Wednesday, October 11th, 2006...2:47 pm by Leroy Brown
September 2006 Earnings breakdown
Though almost embarrassingly late due to unforeseen complications, here is my earnings update for September 2006. Last month wasn’t particularly strong in overall blog earnings for me. Overall revenue was down 18% from August 2006 – not a positive sign. The reasons? I’m having trouble pinpointing exactly what’s gone wrong. One of my blogs skyrocketing in traffic and revenue, while another plummeted in traffic, revenue, and average ad value. The rest were pretty much flat across the board. Unfortunately, it was my most successful site which took a nosedive, thus the overall drop in revenue.
Looking at the chart, you’ll notice that Chitika is gone – I don’t make any significant income from Chitika anymore, so I don’t feel the need to include them on the chart. I’m down to just 2 profit sources – I definitely need to diversify to help minimize my risk. Text Link Ads increased it’s percentage of my revenue, from 13% last month to 17% this month. This is partially due to the fact that my TLA revenue went up, but also because Adsense revenue dropped.
Ok, so the facts are out of the way. Now, what am I going to do to make sure that I don’t have the same poor results in October? Well, for starters, I’ve begun to dabble in a few affiliate programs that piqued my interest. I’m working on developing ways to promote them so I can diversify a little bit. I hate having all my eggs in 2 baskets – it just makes me nervous. Next, I’m going to focus a little bit more on my two most profitable sites, and decrease the number of posts on my less profitable sites. After all, I am in this to earn some money, and hopefully go full-time one day. You don’t get there by wasting time on unprofitable things.
That about wraps up this post – how did your September go?
5 Comments
October 13th, 2006 at 4:36 am
I’m curious about your other ventures. I only know about two of your blogs, including this one. Care to divulge any more? I understand if you don’t, but I’m looking at diversifying a little myself and I’m looking for ideas. Feel free to email me if you’d rather discuss privately…
October 13th, 2006 at 9:13 am
Ray,
My two biggest moneymakers for the time being I’d like to keep hush-hush. I think I got lucky and capitalized on a market that few know about, and even one determined competitor could cost me a bundle. Call me paranoid or crazy but I’d sleep better if that one was a secret.
On another front, I have finally begun experimenting with affiliate programs on a bigger scale than before. Previously I thought they were too much work, but I think there’s a lot of potential if done properly. I’ve just started, but made a few bucks already. I’m sure I’ll lose a bunch too, but it’s all in the name of learning. Hopefully that experiment will end up well into the black.
October 13th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
That’s cool. I’ve been thinking more and more about the affiliate stuff, too. I know I need to be patient, but I’ve also got to find time to capitalize on some of my ideas. Just a little piece of the pie will be fine with me –for now.
I’m glad to hear you’re making some money. It’s become clear to me lately that it’s really possible to make money on the internet. There are plenty of people out there without a whole lot of intelligence or talent who are making hundreds and even thousands a month. We should be able to make a living off this stuff, given a little time.
October 14th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
That’s a good point – there are a lot of dumb people making money online, why not me? Like so many other would-be millionares, my problem is time. I have precious little time to spend on this; and not enough time to experiment. All the theories and principals make sense in my head, but I haven’t the time to put them to the test.
Can’t give up though; I can’t see myself working at my current job in 5 years. The pay is great, but the stress is ridiculous and getting worse by the day.
October 15th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
Yep. I have the same problem. I think if I could take a couple of weeks off work and just hole up in a room somewhere (well-stocked with coffee and alcohol, of course), I could get some research done and implement a few things that could make me enough to live off of.
As it is, I barely have time to keep my blog running now. I think the key is to focus as completely as possible on one thing at a time. I’ve been digging a lot and I’ve found a couple of things that clearly could make a decent amount of money, but there’s a learning curve to climb first.
It’s actually kind of exciting discovering these things, but you have to make yourself stay on one thing long enough to do something with it.
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