August was a pretty stellar month; it marked my 24th birthday and the start of a great vacation with my girlfriend. Now, hitting September, I’m taking a look back at August to see how my web assets held up even during a bit of an absence. Did things pick up since the July report? Let’s check it ouuuuut.
Murlu Traffic Report: August 2011
This blog rose by about 1,000 visitors since July because, I believe, I got a bit active again since my trip to Japan and Thailand. Nothing too out of the ordinary here but I’ve still got a lot to go in order to hit my goal of 25,000 visitors a month by the end of the year (ha!); this means that I need to essentially triple my traffic by the end of December – I’m ready for the challenge especially since I plan on working heavily on MWF content for the blog – we’ll see how that goes, however …
I wish I could bring down the bounce rate and increase the average time of site but one of the major hampering with the stats is an old post I did on Fiverr; people that visit the post bounce very quickly and that’s screwing up everything – blah. Either way, August 2011 did pretty well for traffic overall.
Murlu Income Report: August 2011
I’ll say it right now, August sucked for online income because I wasn’t active with my freelance writing but where these dropped, Amazon Associates really picked up and it seems to be making a nearly consistent $600 – $700 a month now; I’m thinking I’ll reach $1,000 with Amazon Associates by the end of the year.
I’ve got a lot on my plate so I’m really not focusing on money these days; I’m happy with what I’ve got and want to use my time for my own pleasure rather than pushing myself so hard that money is the only thing I’m working on. I wanna travel dammit! I’m sure you can feel the same sometimes.
Okay, here’s how things broke down for August 2011 …
Clickbank: $337.80
Ya know, I don’t really like Clickbank all that much because it’s a roller coaster ride; some months its way up while others are way down. One of the big problems with Clickbank is that you need a good selection of products to offer but one of the main niches I’m in with my other blog only has two decent ones and it seems that the market is a little tapped out at the moment – or everyone’s broke. Either way, Clickbank did okay but I’m still trying for $20 every day.
Amazon Associates: $694.97
Amazon, you tease! Amazon Associates look really promising from the get-go in August but didn’t keep up the steam I wanted; either way, it was just shy of $700 which really surprised me because it’s August – I can’t wait to see how things get when it gets close to the holiday seasons. On a related note, I think I’m going to be creating a course about Amazon Associates and Niche Websites that detail the things I’ve been doing between AA, Clickbank and Adsense – stay tuned for that one, maybe by the end of the year or something – we’ll see.
PLRArticlesNow: $190.05
As you may know, PLRArticlesNow.com is my website where I sell PLR Articles to fellow webmasters and online business owners. In August, I introduced a few new ‘mini packs’ which are just five articles each compared to the usual ten pack – these went over well because they touch on topics that don’t need to be hammered with tons of articles, me thinks. I’m still chugging way on the site and it currently sits #27 in Google and #15 for PLR Articles; should see a nice rise in income once I crack the front page.
Google Adsense: $271.69
Not much to talk about Google Adsense; it’s automated so I don’t really fiddle with it all too much. I sometimes change the ad sizes and play with it but nothing really significant to report other than the 300 x 250 block seems to work the best for the blogs I run mine on.
Freelance Writing: $68.30
Not much to mention for Freelance Writing in August because I really didn’t put any time toward it. I’ve been busy working on my websites and blogs so not much goes toward finding clients at this time and I didn’t do much work for GhostBloggers either but I still had an article sell. Ah well, September might be interesting for freelance writing but we’ll have to see how that pans out.
Misc. Income: $77.64
Some of the usual stuff came in like GoDaddy but nothing to be surprised about; I’ll probably never have those crazy commissions on web hosting like you see on other income reports but I don’t really mind it because domains and hosting are passive so people need ‘em or they don’t – it works in the long run because of the topics I talk about, ya know?
Blog and Income Wrap Up
August was good to me (hope it was for you too). To be honest, I’m a little bored of blogging at this time because I want to travel and work on larger projects with big businesses but it may be that there seems to be a blogging ‘echo chamber’ where a lot of people have quit and even more are recycling blog posts. Maybe it’s just me. Meh, I’m enjoying myself and the things I’m working on (overall) so I’m going to keep at them and break on through once the cooler months hit (the summer time in Florida makes you lazy as hell).
Total Earned in August 2011: $1,640.45
It’s not making nearly as much as I would with a full-time job but I love being able to work in my boxers and stay up all throughout the night without needing to sit in traffic; I’ll take less pay for that kind of freedom. I made about $300 less than what I did in July but I’m still surprised that things worked out well. I’m still a while before hitting the $3,000 a month mark that I’ve set for myself.
Disclaimer (as always): The earnings are from multiple websites and freelancing things I work on so don’t get it through your dome piece that this is with just Murlu; it takes work dammit and I bust my ass ever day to make the little bit that turns into the whole.
Additional Thoughts, Developments and Stuff
I’ve got a lot of projects up my sleeve and been thinking about the livelihood of Murlu at this time; I want to push hard for a MWF (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) content schedule which I’ve planned out but with other blogs and PLRArticlesNow, things get a little tricky.
I’m working on a new, BIG project in a BIG niche that should prove challenging and very rewarding if things take off; it’s also aimed around helping people with one of the biggest struggles in life (hint). I’m already working on an opt-in for the blog and planning out my content strategy; should be launching it in September I suppose.
Additionally, I’m setting up a proper business website for the Tampa area. I’m currently getting a logo designed for the business and collecting all my thoughts and resources; I’ve also got a few things in the works that should be interesting blog posts in the future if this is something you’d like to hear.
In all, as you can expect, I’m busy as shit and that means that some things I slack on so bear with me.
Over to You
So, that’s about it for me in August 2011. Nothing too spectacular but it still pays a lot of the bills. I’m thinking about going on another trip sometime soon, maybe in October. What sort of things do you’ve got going on in your life?
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Hey bro! That’s a nice income! Can you disclose how many sites you have in each branch to earn that income? Plz DM me on twitter – @timsoulo (I’m following you, so you can DM no problem)..
Just interested how many sites should I launch to earn $700 from Amazon or how many MFAs bring you $270.
hope you’re ok with disclosing those numbers to me
Thanks!
The reality is that this all comes from about 3 sites. I have one major niche site I’ve been building for a few years now while I also have a few smaller sites that sometimes make $20 or $50 a month; things are scaling so what I often do is let something work its way up naturally in the search engines while working heavily in other areas then come back to optimize. I’m always working on new projects and trying to tap into recent product releases and trends for Amazon; I always go after Black Friday and the holiday seasons. Adsense is passive so I don’t have a lot of control over that, naturally, but it all comes down to traffic and setting it up so it’s showing the right ads with selectional targeting.
I would say, overall, go for one or two authority websites and then make satellite sites around them. I have one that’s an offshoot that only gets a fraction of the traffic but does decent with Amazon and Adsense (in relation to its traffic) where I basically take the ‘best of’ content from the authority website and package it to a different crowd and with a different degree in content.
I am really glad to see Amazon Associates! I have recently did that and hope to generate some small income from it. Any suggestions as to what I should really promote? Would greatly be appreciated.
I noticed that you’re currently selling eBooks on your blog. Perhaps you could do a few reviews of ebook readers (like Kindle and even tablets); my thoughts are that if people are technical to understand the ebook format than they’re probably interested in eReaders. Take a look at the type of products you use and go from there; that’s what I would recommend. You’ll easily be able to write about the products you like and can make ethical recommendations for them; just make sure they align with your blog, ya know? No point in linking to Amazon for things like computer parts when your blog is a lot about writing, ya know?
Murray,
700$ is pretty awesome since you have been fairly passive this month. I expect you could easily double/triple it this month if you are going to be hitting it hard.
I am definitely interested in seeing your Amazon Associates breakdown. I do very little with Amazon Associates and of course my money from them is understandably on the low side, but it would be nice to see your POV on them and figure if I can use a few ideas to increase it a little bit (without going overboard on time)
Anyhow, nice to see your numbers have been decent even while on vacation. And nice to hear you are going to be writing regularly again this month. I look forward to it!
-S
Steve,
Thanks for the kind words buddy. I can’t say I’m an expert at Amazon Associates but it seems to be working out well for the things I’ve been doing with it. The best part is that you don’t really have to go crazy with the program like you would with Clickbank because you’re not trying to convince someone to buy an online product – people understand that they’re buying a physical product which makes up half the battle.
The great thing is that every website, with an angle, can introduce Amazon Associates from books to computer items for the geeks that read the blog. For example, you’ve been doing some video work so that would be a perfect bridge for recommending video cameras, video editing software, microphones, backdrops and a lot more.
Like you went over in your product, you find these bridges between products so you’re not just promoting a single item. You find things like ‘top five video cameras’ which can then be something like ‘Best Video Editing Software’, could do cords and so much more – you’re almost making it into a series and interlinking throughout them; the kicker is you could put together free guides on the entirety of the products, as well.
I don’t want to expose everything but you’re clever
I plan to do a tell-all with the Amazon product I’d like to put together.
It’s great to see you have so many different income streams. Diversifying is great! Congrats on making that much in a month in your boxers.
Thanks Benny,
I’d like to expand it a bit more because all though these sources are from different platforms, a lot of them are still coming from a single site and if that goes down than I’m in big trouble; I want to work on some new authority websites but that’s going to take time – I’m getting things going now and putting a lot of time to them every day – can’t wait to do an income post a year from now
Congratulations on the earnings for August. It is nice to get a chunk of change from the different areas. I was a little disappointment in my own Amazon earnings but I know what the major problem is – Most of the products that people buy are low in price which means low in commissions. At some point I want to work on a site with a product that costs $100+. This would make a real difference.
Work on my own PLR site is going well. It is at the same sort of level as yours. ( I think we may have started at around the same time.) I am enjoying the writing so I look forward to seeing it increase over the comming months.
Good luck with September.
Tiptopcat
ps – what is this business website you are setting up?
There’s always verticals you can go into because you’d be surprised by the amount of people that have a lot of extra income that may be reading your blog. Some people are totally ready to purchase higher end items because of the increased value so don’t worry if it doesn’t fit too well at this time because you can always work up the benefits of going high end with your Amazon products.
I’d love to talk some time about PLR, hit me up on Twitter or something @MurrayLunn. There’s a lot of potential, as you know, so it would be cool to share some ideas with one another. A bit of competition but the market is so large that we’re really not jabbing at each other.
As for the business site, I think I’m going to get back into web design and marketing for offline clients. I love working with small businesses and have done it multiple times in the past for friends’ businesses and relatives (along with my old job). I’m in a new area and the competition here is really lacking so I’d love to get into the market. Should be really great because I have this blog and others that can back up my work and help me get ranked
Another great month and love the amazon passive income. Hope you have a grand September and best of luck with your new venture.
Thanks Andrew.
Can’t wait for the holiday seasons to hit
Congrats on another great month Murray. Like a Tim and Steve I’d be interested to see a break down of the Amazon earnings, because those seem very, how should I put it, interesting
. Up to you with what you feel comfortable with though.
What kind of business are you starting up in Tampa?
I’ll definitely be doing a lot more things related to Amazon Associates here in the near future. Got a little product I’d like to put together to help others, a tell-all of what I’ve done to get the earnings up. Believe me, it’s taken a lot of hard work to get it to where it’s at today and it’s still growing but like a buddy Robert said, it’s still quite amazing because it’s basically a paycheck which is what a lot of people aim for vs. creating a full online business.
I’m gonna be focusing around web design, marketing and content strategy in the Tampa area. There’s a few businesses that do it but some are really lacking and are missing out on a lot of areas that I think I could bring to the table. I have a few leads already and can leverage my current work to promote the business; there’s also meet ups which would be awesome to visit. The site should be easy to put together with WP, I mostly just need to compile my existing work and fix up the copywriting.
Sounds awesome, and promising. Good luck with the new biz!
Thanks buddy!
hey man..congrats on ur earnings
i mean number of views and conversions and what seo strategy u apply apart from normal blog commenting.. thanks and congrats again.. i remeber reading ur blog some months ago and u have really made some gud improvement 
can u tell me how much conversion ratio u get on amazon.. i will be intrsted to know
Congrats Murray! I just heard about GhostBloggers the other day so it’s really great to see you earning something from them. My biggest surprise here is your Amazon earnings. I’m looking forward to your post about it. Go Murray Go!
Thanks Ileane,
So far, Amazon is already up to $301 and it’s only the 10th! Awesome
I’m not the best at promoting Amazon products but things seem to be working out quite well. Thanks for the kind remarks and I hope that I’ll be able to at least share something about the process that can apply to what you’re doing without making it too complicated or hypey.
Nice stats and earnings! Congrats!
Thanks Tilen
I’m very impressed with your Amazon Associates income. I hope California would resume this program soon. I am focusing on Adsense for now and nice to see what you have accomplished. Thanks for your sharing and inspiration.
It’s a shame that California went hard on the Associates program; few people I know got affected by it but I guess what you could do, in the meantime, is like what you’ve done and focus on Adsense but you could also start looking to work in tandem with a company that has an in-house affiliate program – some of these smaller companies have higher payouts too!