MyBlogEarnings For September 2007

One of my work colleagues asked me today if my readers liked me posting my site earnings. I said that I think so, as I think it gives them ideas for increasing their own earnings.

If you’re new to the blog my old MyBlogEarnings reports are available, as well as my Guide To Making Money Online With Blogging. The guide is worth checking every month or so, as I update it every couple of weeks or so.

I also find it useful to write a monthly report as it helps me prepare for the next month by making me stop and take stock of what was successful and what wasn’t in the previous month, which helps me set targets for the next month.

I was expecting that September would be a good month after the hard summer months, and I worked really hard for the first two weeks of the month to try and ensure a bumper month.

Earnings Report For September 2007

Note: Figures for last month are in brackets.

• Google Adsense: $4,370 ($4,120)
• Direct Ad Sales: $4,080 ($2,245)
• Intellitxt: $1,589 ($1,135)
• Text-Link-Ads: $1,538 ($1,583)
• Tribal Fusion: $959 ($740)
  
• ReviewMe: $280 ($150)
• Linkworth: $168 ($168)
• Feedburner FAN: $117 ($101)
• TNX $94 ($0)
• Text Link Brokers $30 ($0)
• CashCrate: $20 ($150)
• Blogads: $9 ($1)
• Chitika: $0 ($2)

Grand Total: $13,253 ($10,394)

For two months running I’ve set new records for both earnings (up 31%) and traffic (up 19%). I’m still finding it hard to take in that what started out as a part-time hobby is now generating more than enough for me to live off. I remember thinking how amazing it was to earn $2k in January, after making approx $300-400 per month for the previous six months. The site is now making nearly 7 times as much – if I can generate that level of growth over the next 6 months, then I will definitely be quitting my day job!!

I really think that going full-time is starting to become a reality as I’m fairly certain that I can close the gap between what I make on the blog and my day job, and maybe even the gap between what I’m earning currently from both the blog and my day job, if I went full-time. Not only would going full-time enable me to put more effort into Connected Internet, it would also give me the time to work on a few other projects I’ve been thinking about.

Successes For The Month

Direct Ad Sales

As I stated last month, I believe that direct ad sales is definitely one of the best options for improving the degree of monetisation. Google Adsense, Intellitxt, Tribal Fusion etc can of course deliver more cash, but they are dependant on traffic growth.

Amazingly, I’ve managed to generate the sales from direct approaches- I’ve never contacted anyone offering to place advertising. The Advertising page and the Reviews category which pulls together all the reviews I’ve written seem to be doing their job.

However, I think that to further grow revenues I need to start approaching companies directly. Unfortunately I don’t have the time, so I’m looking to recruit a Sales Manager. If you are interested in the role, then please drop me a line.

Adsense

Although my average CPM fell again during the month, I still think that overall this site will ‘win’ in the long run due to the traffic growth over the last month. My strategy of recruiting guest authors has been one of the factors behind the traffic growth. Although I’m losing money at the moment because I’m paying for the fantastic posts, I really think that the efforts of the guest authors in time will help push this site to the next level.

TNX

I have very high hopes for TNX. If you haven’t come across TNX yet I highly recommend you check them out. I only added TNX’s code to my site for less than one week, yet I still made $94 – and that doesn’t include any income from my referrals. Definitely one to watch.

Disappointments For The Month

CashCrate

I fully intended to push CashCrate hard as my first foray into the world of affilate marketing, but after seeing how many spam emails I received from the offers I’d signed up for personally, I decided that I couldn’t ethically promote CashCrate to my users.

New Theme

I was hoping to release my new theme last month, which I think will really make this site stand out and also improve the level of monetisation. Unfortunately the first designer I appointed was useless and I had to fire him. I think this has actually worked to my advantage though as my new designer is much better, and the feedback that I’ve received from the rest of the team and a few trusted friends has been very good so far. I’m hoping I’ll be able to share the next mockup with all readers.

Plans For Next Month

September’s going to be a hard month to beat, particularly as I’ve got a lot going at work and in my personal life this month. My main goals for October will be:

• To try and maintain a regular posting pattern despite all the other distractions
• Keep the Editorial team energised and also try and recruit 1-2 more editors
• Finish the new theme and de-bug it
• Try and recruit a sales manager

Competition Winner!!!

The occasional competitions I run to guess my earnings are by far the most popular. I tried to limit the number of entries this time by limiting the number of entries per person to 20, but the first comment ruined my plan by posting all 20 entries in one comment!

Any congratulations to faizal who had the closest guess with $13,289 – $100 will be winging it’s way over to him shortly.

I hope that the amount of information I have shared here will encourage you to do the same (An alternative way is to tag your post ‘MyBlogEarnings‘ so that your details can be found easily on Technorati), or provide you with food for thought. The more info we share with each other, the more we will all hopefully make.

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.

Related Posts

• MyBlogEarnings For October 2007
• MyBlogEarnings For November 2007
• MyBlogEarnings For August 2007
• MyBlogEarnings For July 2007
• MyBlogEarnings For June 2007
• MyBlogEarnings For April 2007
• MyBlogEarnings For December 2007

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