Affiliates Tested

Apologies for the lack of reports, but I've been busy on holiday and being ill. Anyway, here's the figures since I last wrote:

Adsense: $3.40
Scratchback: $0.00.
Widgetbucks: $0.00.
Amazon Affiliates: $0
Squidoo: $0.00.


$15.63 for 14 weeks work.

To be fair, the first couple of weeks were a complete waste due to the fact I wasn't really updating, and the people I'd asked in my absence made a hash of it. So those weeks might have well be written off, and it's taken a bit of effort to get my monthly traffic total back on track with some decent posting over the last week.
Still, so far, it's only Google Adsense and Amazon Affiliates that have contributed to my total so far - time to experiment some more!

Well, not a bad week. Some earnings from Amazon affiliate links, and even some cash from putting adverts in my RSS feeds.

Adsense: $1.66
Scratchback: $0.00.
Widgetbucks: $0.00.
Amazon Affiliates: $1.32
Squidoo: $0.00.
Total $2.96 for the week.

$12.12 for 10 weeks work.

So I'm aiming for a dollar a day from each site. And I'm getting just over a dollar a week from 5 sites.

Well, not a record week - and a bit of a lack of posting on my behalf if I'm being honest. But at least some payment is still trickling in. Whether or not it pays for my hosting for some of my sites will be another question!

Adsense: $2.50
Scratchback: $0.00.
Widgetbucks: $0.00.
Amazon Affiliates: $0.00.
Squidoo: $0.00.



$9.14 for 9 weeks work.

If I was aiming to monetise successfully, a viable target from my research seemed to be around $1 per day, per site. Not a huge amount, but if a site could raise that with a minimum of upkeep, and that could be scaled across numerous sites, I could make the start of a reasonable second income, say $10 per day, $70 per week, $280 per month and $3360 per year. Enough to pay for all hosting, and make a really small profit - enough to then start adding more.

Instead, I'm currently managing $1 per week across five sites (Three on blogspot, and two self-hosted).

That's a looooooooooooooooooong way off.

I've played around with Squidoo, for a while, the personal page creation site, which comes from marketing guru Seth Godin.

I've read several things about why it's good to create some pages (or 'lenses' in Squidoo speak), including the fact they can help SEO for your page. And I've been running 7 or so lenses for a while.

Setting up a lens is quick and easy, and includes widgets for Ebay, Amazon, Cafepress etc. When you create each page, you also get the option to keep any funds for yourself, or donate them to charity.

Now there are some very popular pages, a popular community and lots of information on Squidoo - and although I haven't seen any self-referential links driving huge benefits to my sites, I can see how it could help.

But for making money?

It's not a way to make money. The people making the most money from the affiliate options, as far as I'm aware, are all donating their funds to charity, and stating that fact on their lens - which seems to increase the funds being raised due to the charitable nature of most people. Even then, they're not receiving huge amounts.

As for individuals who want to keep the loot for themselves? Personally speaking, it's made me nothing. And as a direct comparison, I created a lens which mirrored the content of one of my latest blogs.

The lens and blog are on a really niche subject, and get a similar response of just a handful of people every day. I didn't promote either particularly after set-up, and the reason was that I didn't want my blog earnings to be radically affected by a traffic boost from external promotion. I wanted to try and keep both at similar levels.

End result after a couple of months?

My Squidoo lens: $0.00
My blog: $0.01 from advertising. £0.24 from affiliate orders.

Neither is going to be hugely profitable on their own. Neither cost me anything to set up except time. But at least I could see my blog making enough in aggregate to make me update it once every so often.

I could be wrong about Squidoo, and if someone has had a great experience in making money with it, I'd love to hear more - but having looked around for the 'giants' who have been recognised for the huge number of lenses they've created, I've yet to find one making even a reasonable amount for the time invested.

Part of the purpose of this blog is to help me keep track of where my efforts are being directed, and hopefully focus them a little better, due to ever increasing financial commitments.
So my first earning report, on 4 blogs, ranging in age from 2 years to this one, and six Squidoo lenses is:

Adsense: $0.60.
Amazon: 2 clicks. No order = $0.
Scratchback: $0.00.
Squidoo: $0.00.

Total earnings: $0.60.

If I had been solely concentrating on blogging and websites to make direct revenue, I'd be rather disappointed that two years and a lot of hours hadn't had a bigger impact. Luckily my main focus is on expanding my knowledge, contacts and opportunities in my career - and that's where blogging has really paid off so far.

Hopefully, though, I can improve on the financial return as well...maybe a whole $1 next week?