Best AdSense Month Ever!

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

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

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. (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

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

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

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

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