A Recap
This post covers September. There were a few positive things this month and a few negatives….. unfortunately mostly negative.
On the negative front I received a 30 day suspension on my Google AdSense account which was my primary income driver as I clicked on a few of my adds for testing and frankly didn’t know any better… shame on me.
On the positive front this helped me run an experiment – how much momentum on traffic could I maintain? It also allowed me to ramp up a nice backlog of posts for October….I love to blog but I am a finance guy doing this on the side for money so no revenue = no posts as this site does cost money to run!
Step 1: Where I Hosted
I did a lot of research and boiled down my hosting options to godaddy.com; wordpress.com, and Bluehost.com. Given the desire to monetize – WordPress.com was dropped (they have a program but it is limited). Godaddy.com had a lot of extra set up needed for WordPress so I went with Bluehost.com. They have a some good teaser prices and my all on cost was $295 for three years as I paid for several extras I thought were worth it. Cost ended up being approx $7 a month all in. The one click WordPress install and a 30 day money back guarantee is what also sold me… I was up and running with a shell of a site in less than 30 mins.
I took the time to put some extra screen shots and explanations on my site here: How to Start Your Own Blog or eCommerce Site
Step 2: AdSense
I got AdSense approved with about 10 solid postings of 500 words+. This took about a month and I got approved the first week in August.
But then I clicked on my own ads testing! Shame on me and something none of you should do! I had a 30 day suspension that’s now up!
Step 3: Content
As I shared above I limited my content posting in September given the revenue slow down….. this is what any good business would do!
I have an awesome line up for October and I am almost into November on posts.
Step 4: Promotion
I know Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is important but getting a website going is a momentum game. Updates on my promotion engines:
- Organic search results were still light but got about 25-50 huts it appears that were not paid for.
- Blogpros.com drives social media posts for me at roughly $1 a day. I have stayed with this as I appear to be getting high quality traffic for a low cost per click.
- Google ad words gave me a $150 credit after I got ad sense approved….as mentioned previously they suggest a budget of $10+ a day. I tried several $1 days, $10 days, and several $30 days over the holiday weekend. My experience continues to be that I am paying up for clicks but the quality of visitors isn’t that good. They billed me despite my upcoming credit which I think is BS but now I have free ad money for October.
- I know I need to post more on other finance blogs… I have added this to my agenda for October once I am posting heavily again.
Step 5: The traffic
I was interested to see where this came out given my slower posting schedule and the impact of my $30/day blitz over the holiday weekend.
Key take Aways:
- Blogpros traffic…. fell off
- Google traffic… fell off
- Overall traffic… fell off
- Or said another way I was buying traffic and I have to imagine some of these other blogs as well.
Step 6: Motivation Level
The google AdSense temporary ban actually has been a good thing – I had a month to experiment and build up a post arsenal….. no wall for me… time to push ahead!
Step 7: Small Tweaks
I got around to making some small tweaks on the site that was needed given the downtime. I still have a short list that keeps coming to me from Bluehost.com SEO tools that says I have some work to do! I try to tackle these once a month.
Step 8: Show Me the Profit and Loss Statement
This month:
- Revenue: Negative $48 all from AdSense….. they took all of my revenue due to the suspension.
- Hosting: $7 to Bluehost.com
- Promotion: $27 from blog pros and $122 google ads net of credits
- Profit: Negative $173 of profit
Cumulative since July 2018:
- Revenue: $0 all from AdSense
- Hosting: $21 to Bluehost.com
- Promotion: $52 from blog pros and $127 to google ads net of credits
- Profit: Negative $200 of profit
Step 9: Profit per Post
I am a big believer in metrics and Profit per Post is the one I think will keep me grounded.
- Negative $200 of profit
- 22 posts
- $9 loss a post…. Oy
We’ll see where this goes from here..
Inspired to Start Your Own Blog?
I took the time to put some extra screen shots and explanations on my site here: How to Start Your Own Blog or eCommerce Site
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