Hello Paycheck!
I received my first Google AdSense check! It’s for about ten months of AdSense, but the last three months I started paying attention and took me over the $100 threshold without the previous seven months. I first used AdSense back in Feb. 2004, for just a day or two. At that time, I received one click, with an earning I’d love to have on all of my clicks. I had a very negative view of sites that ran ads on them, and it took me nearly a year before I put ads back on a site. I should’ve realized the earning potential with that one click back in Feb. 2004, but I didn’t.
In December 2004, I foolishly ran an Adwords campaign. I got close to a quarter of it back in AdSense. As I said, the campaign was done foolishly. I had no idea what I was doing.
January 2005 - April 2005, I earned single digits. 4 months, single digits. That’s pretty bad.
In May, I launched a site that I thought I could write on infrequently and enjoy writing about. I will NEVER, I repeat, NEVER, reveal some of the sites that I earn money from. I am proud of what I write, but I am choosing to write anonymously on some topics, and do not want to compromise the advantages of writing anonymously on these topics. There are a variety of reasons for wanting to remain anonymous, and I may or may not go into that at some later date.
Anyways, of the first 13 days of that site, without revealing the daily earnings, only one day had any earnings worth mentioning. Not once have I advertised this site on another site, emailed anyone about it, or promoted it in any proactive fashion. I earned double digits that month, probably 99% of it in the last half of May.
In June, I earned less than double digits. What?!? Why did my earnings go down on a site that should have been exploding in revenue and traffic? Because traffic actually went down in June when I didn’t continue to feed the site with quality, original content. New job, new location, and new girlfriend took priority over the site.
As a student, any money I earn is appreciated. But really, the amount I earned, even with the potential to earn more, is a drop in the bucket.
But then, the site traffic exploded over the next three months as a result of a couple of mid-sized sites noticing in their referrer logs that people were visiting their site through links from my site. They linked back to me. So, I gave a couple of mid-sized sites two or three more visitors each day, at a maximum, and they gave me 5 dozen visitors each day in return. Visitors that resulted in revenue return. (And I optimized my ads over these three months, as well.)
July 2005, I earned barely in the double digits.
August 2005, I more than doubled July.
September 2005, not quite doubling August.
Google only pays if you earn more than $100 and it takes nearly a month for the payment to come through, so my check doesn’t include my October earnings. The past three months (July-September) took me over $100, and the rest I don’t really count because I didn’t know what I was doing or really care. I worked for the check, I didn’t work for the first few dollars.
I added Chitika eMiniMalls as advertisements to this one site in October. My combined Chitika and AdSense earnings for October is likely going to double September.
The goal is to have earned $500 by January 1, 2006. I’m preparing myself for a let down somewhere in the $400-range. Ha! A let down! That’s $400 for typing at my laptop. $400 that I earn in my spare time.
In 2006, I should definitely be a 4-figure blogger on one site alone. (Someone who earns over $1000 in one year.) I can only hope the site has growth potential and doesn’t flatline where it is.
I have plans for a handful of sites, but no time to implement. 2006 could be a huge year for me…or it might be a flop. The VERY AMBITIOUS, HIGHLY UNLIKELY goal for 2006? 5-figures (over $10,000 in one year).
I like goals…want another? Earn over $200,000 in 2010 between my offline and online jobs. (I won’t even be 30 until the second half of 2011.)
And another? Earn over $1,000,000/year before I turn 40, though preferably much earlier. 
Are these goals possible? Yes, absolutely. Ambitious? No doubt.
November 9th, 2005 at 12:46 pm
[...] November, I love thee. [...]
December 6th, 2005 at 12:31 am
[...] I’m beginning to see the importance of revisiting goals frequently, even if they are just irrational desires, such as what I wrote in my first post, Hello Paycheck. The goal is to have earned $500 by January 1, 2006. I’m preparing myself for a let down somewhere in the $400-range. Ha! A let down! That’s $400 for typing at my laptop. $400 that I earn in my spare time. [...]