Starting this Making Money Online Madness All Over Again!

Well it has been a couple of years since I last posted on here and I have a had a break in this time from trying to make money online due to life just getting too busy to devote sufficient time to this. Anyway, I have decided to give it another go. My first decision is what strategy to pursue. Last time around I think I spread myself too thinly and did not really stick to anything in particular.

So, the plan this time around. Well I am starting with what I know - blogging. I realise that things have changed considerably since I have been away, but I am planning to draw on what I learned last time around and combine this with new knowledge that I have gained to build up a truly useful resource on a subject that I am passionate about. My main project will not be this blog - this will be primarily a means of documenting my progress, as well as sharing some hopefully useful information. Instead it will be a new blog based on a subject that I have knowledge of and passion for.

I will be posting regular updates on how I am doing and posting useful (hopefully) information on how to set up and grow a (again, hopefully) profitable blog. I will also be posting monthly income reports so you can how I am doing. I am not expecting quick results, so don't expect large sums within the first few months.

Anyway, here we go again!!!

Time for a Catch Up

For a variety of reasons I haven't posted anything in a while. The main reason though is a change in my work situation which means that I have less time on my hands and I have not had time to much to work on my online empire. I have been thinking recently that I ought to get back into it, so this post is a start.

Although I haven't been doing anything I have still been earning money. My last monthly total post was for September last year, so let's take a look at what I have been earning since then.

Total Earnings for October 2012

Clickbank $24.21
Squidoo $1.92
Surveys $6.31

Total = 32.44

Total Earnings for November 2012

Amazon.co.uk $62.63

Total Earnings for December 2012

Squidoo $3.03

Total Earnings for January 2013

Amazon.co.uk $117.91
Amazon.com $175.99
Clickbank $26.39
Squidoo $16.56

Total = $336.85

As you can see things have ticking over despite my inactivity, particularly last month which brought me some earnings from Christmas. All I need to figure out now is how to fit in some working online into my new work schedule.

Monthly Total Earnings for September 2012

For a variety of reasons I am rather late with this month's report. This month has been extremely poor. Motivation continues to be lacking so I can blame myself for my lack of activity. I am hoping to get back into the swing of things over the next few weeks so maybe things will pick up then. Having said that I have continued to make some Amazon sales via some of niche sites and Squidoo lenses (but not yet reached payout) so it is not all bad. Here are this month's totals:

Swagbucks: $8.00
Squidoo: $2.74


Total Earnings = $10.74!!!!


One of my worst months ever! It is of course entirely my own fault as I should be putting in more effort. Let's hope it improves from here.

Total Monthly Earnings for August 2012

OK, first a confession. I have been pretty inactive again this month, so I can't complain that I am not earning as much as I would like. My earnings have been boosted by a payout from Amazon.com. It has just dawned on me though that Christmas is not far away so I need to work on getting traffic to my niche sites that focus products that could be bought at during the Festive season. Also I have quite a few Squidoo lenses that fall into this category.

Anyway, to this month's totals:

Amazon.com: $100.54
Squidoo: $5.18
Surveys: $6.36 (Pinecone)


Total: $112.08

Not bad for doing nothing I guess. Must get back to work in September!!

Total Earnings for July 2012

I still have been lacking in motivation to do much about earning money online, but I have still been bring in a little money. I have had a couple of Clickbank sales and the Amazon sales keep trickling in. My total this month has been boosted by the fact that I have cashed on my earnings from Sponsored Tweets. I decided to do this as I have not been getting very many jobs recently and they were threatening to penalise me for lack of activity on the site. I have several accounts, but none of them were anywhere near the $50 figure you need to cashout - you can cashout earlier but this costs you $2. I decided it was worth losing out a little to make sure I actually receive a payment.

Here are the totals:

Clickbank: $30.37
Sponsored Tweets: $48.01
Surveys: $6.26 (Pinecone)
Squidoo: $2.94
Amazon: $59.69

Total: $147.27


Not too bad I guess considering how little I have been doing recently.

Total Earnings for June 2012

OK, I will confess, I have completely lost the plot with making money online in recent months. The frequency of blogging on this blog and others has reduced to nearly non existent, I have not added to any of my various sites in ages, I have not done anything to increase traffic and have done very little with Squidoo, HubPages, etc. However, I am still making some money. Not surprisingly the traffic to my various projects has diminished somewhat, but they are still ticking over and the money is still trickling in. Of course I will never earn a massive amount of money by doing nothing, so I need to find some motivation from somewhere.

This month's results are somewhat skewed by a large payout from Amazon as a result of a particularly good month for sales a couple of monthes ago (payments from Amazon take two months to come through). Anyway, here are my earnings for the past month:

Clickbank: $24.07
Blogsvertise: $15.00
Squidoo: $4.78
Amazon.com: $353.72

Total = $397.57

My biggest earning month so far, just at the point when I have been losing interest!!

Monthly Earnings for May 2012

Another month gone and time to look at my earnings again. The last couple of months I have felt a little disillusioned with this making money online stuff and have put very little time into it. As we enter June I decided to renew my efforts and have decided what focus is and hopefully this will pay dividends in due course.

On the positive side, despite my lack of effort, I have continued to make some Amazon sales and a couple of Clickbank sales as well. The main positive though is that I have received another Adsense payment this month. Here are the totals:

Adsense: $101.23
Clickbank: $20.86
Surveys: $12.29
Squidoo: $1.14

Total = $135.52

Not bad I guess considering I have put in nearly zero effort this month! Back to the grindstone this month I think.

Total Earnings for April 2012

Yes, April! I am way behind schedule! I have been really busy lately and have got out of the habit blogging both here and on my other blogs. Here are the totals anyway:

Clickbank: £22.70
Squidoo: $1.24
Surveys: $6.26
Amazon.co.uk Associates: $41.70

Total = $70.90

Pretty disappointing really, but then I haven't really been putting much work in recently, so I can't complain.

No One Size Fits All Credit Card

Guest post 

I have been thinking about switching to a different credit card lately, but it is kind of an overwhelming task to figure out which one is going to be the best for me. There are literally hundreds of thousands of different cards to choose from all with different incentives, interest rates, perks, and pitfalls. There are so many factors to consider before you can even narrow down what is important to look for? Do you pay your card off in full each month or are you paying interest as you pay down your debt? Do you travel frequently, especially to foreign countries? Are you a student or a business owner? I have been trying to do my own research in order to compare credit cards, but then I found there are websites which will do just that for you. You are able to see all laid out for you the benefit, uses, interest rates, signing bonuses, etc. so that comparing cards is actually easy. For me personally I think a card which has a good rewards program is the most ideal feature. I generally pay my balance in full, but use my card a lot in order to earn extra points. I am not sure yet if I want to go with a card that specializes in frequent flier miles because ideally I would love to start traveling more, or if that will give me the most “bang for my buck” so to speak. I have seen some cards which give you a pretty decent amount of points just for signing up which would really be nice. If I had a balance I still needed to pay off on my current credit card and was paying interest, the most important thing I would be looking for is a card which allows for balance transfers with a 0% interest rate for at least a few years. Because I do plan to travel more in the future, especially out of the country, it is probably important for me to also look into the service fees associated with money exchange and using your card out of the country. It's hard to be sure you are getting the best fit (and deal) possible when there are so many options, but at least there are tools which can help you sort through what is worth and what is not.

Total Earnings for March 2012

Well this has been quite an interesting month in that one of my sites found itself on page one of search results for many of the key search phrases. This also happened to be at the height of the buying season for the particular product that this site focuses on. So for a period this site was getting an average of 250 visitors per day and averaging $20 per day in commission. Sadly this only lasted a week or so before traffic the site fell back down the search engine rankings and traffic returned to a mere trickle. This was good while it lasted and gave a tantalizing glimpse into just what is possible. This spike in traffic meant that I made a record breaking $269 during March. Of I won't see this for a couple of months so this doesn't get counted in this month's total.

Elsewhere, there was not much happening really. This has been a busy month in other parts of my life which has meant that I have had very little time to put into my online empire. I have made a couple of Clickbank sales at least which has kept things ticking over.

Here are the totals:

Swagbucks: $5.00
Squidoo: $2.65
Private Advertising: $79.39
Clcikbank: $20.58

Total: $107.62

Not too bad I guess considering how little I have actually done this month.

Total Earnings for February 2012

This has been a bit of a quiet month in some respects. I must confess to not doing a great deal of work on my various projects. I have decided to cut down on some of my projects and where some domain names have been due to expire on projects that have not been performing or I have not got around to doing what I had originally intended to do, I have just let them expire. I have been spreading myself too thinly and not focusing enough.

On the positive side I have received my Amazon earnings from Christmas which was a great boost. Here are the totals for this month:

Amazon.co.uk: $135.16
Amazon.com: $186.53
Squidoo: $0.98
Surveys: $31.51 (Pinecone, Surveyhead)

Total: $354.18

Not bad really. If I could repeat that level of sales on Amazon every month I would be very happy!

Monthly Total Earnings for January 2012

Into the first month of 2012 and while I am really hoping that my earnings will really turn a corner, I hope that this month does not set the trend for the rest of the year. There have been a couple of good things - my first Amazon.co.uk payout and the first two Clickbank sales of the year - overall there is no sign at present of things taking off. My focus has really been my new blog. At the moment I really just focusing on getting more content on there before I really try and bring in some traffic and ultimately some money. It has not made me anything so far and nor would I expect it to. However, traffic is starting to pick up a bit and I have noticed a few other blogs have linked to me already, so it is looking promising.

Traffic has, predictably, dropped off to my review sites following Christmas, but I am still getting traffic and I have made more sales than I expected. I have decided to keep working on my most successful site building up content and trying to get more traffic. Once this is really performing as I would like then I will move on to the next one.

Here are my earnings for this month:

Clickbank: $39.29
Swagbucks: $5.00
Surveys: $40.10 (Pure Profile)
Squidoo: $5.33
Amazon.co.uk: $47.68
Sponsored Reviews: $5.00

Total Earnings = $142.40

Actually not too bad in the end especially considering it was just following Christmas. Let's see what February brings.

Make Money from Surveys with Surveyhead

Companies across the world need to check out with consumers what we think about their products or advertising campaigns. After all, iIf they proceeded with developing products without even considering what their potential customers think then this could lead to financial failure. As a result these companies are willing to invest a great deal into finding out what we think. One way of doing this is through online surveys. The participants in surveys gain not only by gaining a sneak preview of upcoming products or new movies, but also receive a payment, either in the form of gifts or cash. There are various surveys sites available where you sign up and take part.

One such survey site is Surveyhead. Although the site is US based it offers surveys to people across the world. Each paid survey usually lasts between 15 to 20 minutes and are easy to follow.

Surveyhead offer a particularly wide range of rewards. Of course there is cash payable through Paypal, but as well as this there are MP3 downloads, merchant codes for many top brands and virtual gaming currencies for gaming communities and Facebook. To start you off you even get a $5 bonus just for signing up.

So why not help shape products of the future and earn yourself some extra money or one of the other various rewards available through taking surveys for cash at Surveyhead

End of Year Report for 2011

Another of trying to make money online has passed, so time to review my progress. This year my focus has been on trying to earn money as an affiliate, although I have earned money through other means as well. I have tended to move away from using Squidoo to earn money through Clickbank. This, it seems, was a good move as Squidoo are getting stricter on what you can put on your lenses anything deemed "overly promotional" will be locked and subsequently deleted.

Instead I have tended to move more towards making money from Amazon and setting up a number of review sites. A couple of these performed fairly well over the Christmas period so this bodes well for the future.

I have been guilty of flitting from one thing to another over the last year and I think that my earnings have suffered as a result. I did become a little more focused in the final few months and I think this did help my earnings.

So here are my totals for the year (previous year's total shown in brackets):

Clickbank: $184.74 ($364.08)
Amazon: $129.74 ($0)
Adsense: $101.22 ($101.42)
Private Advertising: $423.70 ($60.00)
Surveys: $296.43 ($358.09)
Squidoo: $30.10 ($54.32)
EBay: $426.90 ($232.44)
Swagbucks: $40 ($45)
Zlio: $1.67 ($0)
Hits4Pay: $25.18 ($0)
Blogsvertise: $25 ($25)
MyLikes: $1.65 ($0)
Quickpenny: $40.66 ($0)

Total Earnings for 2011 = $1726.99

Earnings for 2010 were $1367.30 so an increase of $359.69. A bit of an increase, but certainly not enough to radically change my life!

Let's just also review my targets from last year:

1. More One Week Marketing campaigns. I only actually did one more over the whole of last year. The reason for this is that I put a lot of time into the one I did and it did not produce any sales at all. As a result I became disillusioned with using Squidoo as a basis for selling products.
2. List Building. This never got going. I had intended to use Squidoo as a basis for building a subscriber list, but decided against it given their recent tightening of their rules.
3. Create and sell my own product. Nope, didn't manage this one either. My wife was going to create an ebook which I was going to sell for her, but this hasn't yet got off the ground.
4. Create more niche sites: I achieved this although my original intention had been to make money Adsense from these. Most of the site I have made have been more focused on making money from Amazon. Some of these have been quite successful, but some have not. I have learned that it is better to work more on a few sites and get them to succeed rather than to try and spread my efforts over lots of sites.
5. More Squidoo lenses. I have become a little disillusioned with Squidoo over the last year and have come to the conclusion that it is better to have your own sites.

For the coming year I intend to focus on:

• Focus on my new blog for which I intend to become a complete go-to resource for my niche. I intend to build content and traffic over the coming months. Alongside this I intend to build a related subscriber list.
• Further build content and traffic on my existing niche sites. Some of these sites are also suitable for list building so this is something else I intend to pursue.
• I may build more niche/review site, but only when I am satisfied that my existing sites are performing the best that they can.

This is a much smaller and more tightly focused list of aims than previous years. And this, I believe, is more likely to lead me to success in 2012.

Monthly Total Earnings for December 2011

Well this is the last monthly earnings total for 2011 and it brings with it some interesting developments. I had hoped to have set up a number of Amazon review sites in time for Christmas. Whilst I did achieve this I had not developed them as much as I would have liked nor did I think I had done enough to get decent traffic. Nevertheless a couple of the sites did attract quite a bit of traffic in the run up to Christmas and made a number of sales. In total I made 64 sales on Amazon.com and 60 sales on Amazon.co.uk this month. This made me a combined total of $229.00. This smashes my previous record by a significant margin. I do have to be realistic though and recognize that sales will plummet in the months following the Christmas rush. However, it is very encouraging that I have been able to achieve this and if I can develop the other review sites further then I should be able to expect some sustained growth in commissions.

Unfortunately Amazon takes a couple of months to verify its commissions so I won't get to see this money until February. Traditionally in these monthly earnings posts I only count what I have actually received so the total is not nearly as impressive. Here is what I have received this month:

Clickbank: $20.58
Surveys: $6.21
Squidoo: $1.23

Total = $28.02

Not a very impressive total in the end, but I am looking forward to receiving my Amazon commissions in February.

Why Has Squidoo Locked My Lens?

I have been building Squidoo lenses for quite a while now, although recently I have been spending less time on them preferring instead to build my own sites. It seems that recently Squidoo has been getting stricter on lensmasters who do not keep to the terms of use and any dubious lenses are locked. The reasons for getting a lens locked usually relate to things like containing duplicate content, being overly promotional or just plain spammy.

I have had a couple of lenses locked previously and to be honest I don't think I had much to complain about as there was some duplicate content lifted from Amazon and the lenses existed purely to sell a product with my Amazon affiliate links. I figured there was no real way back for these so I just deleted them.

However, I have more recently had another lens blocked that contains entirely original content and is not promotional - it does contain three Amazon affiliate links to books related to the subject, but this is entirely within the rules. It also contains Squidoo's Ebay module. It contain a dead link which is what I am guessing tripped off Squidoo systems. This was to a Clickbank product which no longer exists - this was one single link at the end of the lens. I have now removed this link.

I have e-mailed the folks at Squidoo a while ago now and have had no response. This is very frustrating as if there is no response within 60 days then the lens will just be deleted from Squidoo. This is all rather ironic as this is probably the most original of my lenses and I really put it together to be useful to other people rather than to make any money. It is the lens that has had the most comments and positive feedback and one of my most visited lenses. Ultimately if I get no response then I will have to export my content elsewhere.

This has dented my faith in Squidoo somewhat, but has reinforced for me the need to focus on my own websites rather than relying on making money from posting content on someone else's.

Total Earnings for November 2011

Another month gone and I have been extremely bad at posting not only here but on my other blog. I had hoped to devote my time to getting some sites ready to maximize my earnings from Christmas, but as ever time has run away from me. I do have some sites which have been making some money from Christmas shoppers, but they are not as well developed and as visible in the search engines as I would like. I am intending to continue to develop these over the coming months and hopefully they will continue to earn me some money.

I have continued to make sales on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk and I am expecting to receive a payout from both of these shortly. My total this month was particularly helped by a big sale on Ebay.

Here are the totals:

Ebay: $383.38
Clickbank: $11.20
Surveys: $25.04
Swagbucks: $5.00
Squidoo: $2.64

Total = $427.26

A pretty decent total all in all, but this is not something I can really repeat as it was only brought about by selling an item on Ebay that I don't need any more and I don't have many more of those!

Monthly Earnings for October 2011

Another month past and another month of some positives, but also some considerable frustrations. The big news of this month is that I have had my first payout as an Amazon.com affiliate. This has taken quite a while, but I have really only been concentrating on Amazon in the last few months.

This month I have made a total of 26 Amazon sales across the .com and .co.uk sites earning $51 in all. Not bad, but certainly not life changing. I am hoping that in the run up to Christmas I will make more sales.

In relation to Clickbank sales, I have made 2 this month after a couple of months not making any. I can't really complain about this though as I have been concentrating on my Amazon review sites.

Here are the totals (this is what I have actually received, not necessarily what I have earned this month):

$129.74 - Amazon.com
$6.37 - Surveys (Pinecone)
$2.23 - Squidoo

Total = $138.34


Still a long way from earning enough to really make a difference. I am focusing Amazon review sites at the moment, but only in the run up to Christmas and then I want to move onto something else.

Monthly Total for September 2011

Time to review my monthly earnings again. I am still struggling to turn that corner to make real money online. I have had some successes this month, but not enough to make a real difference. I have not made any Clickbank sales at all this month (the Clickbank income showing this month is from August), but I have made 18 Amazon sales (11 on co.uk and 7 on .com) which has brought in $26 in income overall.

I have made a tentative start this month on an authority blog which I am intending will be my main project. However, I am not expecting this to make any money for a little while yet.

So here are my totals for September (bearing in mind this is the money I have actually received):

Clickbank: $14.86
Private advertising: $30
Surveys: $90.38 (YouGov: $77.91, Pinecone: $12.47)
Swagbucks: $5
Squidoo: $2.60
Zlio: $1.67

Total = $144.51

Still rather short of where I want it to be, but not too bad I guess.

Choosing a Niche for an Authority Blog

I am well aware that in my making money online efforts I have been guilty of flitting from one thing to another in my frustration at the lack of money that I am making. I decided some time ago that I needed a single main project to focus on. That single project, I decided, should be an authority blog. I did originally think that rather than a blog I would write a series of linked Squidoo on a single niche, but I abandonded that idea as I did not think this would do I what I wanted. I have decided to chart my progress on this new project here.

So the first task then is to choose a niche. The main criteria for a niche for an authority blog is that it has to be a subject that you are interested in and know something about. After all, you are going to have to write regularly about the subject and be willing to research any areas that you don't know much about. If you try and focus a blog on something that you think might be lucrative but have little interest in then you will quickly lose interest. In my case I have decided on a niche that is quite broad based on the idea that it needs to be in order to ensure that I can keep coming up with new things to say.

If you are not sure what to choose then think about what you enjoy talking about with friends and what you regularly seek information about. Is there anything that if you were put in front of a group of people what you could talk about and sound reasonably knowledgeable. Tempting though it might be, you should avoid making your authority blog about making money online - there are already far too many out there!

Next take a look at other blogs in your niche and look at how many subscribers there are, how many comments are left, etc. to give you an idea of traffic and popularity. Also take a look at their posting schedule, what sort of things they write about and how they are monetized.

I have already chosen my niche and confident that I have enough to say so I am ready to start.