Make Money Online Status Report for December 2009 and the year

What an amazing year 2009 was.  It’s been up, mostly down and all over the map in terms of weirdness in the world, but I can’t say it’s been all down for me.  This is the first year that I’ve actually made any money online that is worth talking about, and I’m excited to have finally reached this point.  December was a dull month month though, and ends the year on a down note compared to the prior month.  Yes there was Christmas, family, friends and all that, but financially, it was dull, but expected.

I knew that the numbers had spiked in November and would be lower in December.  After all, the only thing driving the sites I’m operating is search traffic.  As the search traffic fluctuates, so will my income from these sites, but I won’t be changing a thing.  Here’s why.

They’re covering their own costs, and making improvements might change that for the better, or for the worse.  Point is, I don’t know which way it will go, so as long as I’m unable to tell, I’m leaving well enough alone and working on new things.  It’s that same ideal that will give me added time to do more here on the blog this year.

Anyway, here is what happened for the month of December:

Google – $98.83
eBay – $716.89
Chitika – $38.86
others – $9.69

A grand total of $864.27 which is a 57% decrease from the prior month.  Affiliate business is a fickle business.

When I looked at some of the stats for the entire year, I kinda shocked myself.  Some of these numbers are just incredible.  Check this out:

Google – $635.33 for an even 8,000 clicks.
eBay – $4,112.31.  There were 135,909 clicks sent and 2,954 bids made on eBay products.  Total gross sales were $122,438.23 and included a few cars.

This graph is also telling a few stories too.

You might not see it right off, but the blue line indicates the number of clicks on a given day.  The yellow displays the amount earned.  You should see that in the beginning, I was flooding eBay with traffic that didn’t necessarily pay off.  After I lowered my click amounts, I started to make more money.

I can say the decrease in clicks is all due to eBay switching over to a “Quality” payment model near August and September.  As will be the case for most of us, when we start delving into affiliate marketing, we’ll spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make those first few dollars.  With persistence though, you’ll eventually find what is necessary for the niche you’re playing in, and things should start to come together for you.

If they don’t, perhaps your time is better spent on a different project.  These things do take time to build though.  Not only do you probably have a lot to learn (I know I did, and still do!), but you have to garner traffic too.  Neither is just going to happen overnight.

With persistence, water can cut rock.  That’s all anything in this world takes.  Persistence.

Until next month!  May your traffic be high and converting!

Wayne

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