September turned out to be a decent month despite me not selling any new text links and having a kind of crappy month with Adsense. I earned $1860 which is good, but most of my eggs are in one basket and that makes me nervous.
Earnings breakdown:
- Google Adsense – $289 - Yikes… my Adsense income is getting worse and worse as the months drag on. I had been breaking the $450 mark but now I’m lucky to make $300. It seems like my visits are up but clicks are staying about the same for some reason. I’ll be unveiling a big bunch of new sites soon (more on this later) aimed at increasing my Adsense income so hopefully this will be the last crappy month.
- Affiliate Sales – $1395 – My usual good performer had a great month which saved me. I know people keep wondering what this mystery affiliate is and, sadly, I’m not telling. But… I will be making a post shortly that will shed a wee bit of light on the subject and hopefully give you some new ideas about how to approach affiliate sales.
- Linkworth & Text Link Ads – $145 - Same old, same old. Nothing new to report except that Text Link Ads are slowly reducing the amounts they’re paying, probably due in large part to the fall in PR across many of my sites.
- Private Link Sales – $30 - This was a terrible month on the link sales front. Nobody new approached me with any tempting offers and I lost a few renewals. Actually, I might have a couple of peope renewing but I only just emailed them now so if they renew that’ll appear on next month’s earnings. One of the cancellations was for $240 for the year. Ouch.
I just checked my UK bank balance for the first time in a month and things are not looking too good at the moment. If I weren’t being ridiculous and going to Haiti, things would be fine. But I’m slowly realising that this change of plans is going to cost an awful lot in airfares and this realisation has scared me into getting my arse into gear. Coming in at $1500 per month isn’t going to cut it anymore if I plan to jet from Haiti to Australia to South America to Africa. All of these places are more expensive than Asia and on top of the scary airfares, I’ll also have much higher living costs to deal with.
But I have a plan of attack! I’m working on reviving Travoholic.com from the dead (I know I’ve been saying that for ages but this time I mean it) and have another plan up my sleeve that I’ll talk about in a few weeks. The problem, as always, is time. I’m aiming to be in Haiti in early November for about three months and that will probably mean limited internet access which could wreak havoc on my plans.
Hi Kirsty,
I see the same development with Adsense. It’s a steady and reliable earner, but the numbers certainly aren’t impressing. I even thought about kicking Adsense off my site completely, hoping for a better user experience and possibly more affiliate sales in turn. Not sure if it’s really worth it to get a few cents for a visitor who’s leaving my site.
Frank
I don’t know how cheap Asia is, but South America is definitely not too bad. Tickets are relatively cheap for the distances being covered since there is good competition. That amount of money will get you far here. I’m in Buenos Aires with an amazingly gorgeous flat, “splashing out” on nice restaurants every day etc. and it’s not making a dent in my budget
But unfortunately I have to worry about long distance flights too… I need to buy my ticket home for Christmas and then the one onward to India in January and since I have barely been working since July I’m now on the wrong side of zero, using my credit card for withdrawals and all payments. I also need to get my arse in gear!! I’ll just think of a gloomy cubical job in one boring city forever waiting for me if I were to get into bad debt, that will motivate me
Hi Kirsty,
My income from Adsense is actually getting better but on the affiliate side I am pretty close to null every and each months. I do wonder what is this sweet affiliate program that you are using… looking forward to read your future post on the affiliate sales topic.
Fab
Air fares are crazy at the moment and the thing that annoys me most is that oil is cheaper now and the airlines are not passing on the reductions to passengers!
Have you considered looking for a circle pacific type air ticket? Might be cheaper than buying individual ones?
If it makes you feel better, i have $0 in private ad sales this month!
Thanks for the numbers. It’s hard to get a feel for the real potential of all of this without folks like yourself being transparent about your sites.
Weltreise some of my sites are only monetised with Adsense at the moment and they’re doing well. But I know that moving to something else would pay off. It’s just a matter of finding what and then doing it. Easier said than done! But I’ve got a few things up my sleeve that I think will boost my Adsense earnings a lot. I’ve got lots to do over the next three weeks and will post about it soonish.
Benny that’s great to hear! Do you know of any budget airlines that are zipping around The Americas? It’ll be hell expensive getting off of Haiti unless I go to Miami so any airlines going from Miami to South America would be handy. Which area of BA are you in and how did you find the flat? There seem to be a lot of easy to use sites for renting apartments for a week or a month or longer. Is that what you did or did you just rock up and look around? Ya I live in fear of going into debt. I’ve still got a lot of savins behind me but I’ve got big plans of a trip to the World Cup in 2010 and a year in Africa afterwards so am always thinking ahead about costs.
Fab glad to hear your Adsense is doing well. How is your Montreal site going?
WN I had a quick look but will check again before I commit. I’m not sure going to Australia makes any sense at this point but I know it’ll be fun and Im a sucker for anything fun and usually willing to splash out.