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Blogging For Money - June 2007
The month of May was my most profitable month since I had first started blogging back in August of last year so naturally I had high hopes for June. Being new to blogging, I have not yet experienced the summer slowdown as people spend more time outside and less time on the computer so I expected continued progress.
However, as I reviewed the monthly numbers for June, it appears that the summer months are having an impact on my earnings. Recently there has been much discussion across the Interweb about decreased earnings with AdSense and whether it is a result of the summer months or smart pricing and/or algorithm changes at Google.
Right now I have to think it is the latter because my AdSense impressions and clicks were almost identical to the month of May yet my earnings were about 36% lower. There are many users on forums such as DigitalPoint and WebMasterWorld that have seen an even larger drop in earnings and eCPM so I will be keeping a close eye on this in July.
Montezing Derek Semmler dot com
In previous months the earnings reports have been focused on my personal finance blog as I had not really made an effort to monetize this blog. In June I began my efforts to monetize this website, as I finally took the time to define a monetization goal.
On this site I am now experimenting with a few different tools and services, including AuctionAds, Text-Link-Ads and PayPerPost.
In addition, I have made a few modifications to the *Buy-Me-A-Beer* plugin and have been running it with the request to help me pay for the tuition to Chopper College Boot Camp. Unfortunately I haven’t had any success with that plugin yet but we’ll see how it goes. 
Dollars and Cents
With the progress that I had in May, I set the bar higher for the month of June with a goal of earning $175. Unfortunately my earnings went backwards for the month so I have fallen short of the goal.
- AdSense:
- Kontera:
- ReviewMe:
- TextLinkAds:
- Amazon:
- LinkWorth:
- Private Ads:
- AuctionAds:
- PayPerPost:
- Contests:
- Grand Total:
- $19.09
- $7.54
- $0.00
- $44.67
- $0.00
- $0.00
- $45.00
- $0.00
- $0.00
- $0.00
- $116.30
My earnings have decreased by about 18% from the month of May and that is quite disappointing. So far I have completed one PayPerPost opportunity for $10 but I did not include that above as the post is still pending approval. Speaking of which, I am a little bit surprised that PPP is so slow with the review and approval of paid postings.
One thing that did please me was that I sold my first Text-Link-Ads slot on this site, courtesy of Marc Eilbeck and his ad to make money online. In addition to that, the price for the Text-Link-Ads on my personal finance blog has increased and all of the available slots have been sold so that is exciting progress.
July will be an interesting month to see if the trend in Google and Kontera earnings continues and how traffic will be impacted as the summer continues. As a change of pace from previous months, I am not going to set a specific dollar amount goal for the month but will instead focus on simply earning more than I did in the month of June.
If you would like to stay on top of my progress on blogging for money, be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed and if you want to become even more involved don’t wait to grab one of the available Text-Link-Ad positions that remain. Or if you prefer, you can simply follow the link below…
not a bad total, my google adsense $ is almost non existent this month
Thanks, it was a little disappointing to see AdSense have about the same number of click but much lower earnings. This certainly demonstrates the importance of having multiple streams of income on your blog as it helps weather the ups and downs of each one individually.
I’m glad to hear that you are making some money!!
My AdSense income is starting to increase - right as I was about to ditch them!
That’s more than I made blogging! That’s for sure! I like how you lay ot what you’ve learned. It’s educational for your readers and we appreciate it!
Thanks Damien. Hopefully someone else can gain something from some of the things that I have learned thus far. If you ever have specific questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Not bad, you made about $100 less than I did. However, once you get into PPP you will earn quite a bit more.
I’ve been waiting to jump on more PPP opportunities until I see whether they approve my first attempt or not. I’m still having problems on their site with my page not having an updated PageRank or Alexa Rank even though I have logged in and out multiple times.
Has anyone experienced that with PPP and now how to get your rankings updated?
for a new blog that was approved they still dont show the alexa for it.
however if you’ve been on there a long time and no update, i would submit a support ticket they are very good at customer service. Expect a response in 1-3 days
It’s been a few weeks now and I still don’t have any rankings displayed. The crappy thing is that I am limited in the opportunities because of it.
I had read something about logging out and back in to initiate an update of the rankings but haven’t seen anything yet. If I don’t have any rankings by the end of the week, I’ll contact support.
Don’t sweat it Derek. Traditionally, the June to Aug period is much slower than the rest of the year. Having said that, don’t decide to slow down because the market is slow. Advertisers will want to see that you weren’t slacking too.
Since you’ve done a smart thing by diversifying your revenue streams, expect those eggs to hatch when the time is right. Those that don’t hatch might not be a good fit for you, and you should look at replacing them or discarding them.
As long as you’re blogging because you love it, it’s really $116.30 bonus
PS: Did you ever get that T-Shirt I sent you?
Thanks Stephen! You can be sure that I will not be slowing down and will continue to work hard on trying to plant the seeds for future growth.
Yes, I did get the shirt you sent me and it has been sitting on my shelf waiting for me to snap a pic and pass along the thanks. I’ve got another one from Cheng Leng to post about as well, I’ve been slacking.
That’s very true - I have really relied on AdSense more then anything else, but it’s finally starting to pay off!
nice work derek, I have been seeing a steady increase month over month in online revenue but my personal blogging has been non-existant over the past month or so with personal committements tying up all my free time. I really need to get back into the swing of things.
thanks derek,
it always helps to have real figures instead of generalized statements. as for the reduced google Ad-sense pay-out, that may be part of their long term plan - they do have a monopoly in their niche.
congrats on the dough man.. you’re doin well!
@FI :: Thanks, there are times it is hard to balance the blogging with other commitments and that is where I have been trying to get better with writing extra posts to publish during busy times.
@BI :: I always try to provide the real deal so feel free to ask any questions you may have about anything. BTW, I really like your site and your approach to charting baseball!
@cottage :: Thanks, I’ve been pleased with the progress so far but still have a lot to learn and improve. Slow and steady.
Wow $100 is pretty good! Soon you’ll be doubling it every month. Keep up the good and hard work!
It seems pretty good to me. I suspect too that it is largely down to numbers of visitors - could be holiday season ? have your visitors declined in line with the revenue ?
@Russell :: Thanks! I’m more than happy with slow and steady progress on the earnings.
@Old Vic :: I’ll hopefully be posting my monthly “anniversary” post later tonight but the number of visitors did not decline as you might expect with less earnings.
hey derek
thanks for the mention
No problem at all, thank you for the ad spot!
I am having a mixed feeling about Kontera as soon as i started running Kontera, Adsense started doing smart pricing but i do not know if it is related.
Food for though
Thanks for the info. Lately I have noticed a drop in my Kontera earnings but the AdSense have picked back up a little bit.
I’m actually giving serious thought to dropping the Kontera on my finance site for awhile.
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