What's going on?

I decided to compare the graph below, and although there seem to be a strong affiliate (amazon) increase, we can see that the adsense increase seems to have plateau since September of 09. This make sense since most of our new sites have targeted affiliate programs rather than adsense-based websites.

Overall, the month was sparsed with many high days, and many very low days. Not sure what is going on with google, but the rankings of the websites have seemed to be dancing around, something being pushed as far as 2nd or 3rd page before coming back to the first page. We have also lost a few first positions for some keywords that had looked strong in 1st position. We did not change anything... Google change in algorithm?? Difficult to say... Anyway all we can do now is keep pushing the websites and the keywords and hope that we can rank for more keywords and get our first places back.

As we can see, the graph above shows an almost linear growth curve for the amount of money generated by the websites.

This is pretty exciting and amazing to see that the amount of money generated does correlate with the amount of effort put into the websites over time, and that they add up.

The month of March is following this trend and is on track for another record month, going for an over 3000$ month.

With all the money generated, we decided to incorporate a company, which will allow us to receive a tax break on this extra income generated on top of our regular income.

Our company became effective as of Mar 26th 2010 and we are very excited to read and learn more about running our very own company!

Goal : We are expecting to hit a 4000'ish $ month by the month of June. In order to do so, we need to bring more websites/keywords to the first-second-third positions of Google/Bing to increase the number of visitors.

Nat

Nevertheless, we are, once more, reaching a new high with a big total of 2109.10. This is very encouraging.

This month, for the first time, we made more in affiliate-based revenue than in adsense-based revenue.

Table of progress

And on thanksgiving, we had a taste of what the new google will be like... We were really excited when we realized that many of our websites are showing on the first page or near the first page with google caffeine! However, Google decided to postpone to the new year the full release of caffeine because they did not want to risk messing up their servers and people's site before the holidays... SIGH.

Last month we hit a high of $1810.94, and as of yesterday, we've surpassed that. The last few days of the month are all record setting now, and we're averaging about $60/day at the moment so hopefully we can come in $200-300 over last month's high. Cross your fingers.

With Christmas approaching, we've registered an additional 4 Amazon based sites. We're hoping to fill them with content and being ranking them before Xmas hits. This is a bit of a rush job, but I think it's doable. One of the sites has already crawled its' way into the top 10 on Google, the others don't appear at all for their keywords yet.

Websites Types

So obviously, I have been focusing on developing money making websites. I have close to 30 websites, all making various amount of money. Lots of my websites are Amazon-based websites, but at least 25% of them are Adsense-based. Over the last few months, I have purchases quite a few software to help us. And I have to say that they seem to be wise investment, as our income has constantly been increasing over the months. . Notes on my websites I want to point out that not all of my websites are making any money. Less than half of the websites are making steady income right now, as I haven't filled them all out with content yet nor have been working on promoting them yet. .

Revenue Growth

In June, I (we were) excited if I saw a 20$ day... In July, I saw my first 50$ day! My all time day high seemed to plateau between 20$-$50 in July and August, although the overall monthly revenue did increase. I also noticed a decrease in traffic but assumed that my sudden decrease in traffic in July and August were due to people vacationing and going away on holidays. I was probably right because as soon as September hit... it hit hard!! I suddenly saw a huge increase in traffic, therefore in increase in revenue. In September I saw my first 70$ day... Then my first 80$ day... Then my first 100$ day... Then my first 120$ day! In one month, I made $1810.94! So in the following table, you can see my strong increase in revenue in September, but also the overall increase in revenues over the months since May 2009.

Growth in revenue per month, May 2009-September 2009

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Amazon vs Adsense

I am undecided as whether I prefer Amazon or Adsense. While most of my websites are Amazon-based ones, I find that Adsense do give me a more steady income.  However, I do feel that Amazon has the potential of making more money when it hits. I seem to understand the Adsense spirit better. I have been able to optimize my websites in order to increase my click-through rate As for Amazon... I am still way under the average number of purchases vs number of clicks. I am unsure why, and have been following other people in the hope that I could get a hint at how they manage to increase the number of purchases. So far, it hasn't been that successful, my Amazon rate seems to be fairly random, I can be selling a huge number of products one day and none the next following days. .

Mini-Conclusion for September 2009

I realized, after writing this post that, hey, I am actually not doing too bad. Putting those numbers together is giving me a better sense of where I am going. And I like where I am going so far!! .

Short Term Goal

1) I need to put content on lots of my website, increase the content, or simply complete them! 30 is a large number, sometimes difficult to manage. I will admit it, I do spend a fair bit of time trying to make my content and website look good. On many forums, people say not to spend too much time on the look or even content, but I am finding difficult to spread "crap" content all over the web =) 2) I also need to work harder on bringing my website keywords to the top. Several of my websites are on page 1 for they keyword, but not in the top 5. I know, from previous experience that being #2 or #8 will change your traffic by about 90%! .

Long Term Goal

1) Create more websites!! 2)I am aiming to be making a steady 2000$/month by Christmas!