articles on HubPages and eHow at a rate of 2 per day. I also plan on adding another couple links and writing a small article (150 words is their minimum) each day for a total of 5 posts per day during the month. This should take 20-25 minutes and is really mindless activity that I can do anytime during the day. With this, I hope to average about 10 Adsense impressions daily and hope to make somewhere between $5-$10.

Shetoldme: This site is similar to Xomba but without the article aspect. I will be using it for my article links. I have no other expectations for the site since it seems relatively new. Any Adsense earnings would be a bonus.

My Online Income Blog: I simply plan on posting 2-3 times per week and just hoping that traffic increases slowly over time. I have no expectations for earnings but will be thankful for anything I get. I think I will submit to one blog carnival again this month.

Well, there you have it. A lot of work will be in store for the month of September. I hope I stretched myself a little bit. Earning $60 in the month is a stretch in my opinion but is realistically achievable as well. I have been watching traffic slowly increase across all sites and earnings also. Just have to see what September brings.

eHow:

Stock Trading Series and New Site

Boy do I have a lot to talk about on this post. I almost wonder if I should divide it up into a few posts, but I don't think I will. First, let's start with HubPages. I will be starting a new series there called "Online Stock Trades" and will review several different stocks in a particular sector with each series. I am excited since will incorporate the stock research that I enjoy with the writing that I enjoy also. Plus, it should give me lots of material to write about at HubPages. Here are two links for the explanation and my first post on silver mining stocks:

Online Stock Trades: A New Series
Online Stock Trades: Silver Miners

I have already learned some things myself by reading the annual reports of these silver miners. I have started working on the next installment which will be on solar stocks. I hope to get that posted later today and get a few more done over the weekend to meet my goal of 70 Hubs by the end of August (I am at 65).

Earnings Goal Has Been Met Easily!

I have several things to say about earnings. First off, my goal of $10 from HubPages has been surpassed as has my goal of $2 from eHow. I even got my first click off this blog. Can you believe it? I honestly never thought that would happen. I think it just goes to show that all of this hard work is starting to pay off. I am $9.16 on eHow so far with 3 days in August left. My goal didn't even include making payout this month but now that I am so close I can taste it, I am feeling all anxious. Funny how that works.

Blog Carnival Working?

The jury is still out on this one. I will say that I am averaging about 5 visitors a day since the blog carnival. Overall, traffic is up. I don't know if I can attribute it to that or to links in my HubPages profile and links at Shetoldme.com. Speaking of social networks....

Xomba and Shetoldme

I signed up for Xomba today after reading several promising internet earnings reports. It is a site where I can post links to my own content or to other sites or interesting things I find on the internet (like Digg in that respect). The difference is that I can get paid via Adsense (50-50 split with Xomba) if anyone clicks on an ad next to my stuff. I figure why not. I get some links and maybe an income stream. Here is my referral link if you want to sign up:

http://www.xomba.com/referral/777d849c

Shetoldme is pretty much the same thing but sounds like it is a newer site. I have a referral link there also. Again, links for sure; Adsense is bonus:

http://shetoldme.com/referral/736868c6

I suspect that some of these sites might be responsible for some of the traffic on this blog. If you are visiting from there, please feel free to comment.

I think that is all I should post for now. I have some other things that I might just save for next time. Be sure to keep stopping by for updates and my progress when it comes to online income.

An Inspiring E-Mail

I signed up for a free e-book about making money online and have been getting some emails as well. Yesterday's email was actually quite good and inspiring. They are all pretty good especially if you are just starting out. But yesterday's was about the amount of time it takes to make money online. The answer was interesting to say the least and boils down to the fundamental heart of the issue. Basically, it takes longer than the vast majority of people are willing to spend and stay focused, but less time than you might suspect.

They also provide an interesting scenario assuming that you can get to $1,000 per month online after 1 year of hard work. Then, by increasing your monthly income by 5% monthly, at the end of three more years, you will be making $6,000 per month. That is truly inspiring.

Getting to $1,000 per month

Now for me, the trick becomes getting to $1,000 per month first. I have been doing this for almost 3 full months now and am starting to see results but even $1,000 per month seems like a daunting task. Writing for HubPages and eHow, I might be able to pull down $1 per article per month which means that I would have to have 1,000 articles between the two sites. Granted I am almost to 100, but 900 more seems impossible at this point. Earnings are picking up, and I can see the potential there. It will certainly be tough to get to that first stepping stone in the next 9 months, but it is worth a try.

I suspect that writing for content will not be the only way to go. However, I don't feel as if I am ready to move on to the next level until I get a little more experience. Since I am doing this part time, it may take a little longer for me to get going. I will just have to see. The next step for me is to get to $100 per month and go from there. That certainly seems feasible and breaking up the larger goals into smaller ones can keep one moving forward instead of giving up.

So, take your larger longer term goals and break them up into smaller chunks that seem feasible. You will ultimately get where you want to go.

Made It Into the Blog Carnival

Well, I mentioned that I had signed up to be part of a blog carnival, and I made it in. It was published on the 21st. I suspect that anybody who signed up got in but that's OK. It was still a nice little ego boost. I have not seen a huge spike in traffic but who knows what will happen over time. I feel a little obligated to include a link to the blog carnival in case you want to check out some of the other authors' posts. There is some decent stuff there. Here is the link:

http://www.successpart2.com/

I will keep an eye on traffic over the next several weeks and will likely submit to other carnivals in the future since it took a small amount of time. Who knows what might happen?

I want to personally thank all those from HubPages who come over and read my blog. It feels really good to know that someone is actually stopping by. Please feel free to comment periodically. If you ever have any questions, feel free to ask as well.

EARNINGS ARE ON FIRE!!

I can't believe that I have already surpassed my August earning goals and there is still one week left. I am in the process of mentally forming goals for September and will post them this upcoming weekend. I am currently in the process of a 14 day earning streak. I thought it might have ended at 12 days but managed to earn $0.01 on Adsense on day 13 so officially the streak continues. It is such a nice feeling to earn a little something each day. It sure beats the 4 and 5 day dry streaks that I had been experiencing. Writing for eHow has been such a benefit in the earnings category in this regard. On days that I don't get anything from HubPages, I get something at eHow and vice versa. About half my articles on eHow have earned something so far. Be sure to check out this blog at the end of September when I post my first quarterly earnings report (which will include June as well).

HubPages 30 Day Challenge

The 30 day challenge continues. I actually gave myself an extra week to get to 70 Hubs by the end of August. I seem to be on pace with 8 more Hubs to go and 8 days left in August. It will still be tough. I am usually quite busy during the week and the upcoming one is no exception. I had a slight dry spell where I couldn't think of anything to write. I guess you could say it was idea block and maybe a lack of motivation with a pinch of burn-out. But I am feeling better now and think I can do this.

I am at 27 eHow articles with one in the can so to speak but just not published. I am confident that I can get to my goal of 30 by the end of August at which time I will make sure I get all the Hubs done. Then if there is any time left, I will crank out some more eHows.

That is all I had for now. Until next time.

Online Income Report

This has been a very exciting and motivating week. I won't report exact totals for earnings since I want to save that for the quarterly updates which will begin at the end of September. I do want to say, though, that the results for eHow have surpassed my expectations and what seemed like a weak month on HubPages has actually turned out to be pretty decent with still a fair amount of month left.

If you remember, my goals for the month were to earn a total of $12, $10 from HubPages and $2 from eHow. Both of those goals have been met already. Right now it looks like I could even end up over $20 for the month.

12 Day Earning Streak

The most exciting part is that I have earned something for the last 12 days in a row. On HubPages, I would have 4 and 5 day dry spells which would get quite discouraging. Now, even though I may have a day or two without earnings at HubPages, I was able to earn something at eHow and vice versa. It shows that diversification is important. Needless to say, I hope the streak continues.

Part of this positive event is the fact that I am starting to get more and more articles and as a result more traffic. It only makes sense that hard work should start paying off. I currently have 59 Hubs and 25 eHows. I plan on getting to 70 Hubs by the end of August (which is feeling like it might be tough) and 30 eHows by the end of August (which should actually be pretty easy).

Right now I am starting to look at the entire picture and am beginning to formulate September's goals in my mind. I will post those as we get closer to the end of August.

PS--My First Blog Carnival

I signed up for my first blog carnival and submitted the post about motivation. It is supposed to come out sometime today. If I get in I will make a quick post and provide a link. I will also see what happens with traffic and keep you updated. If it works, then I will likely participate in others and may even consider hosting.

Until next time. Let's keep that earning streak alive. Photo credit: BKMD at en.wikipedia

Maximizing My Earnings in Minimal Time

I just posted a couple articles about maximizing earnings by being efficient with my research time. I posted one at HubPages and one at eHow. I talked about spending a few hours researching a topic and writing a nice prose article that I use at HubPages. I also save all of my work on a word processing program including links to all my research in case I want to use the information later to post on another content site. Then I can simply revamp the article a little and in about 30 minutes have another source of income.

Here are the links if you want to check them out to see how I made the transition from article to "how to" format (notice how I got a backlink):

HubPages article: Make Money Faster Through Productivity in Research

eHow article: How to Make Money Faster Through Productivity in Research (I am wondering about the title, however. Not sure if it seems a little awkward. It may get revamped in a few months.)

Right now, I am focusing most of my attention on HubPages and eHow. As mentioned, I will write an article over the course of one hour if I don't need to research or up to 4 or 5 if I do. Then, I can immediately turn around and in 20-30 minutes convert the format to "how to" for the eHow site. This has worked really well for me and has allowed me to triple my income this month since eHow is earning almost twice as much as HubPages right now. Furthermore, the extra article gives me an instant backlink to expose more of my work to the web, especially those articles that may not fit a particular format. Not to mention, I can get a blog post out of it. One decent idea can then carry me quite far and be used for many different audiences.

Please feel free to offer advice and comment. Until next time.

Staying Motivated

I just finished two articles on things I do to stay motivated while trying to make income online. Generating online income can be a very daunting task and take quite a bit of effort. I have been spending quite a bit of time over the past 2 1/2 months and can see where people would start to give up after this time. But, if you can get through the first 6 months or so, I suspect it will be well worth it and that the earnings will eventually follow. I would like to summarize my points in the articles (one is at HubPages and one at eHow). If you would like to read them, I have included the links:

How to Stay Motivated When Making Money Online

Making Money Online: How to Stay Motivated

To summarize my points:
1. Set goals that I can control like number of articles. I can't click on ads or generate revenue but I can put out content on a regular basis.
2. Don't set unreasonable goals. Setting yourself up for failure is not a good idea.
3. Use some of your time for less mentally taxing tasks like forum posts. This keeps you in public view but is not as demanding as researching and writing articles.
4. Take a vacation from the computer entirely just like you would offline.
5. Look at others making money online and look at how they started out. Many of the people making thousands per month started out small like me making only a few dollars. It just takes time.

I hope this post has been helpful. Please feel free to comment or check out the full articles.

AUGUST GOALS UPDATE:

I just wanted to also take some time to provide a quick update on my activities at the various article sites.

I have completed my 56th hub at HubPages and seem to be on target for getting done with 70 by the end of the month. Traffic is good although earnings are somewhat anemic. I am still pleased with the progress here.

I have completed 19 articles at eHow. Traffic is doing very well vs HubPages and the earnings there are picking up the slack that is happening at HubPages. I am inspired to keep going at eHow since things are starting off so well there. My goal was to get 30 articles by the end of the month, and I feel like I am on target. eHow seems to be the best use of my time giving me the most "bang for my buck".

Squidoo seems like a waste of time to me. Having to compete to get into the top tiers is just too difficult for me at this point. I have not made any more lenses and Squidoo is very low on my priority list due to its business model. I will be focusing my attention on HubPages and eHow for now. If I do have extra time, I would probably look at other sites before returning to Squidoo.

Until next time.

August Starting to Heat UP

The weather is warming up here in central Indiana, and they are starting to move online as well. The biggest problem for me now is finding time to write. I am just coming off a low point where I was busy elsewhere and wasn't able to write. I wasn't earning anything and was starting to feel a little down. But, just when I started to wonder if it was all worth it, here is what happened.

Traffic Continues to Increase

Despite the lull in writing over at HubPages, traffic is meeting and is starting to exceed my goals. I am averaging over 50 views per day for the last week and it looks like the trend is solid. Furthermore, the traffic from Google for the last 7 days has exceeded the HubPages traffic which is definitely good in the long run. Earnings have been sparse despite the traffic, but even that is starting to see signs of life. I have 53 hubs now total and will have my work cut out for me to get to 70 by the end of the month, but it is still possible. I should be able to get one or two done this weekend and maybe several done next week.

eHow is on FIRE!

Ok, so you may not be so impressed, but I sure am. I am up to 14 articles now with over 300 views. The best part is that I am starting to earn a few cents here and there, so I only expect it to get better. I can definitely see that eHow is a viable earning opportunity and am going to push myself to keep getting more and more articles out there. It seems that the opportunity may be better than HubPages unless I see some Amazon revenue from HubPages.

Sorry, but this will be a short post so that I can start writing some more. I would like to put out a few links for eHow on some of my more recent articles. I can't tell where some of the traffic comes from, but I may consider adjusting the eHow widget to see if that makes a difference. My next post will talk about how I am maximizing my time and trying to make it as efficient as possible.

eHow links:
Find Spare Cash for Investing in Gold
Screen Oneself for Testicular Cancer

Til next time. Thanks for reading.

Busy Week So Far

It's been a busy week so far, but not for writing. Lots to do at work, and the schedule has made me fairly tired so I haven't been as productive during the week as I would have liked to be. I am going to sit down and write some tonight and tomorrow. I have several ideas. I just need to implement them.

Yeehow For eHow

I did manage to get my first earnings over at eHow yesterday, a grand total of $0.56 almost enough for a coke at work. It is definitely exciting. I was starting to get a little bummed since I have gone five days with no revenue at all. It is nice to see that earning at eHow is possible. Now I just got to get going on the article front and it might be possible to meet this month's goal.

HubPages Update

I have completed 49 hubs and am well on my way toward the 70 by the end of the month. I certainly feel that it is feasible. Despite the lack of earnings, the traffic has held up fairly well and the increased hubs have been drawing increasing levels of traffic. Traffic has even stayed consistent over the past several days when I haven't been publishing. I think that is very encouraging for the future.

Sorry that this will be a short post, but as I said....it's busy!

A Fairly Productive Weekend

Well, the weekend was fairly productive if not profitable. I was able to get 3 hubs done on Saturday and get them published. I was afraid that traffic was going to dry up considerably, but it seemed to at least hold its own over the weekend. From what I am reading, summer traffic usually is down compared to the rest of the year. That is somewhat encouraging since I will be adding hubs and will likely see a nice bump in traffic once fall and winter arrives.

I also was able to add one eHow article yesterday and have 3 more ready to publish. I was hoping to get more done on Sunday, but I spent some time with the family. I hope to be able to get those other articles published later today and then work on some more in the next 2 days and then get up to 20 total published by the end of the week. I am slightly miffed at the eHow website since my traffic stats have not updated since Thursday. I hate to be putting in the work and not at least knowing that I am getting any views. I understand that earnings will take a little time although I hope to get $2 out of the month of August. That's why it is important to me to try to get as much onto the site as early in the month as possible.

This is a somewhat short post, but that's OK because I want to continue working and have lots of things that I would like to get done. Please feel free to contact me and let me know what you think.

Looking Ahead to August

Well, July is done and August has begun. Before I share my goals for the month of August, I would like to review the accomplishments at the end of July. As you can see, the eHow widget began working. I can place five of my articles in the box for people to click. You can also place it on Facebook but I couldn't figure it out yet. I will have to spend more time with it.

I also put together a small Amazon store with the link at the top right of this blog. I have been getting some clicks over at Amazon from my HubPages hubs but no purchases. Maybe someday. I also placed a donation button on this blog since I don't think I will end up with many ad clicks. I have earned $0.02 so far from this blog. I guess I should be happy since that is pure profit.

Goals for August

HubPages: I am in the midst of the 30 day challenge which I am carrying on to the end of August. I have published 46 hubs so far and plan to get to 70 by the end of the month. I have 1983 views and hope to get to 3000 by the end of the month. I also earned $6.93 during the month of July and hope to earn $10 in August. I think this will be a reasonable goal.

eHow: I am liking eHow. It is pretty easy and quick to write an article, and I was able to get 9 done in my first week last week. I plan on getting at least 30 done by the end of the month and would prefer to get them done ASAP so that they can age a little. I have had 89 views but no earnings yet. That is why I would like to get at least 10 more done soon so that I would get a chance to earn $2 this month.

Squidoo: This site is a little more difficult for me. I am pumped that someone ordered some Amazon books from my Indy 500 picture lens and I made $2.30. I also have 3 of my 5 lenses in the top 85,000 so maybe I can earn a few cents that way. But it sure will take a lot of effort to remain there and if someone clicks on a non-tiered lens, I won't get anything at all. That's why I am preferring the other 2 sites. Even if I only get a few views a month, I still benefit from any clicks. It would be nice to get some more lenses done, but I will be focusing on HubPages and eHow instead and create a lens when I get bored. I really don't have any August expectations for Squidoo unless I have time.

My Online Income Blog: I want to continue making posts and document my progress. I would like to average about 5-10 views per day for the month of August and maybe come up with $0.05 in earnings by the end of the month (LOL!). Other than trying to get some regular traffic, I have no expectations for this blog on the monetary front.

So, if I sum it all up, I need to get 24 hubs and 21 eHows done and am hoping for increasing traffic on HubPages to an average of 50 views per day. At eHow I would like to get 15 views per day average and about 5-10 on this blog. Wish me luck and keep visiting. Off to work out and then start writing.