MyBlogEarnings For May 2007
End of the month and time for another MyBlogEarnings report. As previously promised, I will keep producing these reports as judging by the feedback on previous reports, a lot of readers have found them useful. Writing the reports has also proven useful for me, as the comments left have given me a lot of new ideas and things to try out.
If you are looking for some quick tips on generating more income from your site then check out my Guide To Making Money Online With Blogging.
So, how did May go? Well, I did a very poor job of delivering against the tasks I set myself last month. Here’s a quick recap of last months actions:
- Implement direct sales plan
For the second month running this didn’t get off the ground. I think one of the problems of being your own boss, is there is no-one to chase you on tasks. I’m determined to do implement this plan in July. I think what I’m going to do is get someone to nag me everyday until I do.
- Concentrate on building traffic and improving Alexa Rank
After slacking off a bit in March and April on my posts, I had a lot of fun posting in May. I also had some additional motivation to try and grow the blog audience, as I ordered a new car in May, which arrives in September. As I mentioned last month I’d already hit my budgeted target of $6k/pm last month, so I set myself a new target of increasing my income enough by September to cover the lease cost of the new car.
The Connected Internet team also added a few new members, and I’ve really enjoyed reading the teams’ posts and work. Working as a team has been a lot of fun, and I’ve also enjoyed coaching the guys and hopefully it will help them improve their personal sites.
- Directory Moved From PR0 To PR5 - Sell Links?
I had no joy selling links via Text Link Ads in the directory in May. This might however change in June as there is now a fee to get a non-reciprocal link, although reciprocal links are still free.
- Chase Intellitxt
My two blogging partners, Martin and Mikael, finally got their contracts and Martin is live and doing quite well, but Mikael isn’t quite there yet.
- Evaluating new ad scheme - approached directly
I tried out Tumri, which is similar to Chitika, for a few days after they approached me directly. I had a lot of problems getting the store live, and even when I did I was only making a few cents per day. Their code was also loading really slowly so I pulled them.
- Continue to optimise TLA sales
Went reasonably well, although I did something very stupid which I think led to some advertisers leaving - see more later.
Continue Reading This Post:12
Bookmark & Share
Comment by Everton on 24 June 2007:
That probably explains why I got another email saying that I’d now been accepted at the rate I set!
Comment by spankford on 24 June 2007:
I think Intellitxt ads look great compared to Kontera. They just seem like the Ferrari of those type of ads.
The pricing issue happened to me as well. They’ll let you price it how you want, but they first try to make sure you set it where you will make the most sales. TLA just gives you a price which I think is only negotiable if you make them a lot of money where LW will let you set a price but give suggestions if necessary. I also was talking to someone over there about this wordpress beta thing and told them about your site. I said you had a great site and it would be good for them to help you out.
They are good about helping people, I just hope they don’t make me look bad now.
Comment by Everton on 22 June 2007:
I was going to try Kontera to see how they performed against intellitxt, but I changed my mind as I didn’t like the fact that their links look like normal links. I’m also very happy with my intellitxt performance, so I didn’t bother.
I took your advice and applied for linkworth. I set the same prices as my TLA ads and they sent me an email saying my links were overpriced……
Comment by spankford on 22 June 2007:
Have you tried kontera? They’re along the same line as intellitxt. They also show yahoo ads through their network but they accept a lot of people and are a little excessive on how many ads they show.
Thanks for the reply. I’m going to try moving adsense around to see if I can improve clickthru’s.
Comment by Everton on 21 June 2007:
@spankford
Yes, I think it’s the placement. I also think I’ve been lucky in that my most popular posts get good ads (I think).
I’ve never come across linkworth before - will take a look over the weekend.
I think intellitxt are protective because they run ads from the Yahoo network, and all sites have to be approved by Yahoo, hence the high bar to keep Yahoo happy.
Comment by Spankford on 21 June 2007:
Hi Everton,
Man it’s so crazy to see someone doing so well with AdSense! That’s really awesome to see and it’s a definite positive to see. Do you think it’s the placement of your ads?
On the TLA thing, have you ever tried http://www.linkworth.com? I run both on my site and have a few more advertisers from LW, but they actually payout 70% so the money I make is quite a bit more even though the number of ads are close to the same.
I don’t think intellitxt is something feasible for most blogs. I contacted them last year and they wanted proof of certain numbers, in other words, the big busy sites. Most don’t fall in there, which seems like they’re missing a big market. Linkworth eventually offered the same type of product, so I have their intellitxt type ads on my site and do ok.
I’m just amazed at your AdSense. A HUGE congrats. I love seeing bloggers doing so well. Gives the rest of us hope.