Do you ever wonder how much money this site makes per month? How does it generate the income? Where does it come from? All your questions will be answered in this post.
As expected, these earnings reports have been a big hit (I started doing this in April, 2011). Not only is it of great interest for my blogging friends, but I also believe that my readers have a right to know how this site is being funded. So, with no further ado, here’s the earnings report for January, 2012.
January 2012 Earnings Report
Ahh, the first month in 2012! Since I have begun the 30k Challenge, I have become much more focused and am working toward a regular income of $2,500 a month (do that each month and presto! I’m at $30k).
Clearly, I didn’t reach $2,500 this past month, but it was nice to bounce back none-the-less. Hopefully the low earnings in December were just a flook, and these $1,500+ months continue for a long time.
Let’s first take a look at the break-down, and then see what we can do to improve next year!
Breakdown of the Earnings: January 2012
Adsense – $63.09
Staff Writing – $133.88
Link Ads/Widgets – $900
Sponsored Posts – $462
Affiliate Sales – $0
Total January 2012 Income – $1,558.97!
Adsense
I predicted that I’d make it over $60 in last month’s income report, and low and behold, I did! Toward the end of the month, I discovered that when I write about blogging or getting out of debt, not only does my click rate increase on the ads, but I get paid more per click as well!
As I stated last month, I did put up an Adsense block on my new site, Creating A Passive Income, but it only yielded me a whopping 13 cents! Lol. It’ll pick up I’m sure, but it wasn’t much of a help in January.
Once I increase the readership at Creating A Passive Income, I bet I could start earning $100 per month with Adsense. That sounds kind of nice, huh? 
I bet that will start happening in May or June 2012.
Staff Writing
Since I wanted to build up some links for the new site, I made a point to write a couple of articles for all of the sites that I staff write for. So, in came the earnings at the end of this month! I wrote 6 posts and earned $133.88.
Link Ads/Widgets
In the beginning of January, I landed a great widget link deal that was worth $900 for the year. I think they will do quite well on my page, so they were willing to pay a bit more – it was clearly a win-win on this one.
No other links happened this month unfortunately. I’m hoping to land a couple of deals in February.
Sponsored Posts
This area was pretty slow again this month. There weren’t too many inquiries, so naturally there aren’t a large number of deals to talk about. I had only 4 sponsored posts this month which were worth a total of $462.
Affiliate Sales
Once again, I got skunked on the affiliate links, so as of yesterday I decided to place an iPage affiliate ad on my homepage. It has already received quite a lot of attention, and I’m hoping to land a few sales with it in the month of February.
Recap of January, and Expectations for February
January was a nice bounce-back from my low(er) earnings in December. However, most of my income came from a single widget deal, which makes me a little nervous for the upcoming months, but I have a few things brewing that I think could raise my income to an all-time high.
Moving My Affiliate Ad
I moved an affiliate ad banner to the homepage yesterday and it has already received 4 clicks in its new location. There haven’t been any purchases yet, but based on the increased level of interest, I predict that there will be 2 or 3 iPage orders in the month of February, which would result in $210-$315 in affiliate sales.
Increase Adsense Revenue
Because of my new site, I think my ad revenue could get up to $70 in the month of February, which will be a nice boost from the previous months.
Reach Out For Ad Deals
Before mid-February, I plan to reach out to all of my advertisers and let them know I’m planning to make some deals (yes, I know, I was supposed to do this in January….). Hopefully this will result in some more ad revenue.
eBook Sales
I’m currently editing my book (yes, it is fully written) and working on the cover design. I’m not certain that it will be ready for purchase in February, but there is a chance that it will be, so there’s some potential for income here.
My Online Money Bloggers Site
This site is about ready to explode, and while my business partner and I don’t want to load it up with advertising, I think it could do very well with some affiliate ads. I’ll be watching for this to improve my overall revenue very soon.
Wow, there is a lot more opportunity in the future than I thought. I bet I could earn close to $2,000 in February, and nearly $3,000 in March. Keep an eye on these income reports. It’s starting to get exciting!
Not too shabby! I think I sent you an e-mail on an opportunity, but now I forget. Double check.
thx
You did and it looks great! I’ll be tending to that this morning. Thanks Sam – it’s already turning into a fairly bright February!
Vacation time. Congrats.
Jai Catalano recently posted..Week In Review – From Ugly To Sexy, My Family & My Yakezie Networking Team
Haha. Yes, the wife and I will be planning a vacation this year, but not with my online money. That is going to get stocked away and lumped toward that mortgage. I think we’re going to pay it off in fewer than 4 years (semi-secretly).
Nice Derek. Just out of curiosity, was your august earnings consisting mostly of annual deals or did you just see a spike in inquiries? I’ll be following your affiliate sales closely. Lots of money to be made there but very have really taken advantage of it. Congrats again.
funancials recently posted..My Favorite Article of the Week
In August, I did see quite a spike in inquiries since I was a new PR3 in late June. I’ll be folling my affiliate sales too! I have some high hopes for them – we’ll see what happens in February.
Great post. Your empire is growing quite nicely! Very inspirational for those of us just starting out. Thanks for your work here!
I’m glad that I can inspire others! I don’t know if I’d call my projects an “empire” yet, but I guess we’re getting there. I don’t think it will be an empire until $100k is made….
Keep reading and I just might be able to tell you how to get there! Thanks again for the comments!
Hi Derek! Great job. I just wanted to let you know that the total under the breakdown says December 2011.
Here’s to February!
Amanda L Grossman recently posted..Frugal Confessions Friday – Frugal Living
Thanks for the correction! It’s now fixed.
Here’s to February is right! Mine’s already starting out with a bang again! Hopefully it doesn’t fizzle out like January did. Best of luck to you and your ventures as well!
Great start to the year. Now you just need to lather, rinse, repeat. If only it were that simple… But still not a bad source of passive income.
Matt @Financial Excellence recently posted..Hidden Treasures: An Easier Way to Restore Used Furniture
Thanks Matt! It was a pretty solid month – hopefully I’ll be able to keep ramping it up in the future months!
Very solid month. As I have said before, you are my inspiration. The graph looks great!
cashflowmantra recently posted..Earnings Report for January 2012
I’m so glad that I can inspire you CFM! But, the way it sounds, you might become my inspiration soon – you’ve got some awesome projects in the works. Good luck with everything!
Looks like you did good!
I did pretty well, but I’m hoping to start making $2,500/month here pretty soon!
[...] a second blog by reinvesting the profits in order to hire writing help. You can see that Derek made over $1500 in January and had a nice rebound from [...]
Now i decided to continue my affiliate site that I stopped 2months ago because i need a stable income.
thanks for this inspiring post.
Becca recently posted..Comment on Iphone 4 Water Damage by Phyllis Labay
Awesome! I’m glad that I could inspire you to get back into your affiliate site!
Congrats on the great month!
Keep it up!
Thanks Kevin! I’m hoping for bigger numbers this month.
Derek,
What software are you using to create your eBooks? I’m looking at giving that a try this year am currently working my way through an eBook on writing eBooks
. Good luck reaching your 30K goal.
Zack Jones recently posted..LensProToGo 52 Week Photo Project – Week 5 Submission
I’m lucky enough to have a talented wife that can easily make the eBook transformation from a Word doc., so I really can’t help you here…. If you want it professionally done, I bet she’d be willing to offer her services…
Congrats Derek! great start to the year and you really inspire me. I’m sure you can reach your target pretty soon. Just keep up the good work.
Divina recently posted..Happy New Year To All Of You And Hope You Like The Aquarium Fish Photos Here …
I’m so glad that I can be an inspiration! Shoot me an email if you ever need any help!
Great job Derek !.5k is a great start to the new year! Amazing how positioning can make a difference. Paying off the mortgage sounds like a great lance with the income from the site.
Thomas – Ways to Invest Money recently posted..8 Basic facets of business management
It is a great start! I can’t wait to dump a bunch of money at the loan toward the end of this year. It’s going to be fun! What if I could make enough to take care of the entire loan this year? That would be crazy.
Congrats. I think this is a great start to the year.
Miss T @ Prairie Eco-Thrifter recently posted..Save Money on Rent
It sure is, and February is looking even better!
Adsense needs search visitors, period. Social traffic does nothing for your clicks and might even induce smart pricing.
I experience this personally. Whenever I post a new post, all the social traffic arrives via feedsreader and my adsense goes down the drain. Typically, the cpc will go from 0.3 to less than 0.1. It takes a few days for my cpc to recover as the social traffic stops and only the search visitors remain.
Btw, I am really interested in getting private ads. Did you do any posts on that?
Cheers!
Aaron recently posted..Adsense niche ideas for you to steal!
Thanks for the great comment Aaron! You’re most definitely right – Adsense needs SE traffic. I don’t see much of a decline on the days that I post vs. the days that I don’t though. Typically, it’s the opposite for me.
As for direct (private) ads, I don’t have a post up for that, but to be honest, I’ve always been on the receiving end of the contact. I’ve never successfully reached out for an ad deal. Just make sure to have a “Contact Me” tab on your page. If you want to talk more about it, send me an email! I always love to help out my readers.
Hi Derek,
Email sent! Thanks for offering your time. Really appreciate it.
Aaron recently posted..Adsense niche ideas for you to steal!
Sure Aaron! I’ll make sure to respond to your email today.
Hi Dereck, awesome news. I find that I do better with affiliate sales if I write a detailed review on a product and give it a good pre-sell, rather than use banners.Maybe this would work for you too? Anyway good luck with your goals! Jon
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Hi Jon! Thanks for the tip. I have thought about writing a review for iPage, but I want it to be at a time when it’s beneficial for my readers. Once they advertise the $2.95/mo. promotion, I’ll be writing a quality article and advising my readers to buy.
Wow! This is incredible! My blog income is still in the two digit level, $XX. This not only is very encouraging, but also gives me a better understanding of the various avenues to generate wealth. Thank you for sharing!
MyMoneyDesign recently posted..A Better Way to See If You’ll Run Out of Money During Retirement
Glad I could help MMD! Keep an eye out for my February earnings (coming this Saturday). It hope it will boggle your mind!