Income Report – October 2011

Before I get into this month’s income I want to address one thing that I’ll continue to address each month as a reminder to myself and to others reading this blog.

I hope that all of you can easily recognize the picture to the right.  However, just in case you can’t it’s a picture of Rocky doing his famous one-handed push-ups with Mick (his trainer) watching.  This picture (or a similar one) is going to be in every single income report that I publish for one single reason:

In order to be successful in life you have to work hard.

Keep that in mind every time you read one of my income reports or even create one of your own.  Hard work pays off.

I want everyone to see the journey I’ve taken online, so I’m going to take a few minutes and show you a brief summary of my income reports since Day 1.

Income Report – July 2011

I created my first site on July 17, 2011.  It was originally a personal finance site (as that is one of my passions) that was aimed at people just graduating from college.  At this time I didn’t have a very good handle on monetizing a site and thought that if I wrote an eBook and created a blog I would instantly get sales.  Well, obviously that’s now how things work…

If you were curious what the site looked like you can check it out here, but no making fun of me!

Income Breakdown

eBook: ~ $9

JULY 2011 TOTAL: $9

• Last Month: N/A
• Difference: N/A

Lessons Learned

• Creating a website and letting it sit there is not going to get you anywhere.
• Don’t start a blog about a topic you don’t want to continue writing for long term.

Income Report August 2011

August was a pretty crazy month.  I spent most of my time on the Warrior Forum (big mistake) and I finally figured out what the Google Adwords Keywords Tool (GAKT) was.  I also figured out what a “keyword” was.  Don’t laugh.

Since I knew what a keyword was, and I had the only keyword research tool I knew of (GAKT), how could I go wrong?   I created 5 niche sites!  I actually still have one of them active today, though it makes about $1/month.

At this point I also still had the Missing HOW up and running, though I wasn’t posting anywhere near as much.  However, I also stumbled onto Google Adsense and applied via the Missing HOW.  Surprisingly I was approved in about 3 days, at which point I put a couple banner ads (I think I used 480×60) on my site.

Income Breakdown

eBook: $0

Adsense: $2.45

AUGUST 2011 TOTAL:

• Last Month: $9
• Difference: ($6.55)

Lessons Learned

• The “competition” bar on GAKT (which now says low, medium, high) does not measure competition against other sites…it measures ad competition.

Income Report September 2011

I’m not sure why, but suddenly things finally clicked.  Keyword research started making sense in my mind, seed keywords were becoming easier to find, and setting up WordPress was eazy peezy lemon squeezy.

Major Mistakes

But, and this is a big one…I made some major mistakes this month that I didn’t realize.  I created a total of 19 sites this month.  8 of the 19 sites I no longer have.  Why?  Because I violated copyright and trademark regulations.  How? By putting the name of (major) companies in the domain.  For instance, www.nikereviews.com (that is just an example).

Luckily I did not receive a cease and desist letter…yet.  I ended up keeping 2 additional sites and redirecting (301) to other domain names.  However, I do not recommend anyone do this.  I am doing this at my own risk, and it may end up biting me in the end.  Only time will tell.

In addition, of those 19 sites about 5 are Made for Adsense (MFA) sites, which I still have up.  They do not in any way break Adsense TOS, however, they are going to be very susceptible to any algorithm changes.  They’re thin sites, around 10-15 pages and I haven’t touched them since.  They’re currently making a very good portion of my income, but I am veering away from these types of sites.

Income Breakdown

Adsense: $196.89

SEPTEMBER 2011 TOTAL: $196.89

• Last Month: $2.45
• Difference: $194.44

Lessons Learned

• If you spend time doing great keyword research, you won’t have to spend time building links.  I have done nothing but social bookmarking to date.
• Do not, I repeat, do not infringe upon copyrights or trademarks.  Take an hour right now and read about Digital Media Copyright Act (DMCA).
• Short term, thin MFA sites may work, long term, unlikely.  Create quality, nothing but quality.

Income Report October 2011

I discovered Amazon Associates last month, but was too intimidated to try building a site around a product.  I just didn’t quite understand the concept, until a friend of mine showed me this site: http://bike198.com/

I thought to myself, now that is a high quality site that incorporates product reviews along with other information related to the niche that is EXTREMELY HELPFUL.  I can do that.  And so I did.  I created my first Amazon site (actually I created 5) and ended up making nearly $25.  Needless to say I’m pretty dang excited about Amazon Associates.

In addition to Amazon I continued making a few more sites monetized with Adsense, a total of 4 new sites.  The great thing about these sites is they’re on laser targeted markets.  While the sites may be “thin” (only 10 pages or so), they fully exhaust every aspect of the niche.  I targeted specific niches that I had a hunch would get great click through rates, and I think that hunch is going to end up proving correct.  The sites were fairly easy to rank as well, which was another great thing.

While I’ve been doing well with smaller Adsense sites, I’m pretty much done with them.  Some of them, in my mind, are very high quality and fully answer the question that people will be searching for.  But the problem is, they just aren’t fun to create.  In fact, they’re horrible to create.  I don’t quite make enough to outsource everything, but even if I did the idea of making a site about “how to clean air filters” (just an example) isn’t exactly enticing.  From here on out I’ll be focusing on larger Adsense sites about my interests and Amazon sites

You’ll also notice below that I picked up my first client.  This will more than likely be a one time thing, but I got paid $110 to set up a site.  It took me maybe 3-4 hours to do what he wanted.  That was a one time payment though and it is unlikely I’ll be pursuing this in the future, though good to know it’s an option.

The Keyword Academy

After reading nothing but positive things about The Keyword Academy, I decided to give it a try as they have a one month free trial.  I’ll be doing a full review later, because they have been amazing.  Everyone goes on and on about all the great SEO tools they offer or used to offer, and their private blog network (Post Runner), but I’m hooked on the Webinars.  More to come later.

Income Breakdown

Adsense: $562.21

Amazon: $24.62

Clients: $110

OCTOBER 2011 TOTAL: $696.83

• Last Month: $196.89
• Difference: $499.94

Lessons Learned

• Look into additional ways to monetize sites (Amazon, Adsense, Click Bank, Commission Junction, eBooks, other product creation, etc.)

Summary

That was pretty painful to backtrack through and write.  From here on out I’ll be posting an income report each month.  The only reason I went back and summarized everything since I began was for you guys.  Hope you enjoyed it.

Your Thoughts

I would love to hear any thoughts you have or even any questions.  Feel free to leave a comment below, or if you’d rather not leave a comment you can contact me.  Thanks!