My Online Income Goals for 2011

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:

1. 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.
2. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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

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

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

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

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

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

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.