Oct 02 2007
September Earnings Update
September has topped August by just over $100 as my best month to date. My earnings came in at $1385.28 but not because of anything new I’ve tried. I think I’ve sort of neglected things a bit this month, actually.
Here’s my earnings breakdown:
- Google Adsense - $288.90 - This was my best month ever and for awhile there I thought I was going to make it to the $10 a day mark. I’m working on a site at the moment and once that’s done I expect to be earning well over $300 a month.
- Affiliate Sales - $667.32 - This was lower than I was hoping for but I’m still counting on one main affiliate program and until I can find others then I think I’ll be floating around this amount. What have I done about finding more programs? Not a thing! I’ve got to fix that.
- Linkworth & Text Link Ads - $77.06 - Linkworth only accounted for $8.40 but it’s nice to see them come back from the dead, even if it’s only one link. TLA have been steady but still no word about getting Stuck in London accepted into the program. I think it’s because it’s only a PR2.
- Private Link Sales - $332 - I had 5 out of 6 links renew for a total of $92. Getting renewals is pretty easy. My PR has since fallen from 5 to 4 but I’ve only ever had one person ask for a reduced price because of it. Getting a renewal is as easy as sending a friendly reminder email. A bit of work and I have to keep track of them but all up it’s no big deal. I was approached out of the blue from a company wanting to buy two links for $90/year on Travoholic.com’s main page. I got them up to $120/year per link so that was an easy $240 out of the blue.
- Writing - $20 - I was lazy this month and only wrote one article for my pals over at Brave New Traveler. The extra money is nice but it’s not how I expect to make my living online by any means. I’m all about residual income and making money in my sleep so writing will be something I do on the side because I enjoy it.
So all up, not only am I pleased with this month but I’m pretty amazed too. I’ve been working hard, but almost exclusively on a site that still isn’t finished. So it feels like all of my efforts are getting sucked into some black hole and until this site is launched I won’t get rewarded. So I definitely wasn’t expecting to have my best month!
A big part of this month’s success was those links I sold for $240. If they hadn’t come along it would have been just an average earnings report. It seems like I always have at least one or two nice surprises like this each month. Things just seem to pop out of nowhere right into my lap. I’ve got another sale supposedly lined up for $180 next month so if that goes through then I’ll be off to a good start.
My goals for October are to maintain this level of earnings and to get this friggin’ new site up because I’m sick of looking at it. I’ll be up in Scotland for 10 days for a wedding and some family time and I’m really curious to see if I’ll be able to sneak in any work… or if I’ll want to. It’s the first road trip for the new (used) laptop too so hopefully it doesn’t explode or anything.
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I've been travelling since January 2008 living off earnings from the web. Follow me as I bum around Asia and beyond, getting up to mischief and working online as I go. 
Hey congratulations Kirsty! Glad to hear that things are going well. This new earnings high may also help address your prior post about maintaining the initiative to work when you are traveling - see how high it can go.
Your’re a great inspiration Kirsty! Seeing real life numbers like these are very motivating.
Congratulations!, I earned $44.57 last month.
Well done Kirsty, I have found over the last two years that when I neglect my sites my earnings tend to go up! Makes absolutely no sense but I guess you are being rewarded for all your hard work and weekends at the PC!
I just started my blog a little over a month ago. Started from scratch, that is, not knowing anything about how to make the $$. Last month I made about $5 from adsense. I guess for the first month not bad. Still learning and spending lots of time researching. All will come in time. I have 2 blogs but see the potential for another blog concerning Trier Germany.
thanks for the ‘fo Kirsty
Impressive numbers, thanks for sharing! For those of us with relatively new blogs who aspire to reach such income goals, would you mind providing a little more detail about how you got to this point? If it’s not being to intrusive, perhaps you could address the following…
How many blogs do you publish/maintain that carry advertising?
How old (or new) are these blogs?
What type of traffic numbers do they have?
Through what Affiliate programs are you making sales? Just Amazon? CommissionJunction? Other(s)?
Why don’t you advertise on this site?
Hope I’m not being to nosy … maybe this would make a good topic for a new post! Thanks again.
Thanks all! This time last year I was still only raking in $100/month with Adsense and about $5/month with a hostel affiliate program so keep at it everyone.
Steve the funny thing is that I’m not really motivated when I earn more. I look at it more as good luck and things falling into place for that current month. When I see the earnings maintained the following month that’s when I start to see that things are getting steady and might get a bit more motivated.
Jonbeme $5 for your first month is actually pretty good, believe it or not. It’s taken me years to get to the point I’m at now and it’s all about building gradually, especially with Adsense. I think city guide type sites are good choices so get that Trier one up as soon as possible and hopefully you’ll see a jump in earnings.
Jim this is my only blog (the rest are standard websites) and I don’t have ads because I’m sick of seeing them. Your other questions are all already addressed in the earlier posts on this site. I’ve got three main sites and another 3 or 4 niche sites. The 3 main sites get about 350 visits per day between them and the others get about 20-30 each but jump up at different times of the year. My oldest site, Travoholic.com was started in 2001 I think and the rest are one to two years old. Hope that helps! Have a look at older posts for more info.
It helps indeed. Keep up the good work! Thanks again.