January was an excellent month with earnings coming in at $4898. It’s a great start to the year and an improvement on what was already an excellent December so I’m excited to see if this trend of plus $4000 months continues. January has always been a good month for me for whatever reason so it was nice to see that trend continue.
Earnings Breakdown:
- Adsense – $517 - Yay! I’ve finally cleared the $500 mark with Adsense after months and months of frustration. Unfortunately I don’t think it was because of anything I did… I think it was because people were paying more per click for ads relevant to my sites which led to higher earnings. My click through rate and number of visitors were largely the same as always.
- Affiliate sales – $777 - Travel insurance comes through again. It’s been a pretty steady earner for me but I’d like to push things above the $1000 mark steadily. I’ve got no plan up my sleeve to achieve this but it’s on my mind.
- Advertising – $3566 - I had a bunch of renewals this month and a flurry of new ads towards the end of the month. I’ve got a lot of different advertisers and SEO companies on board now and many seem to come back to me with new partners they need to find ad spots for, which is pretty great for me! I guess as time rolls on, this will continue to grow which means lots of contacts which is good for business.
- Ebook Sales – $35 - Blah.
Spending Breakdown:
I spent $1168 this month, mainly on outsourcing for articles with a hefty chunk thrown in for content for my Africa site that’s on the horizon. This site will start to become something I spend more regularly on as I start to get things going. I also outsourced a custom install for a forum which was money well spent.
- Domain Renewal – $7 - Just what it says.
- Content Outsourcing – $300 - I’m starting to pull together country guides for my Africa site which will be a costly but, hopefully, rewarding investment.
- Link Building Services – $206 - These are the monthly fees for two link building sites I’m using.
- Article Outsourcing – $430 - All of this money went towards articles for link building.
- Coding Outsourcing – $220 - I had the guy who designed the miniBB message board install and customise it on my Kigali website. I decided to go this route to save me time and to get things exactly how I want them. It makes sense also because I’ll have him install it to my Africa site when that’s ready but, since I’ve had all the tweaks done for the Kigali site, the next install will cost a lot less but will still be exactly what I want.
- Ebook – $5 - Monthly cost to sell my ebook.
I’m really pleased with January coming in at almost $5000. It was a surprise for sure but I, once again, had advertisers coming at me out of nowhere. I spent a lot this month but will tone things down in February, I think. I can’t keep spending so much if I want to pad my savings a bit. I have a lot of expensive plans in my future including short trips to Haiti and Norway. Unfortunately, as much as I love Kigali, it’s not the cheapest place in the world to fly from!
February doesn’t have many link renewals lined up so I’m nervous of what the month could have in store for me. I’ll try to keep my spending on website stuff to under $700 and hopefully February will surprise me.
Wow another great month and congrats on breaking $500 with adsense, a good friend suggested I started adding amonthly report on my site like you so I’m a little more acountable each mont, so the first is up on minimuwifi.com
@neale Ya I actually read your report a few days ago. Nice addition! I love reading updates from other people doing a similar thing to me. It’s a great way to keep inspired.
Hey Kirsty with the article outsourcing do you give a title and have them write about it or just a broader topic and let them come up with it all?
@dan I hate article writing a ridiculous amount so I do as little as possible. I set up links and anchor text and then when I need a new article I just choose how many of each link I want. They use the anchor text to write the article and that’s about all I do. I think on one of them I also have the choice to use the anchor text in the title but it’s just a matter of checking a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ box.
Hi- I know this is a really werid comment but I’m a Peace Corps volunteer living and serving in Moldova. Currently, my organization ( which runs an orphanage )is looking for someone to come and run a series of day camps this summer for children we serve. The camps would run from June 6th until August 26th. If you can pay for yourself to travel here, you can live/eat for free in rural Moldova. Its kind of a unique opportunity to live like you are in the Peace Corps but for only a three month stint.
We are preferably looking for someone who is fluent in Romanian (…its a long shot I know) because then we can give them complete control over the day camps. But if someone is willing to come who doesn’t speak Romanian, we could possibly work something out where they are a day camp assistant.
We just really need some type of support because the economic situation here is forcing a majority of our staff to leave for other countries to earn an income to support themselves and their families. So, I’m not sure if you have a listserve or would know of anyone who would be interested in this type of thing. But I just figured since you wrote a book on international volunteering you might know of some place I could advertise this opportunity. Thanks in advance for any information you can give me!
Kirsty, you are a huge motivation and a great model for how its done. I have something big on the horizon that I have been developing for some time in addition to all of my little experimental sites. If it works, it is totally due to your influence. (I will keep you posted when I am closer to getting things live)
Wow keep up the great work Kirsty. This definitely is great motivation for us all. I miss the days of making that much money from my business. So I’m really going to have to put in more time.
For your article outsourcing do you just use the services offered within your link building networks? If so, you might be overpaying a bit. Depending on the article length and quality needed, I usually pay $5-10 per article.
Hi Kristy,
seems like you are really rocking with the advertisements, I;m very curious about your experiences with this. Which sites attract advertisers and what are the best sectors that pay the most?
you need an affiliate program for your book!!!
Nice job Kirsty – it seems you’ve made it. I hope the good times continue to roll for you. More than the money side of it, I enjoy hearing about your new-found contentment in Kigali. That must be a really great feeling to find a place that “fits” you so well. How do you manage not to get homesick for family and friends back home? And, have you had anyone from home visit you?
Any more thoughts about buying some land?
wow ! you have kept record of everything. You don’t need to hire any accountant. Lovely work done, i “ll also try to be such clean worker. I like things accurate but don’t have time to make them perfect, so everything goes here and there.
Good job on advertising! I remember you’ve posted on the subject of finding people to advertise somewhere but can’t find it. Where is it please?
Hi Kirsty, I’m going to feature your ebook and blog on my site and also put some other information about volunteering. I hope it works and you might get some more sales for your wonderful book. I think it’s excellent.
Ruth
Excellent earnings, Kirsty! Congrats on crossing $500 with Adsense. Looking forward very much to your new Africa site. I’m sure it will be an excellent one.
Kirsty, Love the blog. Quick question. When you first started, did you contact advertisers yourself or did you let them come to you? I am trying to contact advertisers for my travel site and I am having trouble. They are very rude actually, I do not even get an email back. I keep emailing but no answers. They could at least email me back saying they are not interested. Please let me know the secret sauce. Thanks!
John
Congrats kristy, You did a great job, i am doing the same and it will take some time to reach the handsome income through my blogs..
Keep Sharing ….
jacob lee
Hi Kirsty, congratulation for your earning! Having fun with traveling around the world and get passive income earning!
Great to see you finally break the 500 marker that you set on Adsense, i am sure we will see higher numbers from you in 2011 in that aspect of your income statement!
-Jean
Congrats on reaching that adsense mark . it took me quite some time to reach there , but after that there was no looking back …
Sourish
but i dont see any adsense on this site , is there some other sites in your network where you use it
where do you outsource your stuf ?? odesk , vworker