Research

January Income Report – Changing For 2010

32 Comments

I want to preface this report by saying that, for now, it’s going to be my last report. I have to admit that the numbers are disappointing to me these days, and they don’t seem worth reporting until they start getting much better. So, after this report, you won’t see this type of thing again until I have my first $500 month. And since I don’t see anything to indicate that could be coming up any time soon, it could be awhile before we get another one of these.

So, without further ado, here’s how things looked this month:

Adsense – $64.75
Infolinks – $22.50
Commission Junction – $20.50
Google Affiliate Network – $.90
Grand Total – $108.65

Once again, most of my money was earned via my medical billing site, but the money has gone down, somewhat being replaced by Infolinks. The CJ sale was another one time fluke, and the GAN sale was someone buying a DVD from Barnes & Noble through one of my links, that’s a pretty low percentage, isn’t it?

Here’s the thing. I’ve been giving more and more thought to income lately. Though I’ve said I don’t expect to make a lot of income from this blog because of its nature, it wouldn’t depress me to make something more than once a millenia. The same goes for my other sites as well. The basic ideas are twofold; one, you work on selling your own product, where you get to retain all proceeds from the sale, or two, you work on selling the products of others and accept your percentage from that.

Those are really the only two ways of making any real money online, though some folks will make big money off Adsense by having multiple websites. Frankly, I don’t see myself as a guy who will ever own more than 10 to 15 websites, period, and that could be pushing it. Hundreds of websites; no way! So, since I don’t see myself as a web mogul in that fashion, trying to earn more money through Adsense seems to be illogical. I’ll be happy with what I’m getting now and try to move onto other things.

For instance, the CJ products. That money above was for one lousy sale; if I could get more of those, life wouldn’t be all that depressing. Some of my advertisers market some fairly technical and pricey stuff. For instance, imaging the commission I would earn if someone decided to buy this HJ Namdar Diamond Ring; I’d be living large for a month. I’d be a happy camper if someone decided to purchase one of these World Imports chandeliers also; stunning stuff.

But to get people to buy things like that, I really have to push the sale, market it well, and say some pretty good stuff about it. I’d also have to know it, and truthfully, I only know what I like to look at when it comes to jewelry, and my tastes in chandeliers only goes so far since many times I don’t even notice them (though I’d notice that one for sure). At least I’d feel like I’d have to know them if I were going to talk about them on a blog; if I set up product pages, I might not have to know as much.

Kind of like my sales page over there; I don’t have tons of products on it, as most of the deals are via banner links, but I easily could select products to push and, if there’s a code, indicate that there’s a timed sale of some sort. By the way, I’ve never gotten any feedback really on what people think of that type of sales page, the one next to me holding the parrot, which is always changing because the sales end and new sales come up. What do you think of something like that in general?

Anyway, onward and upward, as the saying goes. Let’s see what the financial future holds in store for me.

12-Compartment Organizer – 38"W Radius Front Desk Top Organizer-Mahogany (9411MH)

Price – $158.95

Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2010-2013 Mitch Mitchell

32 thoughts on “January Income Report – Changing For 2010”

  1. Awesome you hit the $100 mark again.

    I don’t like the sound of this post. It sounds like you gave up. Truly, if you want commissions on those products. Do some keyword research. Ask yourself what would you google if you was looking for that. Slap up a 10 to 25 page mini site for those keywords and start building backlinks via article marketing. Before you know it, sales will be rolling in.

    Don’t just accept things, make things happen! I’m sorry if I sound to positive as I always look for the bright side of things. I just don’t want you to give up. I know you can do this.
    .-= Deneil Merritt´s last blog ..January 2010 Income Report =-.

    1. Hi Deneil,

      No, I’m not giving up, just rethinking the process. I pretty much created my other sites hoping they’d generate Adsense money and thus create a nice income. I’m realizing now that Adsense money is minimal unless you create lots of sites and, hopefully, SEO and monetize them well so people not only come, but click on your Adsense. I figure that even if I could get all my sites, my non-business sites, generating what my medical billing site generates, that only comes to around $300 a month. Can’t live off that. So, I need to work on changing strategies, selling big ticket items or more of my own products if you will. Even getting advertising isn’t going to get it done as far as a “great” income. Time to rethink the process some.

  2. Hey Mitch,

    I’d, of course, recommend your own products. 🙂 Works very well.

    Adsense has been a tough one to do well with for a few years now. Requires LOTS of traffic, plus people are pretty blind to it now.

    If you ever want any advice, just hit me up. I know I rattled a few feathers here several days ago by apparently chiming in with an evaluation of the blog in a no-so-tactful way. Never intended it to be rude, so I hope you didn’t take it that way. I’m just passionate about what I think works in terms of monetization. 🙂

    Oh, and well done on breaking $100/month. A lot of bloggers wish they could get that far.

    Later!

    1. Thanks David. You noticed on that post that I never went at you for what you said because I knew where you were coming from. I might do that at some point, take you up on your offer.

      But I’ve come to the realization that probably why Joel Comm has worked so hard to get away from the Adsense game is because it does take a lot of work and a bunch of sites. Even if you could average $100 a month per site, getting lucky to make every site successful, you’d still have to have 50 sites at a minimum to enjoy a nice middle class life. And man, if I had to try to keep writing content for 50 sites so they stay active enough to keep attracting the search engines, I think I’d go crazy. I do believe that there are websites one can create that will make consistent money, but not all of them, that’s for sure.

  4. David is right though, not many bloggers can reach where you at. However I can see your will of wanting to push further so I’m behind you fully. There will be a lot of testing and try-out methods to sell something. Let it be own products or anything, traffic and trust are to be built up gradually alongside with it. 🙂 You can do it Mitch, plan well and go for it!

    @wchingya
    Social/Blogging Tracker
    .-= Ching Ya´s last blog ..6 Points To Ponder Before Using Automatic Status Updates =-.

    1. Thanks Ching Ya. Actually, it’s not only making money blogging. My income stats are from everything I do online, not just blogging. If I only reported blogging income I might never have anything to report at all.

  5. Mitch, don’t be too hard on yourself. I think you are doing really well & your an encouragement to others.
    .-= Rose´s last blog ..The Online Reputation of Rose DesRochers =-.

    1. Thanks Rose. I guess I’m feeling sort of lame because I’ve been working at this for at least 5 years; you’d think I would be further ahead than I am now.

  6. Well, that’s 100 bucks more than you had at the beginning of the month. You’d probably have more luck selling diamond rings if your blog was aimed at that sort of niche.

    Keep at it mate, sooner or later we’ll get our hands on the goose that laid the golden egg.
    .-= Sire´s last blog ..My Spin On The Squeeze Page And Email Lists =-.

    1. Sire, I’ll never give up. But like you, I want this particular type of post to be more fun, and right now I’m kind of static, so I want to now pause it until I’m generating higher amounts. Could be awhile, though.

  7. Mitch

    Please do not give up on your dreams. As the last comment will remind you. You are increasing your income.

    I always love this quote
    “Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.
    George Edward Woodberry ”

    Good luck

    Sera
    .-= Sera@Repair Credit Online´s last blog ..Avoiding Credit Card Debt – Try These Two Options =-.

    1. Hi Sera,

      I’m not giving up, but truthfully my income hasn’t gone up. Yeah, it did go up from December’s income, but it’s been pretty much the average over the last year, which is why I’m saying I want to start showing some real growth.

  8. Hey Mitch, unfortunately I don’t have much to add but I wanted to say that I wish you all the best in hitting your $500 a month target (at least you have a goal in mind).

    To your success,

    Karl

  9. Me too Mitch,

    All the best in your way to the 500 mark!!
    Be sure to announce it and hope it will be very soon.

    Best regards,
    Charleston
    .-= Charleston´s last blog ..How to Password Protect and Encrypt a File in USB Drive =-.

  10. Hi, I am new to your blog. I have to say posting your earnings is encouraging to newcomers even if it seems small. Some people try to work online and don’t come close to their first $100. It isn’t that really hard to earn with adsense and you really don’t need a lot of sites. You can build 5 sites and get them to making lets say $5 each a day. Quantity doesn’t always win. Anyway looking forward to future post and wishing you success.
    .-= meka@ earn money online´s last blog ..Is Earning Money Online Distracting You From Earning Money Online? =-.

    1. Thanks Meka. I’ve actually been posting this number monthly for at least a year and a half. It went up, then it’s stagnated after dropping a bit. True, $100 a month is okay when you’ve made nothing, but I’ve been at this figure long enough for it to not matter anymore. Time to force myself to become better.

  11. There are two important things about earning money with Adsense.

    The first is targeted buying traffic and the easiest way for most people to do that is by creating a lot of smaller, targeted, sites rather than building a few mega-sites. However, some people have a knack for building a larger site that is a good fit for Adsense.

    The second is proper keyword selection. You need to make sure that Google’s advertisers pay well for the quality clicks you send them. For example, one of my Adsense sites in a professional services niche regularly get $4-6 per click. That’s better than getting the 1-5 cent clicks you’ll get in many niches. Even a couple of clicks a day will earn around $300 a month.

    In your comment above you mentioned a concern about adding content to attract search engine attention. Actually, you don’t have to do this in many niches, especially less competitive ones. One of my biggest earning sites hasn’t had any new content added since 2007 but it gets between 800-1200 unique visitors a day, slightly more than when I stopped adding content.
    .-= Frank C´s last blog ..Earn Online Cash with .Info Domains =-.

    1. Hi Frank,

      First, love the parrot!

      Second, my medical billing site often pays pretty well off only a couple of clicks, but nowhere near $6 per click. The thing is that it’s still pretty much a crap shoot in trying to figure out which topics will niche well enough to make good money, let alone draw visitors on a consistent basis. And it also takes multiple sites Just asking, but what percentage of your sites makes $6 a click? Also, you mentioned unique visitors; is that Google’s number or your ISP’s number?

      Thanks for sharing; I love seeing when others do well.

      1. I noticed you have a blue & gold too. They’re fun birds but they’re a lot of work also.

        It is a crap shoot to figure out which keywords will work well so far as payouts and traffic go, at least at first. Once you get the hang of it you can identify winners with more accuracy.

        I usually go for over $1 a click as a target, usually determined by taking the value shown in the Adwords External Tool and dividing it by 5. Almost all my sites get over that per click. Services like medical billing tend to be the best choice when going for higher paying clicks. Also, as a site ages and provided it converts well for advertisers the price you get per click will rise.

        For stats, I use StatCounter most of the time.
        .-= Frank C´s last blog ..Earn Online Cash with .Info Domains =-.

      2. I see; thanks for the info. My medical billing site converts well when I get clicks, I must say, but it’s the only one. But you also use Adwords tool; are you running Adwords also?

      3. I use Adwords for some product sites I have but not for Adsense sites. They depend entirely on SEO.

    1. Thanks Ned. I figure that the next time I write one of these posts, people will know that I actually made something substantial, which won’t depress me one bit.

  13. Adsense is not the best way to make money online. Go to the Warrior Forum and start reading. Lots of good free info there.

    1. I’m a member of Warrior Forum, but I admit that I go to most of these things infrequently. I need more time!

    2. I understand. I don’t have near enough time in the day and I don’t do much and am an insomniac. I’m trying to learn to do IM and I could likely spend all day for many days on the WF learning and yet never get anything done.

      Question, why does it keep saying bad juju under the Add Comment box everytime for me?

      1. I use CommentLuv, and if you don’t have a blog where it can add a previous post, it’ll say something like that every once in awhile, or just totally ignore your web link. Don’t worry about it.

Comments are closed.