Wow, that month went fast. I still haven’t managed to do much work but I’ve had a great comeback after a terrible month in December. My earnings came in at $2207, more than double what I earned last month which is a huge relief considering my super expensive decision to head to Australia for a wedding at the end of February.
Earnings Breakdown:
- Google Adsense – $382 - This seems to happen every January… the number of visits to my sites jumps up and Adsense earnings rise as a result. After a terrible month in December it’s really encouraging to see things are back to normal with Adsense. I’m expecting Adsense to rise as I start to get more visitors to my new city guide sites.
- Affiliate Sales – $723 - My big earner hasn’t been doing as well lately but not all is lost because a few other affiliate programs have been doing well. I’ve got a few affiliates on Clixgalore who have earned me over $150 this month plus a few t-shirt sales from my Waitangi Day site and some other bits and pieces. I really want to diversify so this month has been encouraging in this respect.
- Linkworth – $23 - I could have sworn they cancelled my one remaining link but when I went to take it down, they emailed me to put it back up. So maybe it’s cancelled for February or maybe it’s not cancelled at all. Either way, it doesn’t ear much so no big deal.
- Private Link Sales – $1055 - After earning a measly $30 in this area last month, January has been a great comeback. Most of it is due to an $875 renewal for a yearly link. Most of my link renewals actually cancelled due to a loss in PR so it will be interesting to see how this category fares in the future.
- Writing – $21 - I will be writing two articles per month over on another blog and am being paid for it which is pretty sweet. This month I only wrote one so my earnings from this will be around $40 per month, depending on the UK exchange rate. Not a huge amount but every bit counts!
The weak British pound and Australian dollar have had a negative effect on my earnings so I’m hoping they get their act together soon.
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My earnings also doubled in Jan compared to Dec.
One good thing about the strong US$ is that Adsense eanrings have gone up when converted to £.
It does make a difference though when you travel with a weak currency, for that reason alone I am happy to be back in the chilly UK!
I am loving the weak A$ when I translate my US$ earnings
exchange rates are so much fun LOL Webby is right though – the only place where the exchange rate looks good is Vietnam and Indonesia
At least most of my business expenses are also in US$ so I insulated from the fluctuations!
A t shirt site? How many websites are you running now btw? 10? 12?
Private link sales represent a big chunk of my earnings and im hoping my new websites will get me more adsense and affliate sales. I have one site with adsense now and it brings in $50 per month.
Are you not worried that 40% of last months income was generated by a single link sale? I know I would.
Exchange rates drive me crazy, mainly because I can’t be bothered to pay attention to them and I sometimes get screwed over.
Matt I’ve got about 10 sites I think. That’s great you’ve started to earn from your sites. Once you see it’s possible, it’s a big motivator.
Weltreise… yep!
I understand your scenario what happened i the last 2 months but you should have patience and from the next months income will start coming ……………by by God bless.
Hi Kirsty,
just curious: can you tell how your Google income splits between keyword targeted ads and website placement ads? I’m asking because I see a trend on my main site. Several travel portals (particularly one that sells package tours) are running _massive_ placement campaigns, maybe due to the weak economy. The ads are not very well targeted for my audience, which is just great: I tweaked the color settings to make them less obtrusive, so at an extremely low CTR (read: visitors staying on my site) I get a nice, steady flow of income at record levels. Fun.
A year ago or so I noticed the first advertisers running placements campaigns on my site, and at the time I decided to ban them because the ads were not targeted and I wanted to give my audience the best possible experience. To make it worse, the eCPM was horible. A couple of months ago I decided to just let them stay and see what happens, and this came out of it. Apparently when you get your first placement your Google income will drop. But with more advertisers discovering your site the competition builds up and eCPM will increase in the long run.
very nice really you are the computer savvy in the earning money you last three months i am trying to earn money through my blog till today i have only one google ad sense on my site.