Million Dollar PortfolioReal Strategies for Making Money Online

Today is the last day of July and tomorrow I will be announcing the winners of my contest to win a Flip Ultra Black Camcorder. Since it is going to take me some time to tally up all the entries (Thanks to all who entered! If you haven’t entered yet, you still have today!) I thought I would post my July earnings.

It’s time once again to let you all know how much I made in July. In January of this year I started writing about how much money I make online. Part of the reason is to show that anyone can make money online, whether it’s through blogging, affiliate programs, advertising or other creative avenues.

We’re in the middle of summer in the Northern Hemisphere (California to be exact) and normally, revenue tends to dip because more people spend time outside than in winter months therefore advertising dollars become more scarce due to the lack of eyeballs.

Traffic, as always is key to any successful blog or web site. No eyeballs means no clicks means no revenue.

Traffic Statistics

Last month I had record numbers of visitors to this blog and The Proficient Investor (my investment blog). Figuring out if your traffic is good can be determined by visits and unique visitors. Page views can also play into it but I only compare visits and visitors because a refresh on a page can count as multiple page views. You can also look at bounce rate which Google Analytics will provide, but since I was late getting analytics working on my new theme I am using WebStats instead. If your bounce rate is high it can mean a couple things:

1. You don’t write quality content
2. Your traffic source is unreliable and not bringing quality traffic

Quality traffic can be defined as relevant traffic from people interested in what you have to say. In general, if you write it, someone is interested but not if you are promoting it poorly. Entrecard, while a great promotion tool for getting your site to the unknown masses doesn’t bring the kind of quality traffic you may need. Users tend to drop cards and move on. However, I still use it because there are so many people on the network, the exposure is worth it.

That being said, traffic for this blog increased significantly in July to 9589 visits from 3381 unique visitors, a 19% increase over June. The Proficient Investor had 5998 visits from 1377 unique visitors. The increase in traffic on this blog is, I think, a direct result of the contest I held this month.

Total Blog Income For July 2008

Total income from all sources increased over June as RSS subscribes grew(here’s why) and text link ads continue to prove profitable. I can’t stress enough the importance of Text Link Ads. They have been extremely helpful and they do all the work finding advertisers for me. As soon as my 10th link sells, I’m going to have to ask them to raise my advertising price.

Text-Link-Ads: $52.61
Amazon.com Seller: $80.91
CafePress: $30.00
Adsense: $0.22 (anyone still making money from google adsense?)
NeverBlueAds: $0.00
LinkShare: $0.00
MarketLeverage: $0.00
Pepperjam: $0.00

Total Revenue was $163.74

Not signed up with Text-Link-Ads yet? TLA continues to be my most consistent performer. Along with providing ad space you will also get an affiliate link to post on your own blog. Anyone who signs up under your link will earn you $25 cash each and every time. Sign up now and start earning money!

I’ve already told you the benefits of multiple streams of income and it doesn’t necessarily mean blogging.There are many ways to make money online and I have illustrated a few of them above. Signing up as an affiliate with anyone of those programs is the first step. The second step is understanding how affiliate marketing works and how to promote it effectively. I’m still working on that second part as you can see.

For everything I have heard from others regarding the amount of money they make through affiliates, most of it is usually with PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns, which means using AdWords and Google to bring in traffic and clicks. This also requires a closely watched budget because AdWords expenditure can get out of hand very quickly.

Why include zero income sources? I think it’s important to be transparent when stating incomes. I believe it shows integrity and by letting you know where I make my money, it helps you understand this isn’t an easy game. Making thousands of dollars a month is do-able and I surely hope to get there but it takes time. If you haven’t already, sign up with each and every one of those affiliates mentioned above. That way you can test each of them and give each enough time before you decide it isn’t worth the effort.

In Summation

Your efforts marketing and blogging will be rewarded in time. I didn’t start out to make money with this blog originally and it has gone through several name changes and may eventually change again depending on how I feel about branding and notoriety. Only after becoming comfortable with the technologies behind how my blog(s) work did I feel I could begin to monetize it. I’ve tried and failed many programs and I like what I have going now.

Last month I was fortunate to win a copy of OIOPublisher which allows you to sell ads on your own, eliminating the middle man. Does that mean I’m getting rid of selling other ads like Text Link Ads? Not at all. I still like the fact that someone else out there is promoting my sites and selling ad space for me, which means less work on my end. That being said, you can become an affiliate of my site and earn commission on every sale.

Do you want to make money online but don’t know where to start? Read this to get an idea of what has made me successful this year.

Million Dollar Portfolio Affiliate Program

Can you sell ad space? Can you convince others that advertising on this site is worth it? I pay 10% on every sale you make. Click here to sign up and start selling space on my site. You can make some good money doing this. Just check my advertise page to find out the rates and calculate your potential profit. For example, a 125×125 banner ad on this blog costs an advertiser $100 a month. If you make 10% on the sale, that means $10 a month goes to you each and every month that advertiser continues to advertise.

I look forward to working with my new affiliates and look for a new Affiliate Challenge (providing I can get one of these networks to sponsor it) this month. I’ll post details of the new contest as soon as I can secure a worthy prize. What do you want to win? Comment below and give me some suggestions.

» Post Ad Purchase:  Banner Ad

Popularity: 28% [?]

Mark Sierra at MeAndMyDrum are starting a contest with a grand prize of a Garmin Nuvi 350 GPS.

Here is the list prizes:

GRAND PRIZE
GARMIN NUVI 350 GPS navigation system – This cool prize is sponsored by Market Leverage. I’ve seen this thing go for upwards of $320 on some sites. Take it with you in the car or walking around town. Never get lost again. You won’t find this on any other contest they’re involved with!

Prize 1
Apple iPod nano 4 GB Silver¹ – Hey, it’s from Apple and it’s an iPod…need I say more? Valued at $149. Sponsored by MeAndMyDrum.

Prize 2
WOW-Pen Joy – These aren’t available in stores yet, so one lucky winner is going to be among the first to receive this superior ergonomic PC mouse. I’ve been using another model made by the same company and love it!. Sponsored by WOW-Pen.

Prize 3
1-hour Consultation with Garry Conn – Garry continues to provide great tips and information about how to make money online and does so at an incredible rate. He has created untold numbers of blogs for a variety of market niches and has become very successful at it. If you’re interested in making money online, then make it a point to get to know my friend Garry. This hour he’s giving away will no doubt change the way you blog. Valued at $250.

Prize 4
Free 1-year Membership to LifeFoc.us – this prize, valued at $324, is generously offered by another successful online entrepreneur, Aaron Abber. This recently launched online community is already off to a great start and is sure to provide you with encouraging tips on planning and achieving your goals, both online and offline. Happiness can be found in many different areas of your life and LifeFoc.us can help you find them.

Prize 5
1 Market Leverage 2GB USB Pen – Another prize sponsored by MeAndMyDrum, this is something I won from another contest that I’m throwing into the mix. It’s brand-spanking new!

Prize 6
Free ebook: Success With WordPress – Written by Kyle Eslick of Hack WordPress, this hasn’t even been released yet, so the winner will be among the very first to grab a free copy and become even more successful with using WordPress.

Prize 7
Free ebook: Blog Adrenaline – Written by John Moston of DNXpert, this is an 80-page ebook that also includes a 24-page guide to building WordPress themes, AND a “skeleton” WordPress theme that can be customized and given away for building backlinks.

Prize 8
2 Market Leverage Rewards Cards – These guys came through again with another popular prize. Each card is worth $20. There will be 1 winner per card.

Prize 9
Advertising on KeithJamesLock.com – Keith is offering some great advertising opportunities on his blog. One image ad will be placed beneath each of his posts on single post pages as well as beneath the post on the home page. Size can be up to 400×250. He’s also offering a text link up to 50 characters in length. Both will have do-follow links which can be affiliate links if desired. ²

Prize 10
Niche Adsense Themes for WordPress – Created by Mark Mason, this rising star in the Internet marketing world is someone I’ve been following closely. His recent release of these specially designed WordPress themes has been well-received in the online community. Do yourself a favor and get to know Mark so that you can carve out your slice of the make money online pie.

Prize 11
Free ebook: Article Domination – Written by Josh Spaulding, this has been a best seller in the article marketing world for a while. It’s packed with step-by-step, easy-to-understand instructions to making money online using articles and article directories to drive qualified traffic to your site or blog. Valued at $39.

Prize 12
125×125 ad on BlogAboutYourBlog – a $20 value, Matthew Henrickson is offering ad space at the top of BlogAboutYourBlog for one month. His blog gets a lot of traffic so your ad will certainly get a great deal of exposure.

Prize 13
Free ebook: Written Prompty Everyday – Written by Christine Senter, this is an inspiring book designed to help you get your creative juices flowing and get over your writer’s block. It lists some very creative prompts that will help get you that spark of creativity you’re looking for.

Prize 14
Free 1-year Membership to I’m On A Budget – My friend Joe Swopes has launched a great new membership site called I’m On A Budget that provides its members with very affordable videos, software, and audio products that cover a wide variety of topics. Valued at $60.

Here’s How to Enter:

• 50 points – Subscribe to MeAndMyDrum newsletter.
• 30 points – Post about the contest on your blog(s) AND link back to this post. If you include the list of prizes, you get an additional 15 points per post.
• 30 points – Subscribe to MeAndMyDrum RSS feed via email AND confirm.
• 20 points – Sign up with Market Leverage using His referral link.
• 10 points – Add me to your blogroll as MeAndMyDrum.
• 5 points – Stumble any post you like on MeAndMyDrum.

You need to leave me a comment on this post so that Mark can keep track of your tasks as well as differentiate contestants from readers who perform a task without intending to enter the contest.

The contest begins on July 26 and ends at midnight Central Daylight Time August 15

For more detail please visit

Enter My Contest And Win A Garmin nuvi 350 GPS!

Popularity: 21% [?]

San Jose, California is host to the Search Engine Strategies Conference on the west coast from August 18-21.

Search Engine Strategies (SES) is the leading global conference & expo series that educates delegates on search engine marketing (SEM), including optimization (SEO) and advertising strategies, tactics and best practices.

This year’s speakers include the following:

Lee Siegel

Satya Nadella

Chip Heath

Jim Sterne

Matt Cutts

Kirsten Mangers

If you are serious about maximizing your search engine results, this is a must attend conference with some of the leading experts on SEO.

The must-attend Search Engine event of the year! Get your Tickets now for SES San Jose, Aug. 18-22

The Platinum Passport gives you access to all the conference sessions, keynote sessions, expo hall and domain auction. At a cost of $2000.00 it’s not cheap but you can get a discount if you register before August 1st costing you only $1795.00.

If all you are interested in is the expo pass, it’s free for early registrants and gives you access to the hall from the 19-20th.

Register today and you also get a free pass to Market Motive ($200 value).

Popularity: 18% [?]

Tyler Cruz has an affiliate challenge going that you can join in on. I can’t participate other than blogging about it because I’m already a Market Leverage affiliate.

The contest is basically the same as the one John Chow is running in that the winner is the one who generates the most income using Market Leverage affiliate links.

There’s a lot of good prizes, so head over to TylerCruz.com and check it out.

Popularity: 15% [?]

If you are anything like me, you are always looking for another way to make money. Having multiple streams of income is essential to becoming independently wealthy. The most successful people in the world have many different ways of making money which ensures that if any one of those ways should fail, there are others to take their place.

I’ve just discovered another way to make money online which has two benefits. First, of course it makes you money. Second, it cleans up your cluttered house.

What I’m talking about is Amazon.com’s Seller Accounts. You can sign up and start selling your own items. They even have a program where you send all your stuff to them and they handle the shipping and packing.

Listing Items

Selling your stuff is as easy as typing in the ISBN number listed on the back of your dvd, book, cd or whatever. If it’s in their system you will see a picture of the item and you can add a description and condition.

Next it shows you Amazon’s price, if it exists and how many others are selling used copies so you can decide how much you want to sell this for.

They even have an option for “collectible” items. Collectible items carry a much higher price and have to meet certain criteria.

After choosing what kind of shipping options you want to offer, Amazon credits you for a certain amount depending on the product. Then all you have to do is wait for the order to come in and ship it off at your local post office.

Getting Paid

The most important thing here of course is getting paid. All funds are held by Amazon until you request payment. I really like this because you don’t have to worry about getting a bunch of smaller payments in the mail or deposits in your bank account and can accrue them and take a big lump sum.

So, if you have a stack of DVDs, CDs, Books, even foods…Amazon’s Seller Account could just be the thing you need to unclutter your house and make some extra cash.

I prefer this over eBay because I don’t have to wait for an auction to expire, hoping someone buys the thing and I don’t have to deal with listing fees, taking photos of my products or any other eBay hassle.

Popularity: 16% [?]

It appears Twitter is undergoing an effort to root out spammers. Unfortunately, it probably also means people you did want to follow have also been removed.

So if you were following me on Twitter and you don’t see my updates anymore it means for whatever reason Twitter removed me from your list. You can just add me again by going to http://www.twitter.com/flagusco and clicking follow.

Popularity: 17% [?]

I’ve just found out about another cool way to make money online. If you got paid for every search you ever did on google, yahoo or msn, you’d be a millionaire wouldn’t you? I know I would. Well, the closest thing to that is here.

With Scour, you earn points for searching, comments, and voting on search results. Think of it like social search networking. (man i should be getting paid for this publicity).

Anyway, you earn points and those points can be redeemed for a visa gift card. The value of the card depends on how many points you bank.

Sign up for Scour and earn 50 points just for signing up. Download the scour toolbar and earn another 100 points. 6,500 points gets you a $25 gift card. 25,000 points earns you a $100 Visa gift card. A built in referral program makes it easy to earn more points. You earn 25% from points your affiliates earn.

Search results come from all 3 big search engines so it’s the best of 3 worlds in one place.

I’ve already signed up. You should too. I haven’t installed the toolbar just yet but I might, just for the 100 points.

Popularity: 17% [?]

I love the internet. There are so many things going on, it’s hard to keep up. With just 8 days left in my own contest, I am hard at work trying to win another contest. You probably already read about it but I wanted to stress the importance and power of community. You see, you readers have all the power here. This blog would cease to exist without your continued interest. By subscribing to my RSS or Full (via email) RSS feeds you are sending me a message that you are interested in this blog, you like what you read and you want more.

So I’m giving you a chance to have a direct impact on what is given away next. That’s right, I am bribing you to help ME which in turn helps YOU. It will all be clear in a minute.

John Chow has started another affiliate challenge. What that means is he is giving away an incredible prize sponsored by Market Leverage (I know you probably already read the post). What may not have been clear is how your help can help ME win these prizes. Whoever makes the most money between now and August 31st wins the prize package which includes a Flip Mino. Now, I already know my Flip Ultra contest has been a huge success because I’ve had over 50 comments, readership has increased significantly and you all have shown that you have what it takes to succeed in whatever you do.

So how do you fit in to this latest challenge? I have a really easy way for you to help me and you get something for free. You also increase the chances of me giving away a couple more cool prizes in September (if I win the challenge).

Ok, what is it already?

That’s not all, if you really want to help me win this challenge so that you can have a chance to win in September, do any or all of the following:

1. Sign up with Market Leverage
2. Learn To Make Money on eBay with eAuction Tutor!
   
3. Make Amazing Cash with Amazon
4. Clean Your Registry With Error Nuker

But wait, there’s more (i’m bribing you remember?). If you sign up for all 4 of these things, I will throw in a bundle of information on making money online including how to profit using eBay and how drop shipping can make you money.

Click Here (sends an email, you may need to whitelist “portfolio.wilcox-studios.com”) to get details on how you can get FREE magazine subscriptions.

My intention is to be honest about what I am representing here. I love affiliate market, but I don’t love the tactics many use to “hook” others into it. I’ve been tricked by the best and I have no intention of misrepresenting any offers mentioned here. I hope you join me in my quest to beat the best John Chow has recruited!

Popularity: 14% [?]