I’ve decided this year to post my monthly income reports this blog makes to give you an idea of how difficult or easy it is to make money blogging. I don’t do this full time because I already have a full time job as a web developer which pays me quite handsomely. I do want to give some perspective to making money online because with all the hype out there it seems like anyone can just put up a wordpress blog, set up some advertising like Google Adsense or other similar ad program and they are on their way to millions.

Well, sadly that isn’t the case. Blogging, and making money doing it takes a lot of hard work and constant testing until you get the right formula that works for you. What may work for one blogger may not work for you. This is one reason I mentioned in a previous post how important it is to set goals.

By setting goals for your personal and professional life you can gauge month by month how well you are on your way to succeeding.

And now without further ado…

Total Blog Income For February 2008: $31.61

• Google Adsense: $1.03
• Text Link Ads: $29.98
• Kontera: $0
• NeverBlueAds: $0
• Ad-Toll: $0
• Project Wonderful: $.60

Traffic stats according to Google Analytics: 449 visits and 594 pageviews, 1.21 pages per visit, with an 86% bounce rate (that means people don’t stick around too long before leaving). I’d really like to see this traffic increase. The bounce rate can probably be attributed mainly to Entrecard as many people simply want the credits and don’t bother to actually read anything on the site.

Here’s some more interesting stats about traffic:

If you aren’t already using Google Analytics to track site data you should. This kind of information is invaluable when you are trying to get things rolling.

As you can see, this doesn’t add up to much but I am on my way to achieving $100.00 a month. That’s my first goal. My largest earner is Text-Link-Ads and it’s the easiest way to pull in advertisers for me. If you aren’t using it already, sign up today. The thinking behind that is if I can make the first $100, then making another $100 should be just as easy if not easier. Then I can start looking at new goals such as doubling or tripling my income. Subscriber growth continues as I have now reached 20 RSS subscribers. I use RSS subscriptions as a bellweather for my growth because it shows continued interest in the blog. I would however like to see more participation from my readers in terms of comments and entering contests.

Speaking of contests, There have been no correct guesses for my last contest so I have no winner to announce yet. As soon as someone correctly solves it and sends me the answer via email, I will announce the winner and give away the $25 Visa Gift card.

So why do I even bother to mention how much (or how little, depending on your perspective) I make? You see, for big sites like John Chow, you see figures in the thousands of dollars per month but even he started somewhere. Also, if you consider what I have made, it at least pays for my web hosting which is great.

What is painfully obvious to me is the usual suspects in terms of banners and graphic ads just aren’t working, with the exception being Project Wonderful and Entrecard. I get a lot of traffic from both and I am slowly building up my PW funds which will allow me to advertise on other sites using the same system.

So my goal for March is to double February’s income. It’s a tall order but I think I can do it. I just need to get my brand out there more and find some quality advertisers. Speaking of which, right now you can get an ad through that nifty peel away ad for pennies…literally. For $.40 you can get a huge peel away ad.

You can get this peel away ad on your site, just go to Ad Toll and sign up for an account. Once your account is created you can begin promoting AdToll as well as advertise on my site or others like mine.

I hope this gives you a little insight on the beginnings of a dot-com mogul, If I may borrow the phrase from John Chow. I’m excited about March and the coming warm weather even though it means traditionally that advertisements tend to slow down.

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