Work From Home Mom: My Journey to Financial Freedom

Website Has Been Moved!

2010-05-23T12:35:00.001-07:00

This blog has been moved - you are about to be redirected to my new website!

April's Earnings Report

2010-05-04T22:15:00.000-07:00

Here are the numbers:

AdSense: $236.12
ClickBank: $103.53
Amazon: $4.56

Total Earned: $344.21

Reflections on April's Earnings:

Bumpity Bump!

Well, the good news: My AdSense earnings are increasing nicely, mostly the result of one of my high CPC sites taking the #1 place for the keyword I'm targeting (the site is six months old, so it's probably about time!). $10 days are now becoming common place, and I even had a couple of days where I earned over $20. Of course, there are occasional $3 dollars days as well. For the month I was averaging nearly $8 a day with Adsense.

Clickbank? Not so good news. I really don't know what is going on with CB, since my hop numbers actually went up, but sales revenue was about half of where I expected it to be. I guess that is the life of affiliate marketing - it's all a numbers game. I hope I can make up for those missing sales next month!

Goals for May:

Well, I certainly want to get my Clickbank earnings back up to par. I'm also hoping to reach a $10/day average for AdSense. Mostly, I'll be doing more backlinking and testing of different layouts and tracking my keyword performance as well. Ideally, I'd like to still hit the $750 mark.

May also marks my one year anniversary as an internet marketer - May 6th, to be exact, since it was the first day I received an AdSense click. To celebrate my upcoming business b-day, I've decided to launch a brand new blog where I will no longer be at the mercy of Google and possibly have my blog disappear one day due to some TOS violation or who-knows-what. With my new blog, I will be giving frequent (possibly even daily!) updates about systems I am using, my adventures in outsourcing, reflections on earnings and other topics IM'ers are talking about. I'm very excited about this, so please visit me on my new blog at:

http://passiveincomeonlineblog.com/

I will be discontinuing updating this blog, unfortunately, but hopefully all of those who read it can make their way over to my new one!

March Earnings Report

2010-04-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

Here are the numbers:

AdSense: $182.13
Clickbank: $291.58
Amazon: $4.50

Total Earned: $478.21

Reflections on March's earnings:

I finally broke through the $300 barrier, and nearly hit my $500 goal for the month (for the past few months, actually)! This was my best AdSense and my best Clickbank month respectively. With AdSense, I'm averaging around $6/day, most of it coming from just two sites however. With Clickbank, I had 14 sales and two refunds. For the past few months, I had been happy just to make a sale or two a week, but now my stats are looking like this:

As you can see, I'm making a sale pretty much every other day or so. On my best day this month I earned over $70 with Adsense and Clickbank combined earnings!

I believe much of this boost if income is the result of the backlinking campaign I've been working on for the websites. Several of my sites have seen considerable movement in the SERPs the past month. Also, I got a few sales from some of the new affiliate sites I created as well, so that helped too.

Goals for April:

Currently I have 15 AdSense sites and 13 Clickbank finished. I also have two more Clickbank sites under construction which should go live in the next week or so. After I have those finished, I'm going to continue working on my backlinking efforts for this month.

With the increased earnings, I'll be investing in a few pieces of software and WSO's to help with the backlinking process, and may look into outsourcing more backlinks as well. I've just subscribed to the Terry and Tom's Backlink Blackbelt package, and also the LinkRacer blog network. I'm also planning on investing in SEO link dominator, to help with processing the forum profiles, as well as Hide-My-IP. In addition, I also use the Free Traffic System network for backlinks (free membership level) and Onlywire.com (also at the free membership level). There are so many backlinking packages and sources out there, and I have plenty more on my wish list, but this is all I can afford right at this moment.

In addition, I'm looking for a good link cloaking package for affiliate links on my blogs. Ninja Link Cloaker has been highly recommended, but I'm open to other suggestions if people have them (all this cloaking and hiding is making me feel like a spy!). I am planning on adding opt-in lists to many of my websites this month using Aweber as well (yeah, I know, I should have added these a long time ago, but for some reason have always found building lists to be a bit intimidating). Finally, my writer is also continuing to produce excellent articles. I'm planning on investing in TheBestSpinner software as well this month, so that I can take full advantage of these articles and submit them to multiple sources.

I'm hoping that with all these efforts, I'll be able to boost my income to $750 for March. Whew, sounds like it's going to be a busy month!

February Earnings Report

2010-03-17T16:52:00.000-07:00

Here are the numbers:

Adsense: $104.96
Clickbank: $188.54
Amazon: $11.76

Total Earned (all passive): $305.26

Reflections on February's Earnings:

Well, I'm trying to keep positive. February's a short month, right? I must admit I'm starting to feel a bit down about my earnings right now. It seems like I have been stuck at the $300 a month (or so) level now for way too long, and I really want to see those numbers increasing soon!

I am, however, continue to take action and not letting my discouragement hold me back. My goal is to have a total of 15 affiliate sites in play by the end of March, plus 15 adsense sites. This will give me a total of 30 websites, and once I hit this number I'm going to hold off building any new ones until I start seeing some decent returns.

Two main actions I've taken in the last month are appearing to pay off a bit this month already:

1) I've hired a freelance writer through getafreelancer.com. She is an excellent writer (from India), who is writing me ten 500 word articles a week at $3.50 an article. I'm using these articles to update some of my old sites as well as complete developing the remaining affiliate sites. It is quite a bit of cash right now for me, but I do think you have to invest in your business in order for it to grow.

2) I've also purchased (outsourced) some backlinks as well. Right now I'm investing about $50 in a month in backlinking services so I can devote more of my time to website development and research, and I hope to see the returns on this investment soon.

Hopefully these actions will help get me out of the rut I seem to be in, and that I will start to see some improvement in March in my numbers. Stay tuned!

January Earnings Report

2010-02-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

OK. Time to report on what I earned in January. Here are the figures:

Adsense: $136.38
Clickbank: $138.99
Amazon: $5.92

Total Earned (all passive): $281.29

Reflections on January's Earnings:

Well, I certainly did not reach the $500 goal I had been hoping for, and unfortunately I earned even less than I did for December. However, it was good to see my Adsense revenue jump back - it is now averaging about $5 a day on autopilot, which is great. Clickbank was very slow, especially towards the beginning of the month, and this may be simply a lingering effect of the holiday season (during which clickbank does not do well, historically). However, sales have picked up especially in the past week or so for me, and I'm excited to see what February brings.

Goals for February:

I now have 10 affiliate products that I have set up blogs for, along with another 15 sites focusing on Adsense revenue. This month my focus is backlinking - trying to boost the ranking of these sites for certain keywords, so that I will get more visitors via Google and other search engine's results (also known as "organic traffic"). Previously I have relied primarily on articles for backlinks, but now I'm expanding into using social bookmarks, press releases, videos and other blogs for backlinks as well. Hopefully I'll see the results of this effort fairly soon! Currently I'm receiving between 50-60 clickbank "hops" a day, and I hope to get this close to 100 a day by the end of the month. Also, I would like to get my Adsense daily revenue up to about $7/day by the end of the month (currently it is around $5). And I'm still hoping to reach that $500/month earning goal this month!

December Earnings Report

2010-01-13T13:41:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay in posting these figures, but we just moved at the beginning of the year (what a hassle) and I'm just now starting to catch up on things.

December was slower than I hoped, but I was not surprised. Many of the affiliate marketing forums had posts by members complaining of how slow sales are during the holiday season. Still, my residual income earnings are continuing to grow, which is great!

Here is what I earned in December:

Clickbank Earnings: $219.92
AdSense Earnings: $89.33
Amazon Earnings: $26.54

Total Earnings: $335.79

On the downside, I didn't meet the $100 threshold for payment by AdSense this month, which is really disappointing since after the move we need all the cash we can get. But still, things are improving overall.

Goal for January:

I've been promoting about six clickbank products so far, two of which are getting most of the sales, and this month I'm going to increase that number to ten. I may stop promoting some of the poor performing ones as well, but my eventual goal is to be promoting at least ten Clickbank products with a solid sales track record.

In terms of numbers, I'm hoping I can break the $500 mark this month. Wish me luck!

November Earning

2009-12-05T09:53:00.000-08:00

Well, it's time to update my blog with my earnings for last month. Here is the breakdown:

RESIDUAL INCOME

AdSense $114.97
Clickbank $177.71
Amazon $ 0.92

Total Residual Income: $293.60

ACTIVE INCOME: $0

TOTAL INCOME: $293.60

So the good news is that Clickbank is really taking off, and my residual earnings is nearly double what I earned last month. In fact, because of the success with the residual portion of my income, I have decided to put active sources of income stream on hold so I can work to develop the passive forms further.

However, with the focus on Clickbank, my Adsense earning are not increasing as I would like them to be, so I need to strike a balance and put more effort into developing those websites too. Amazon affiliate earnings were also way down too.

Goal for December: I would like to earn at least $500 for the month of December via passive income streams. This may be hard, as many say there is a slow down in people purchasing affiliate products around Christmas since their money is going to other purchases. Currently I am promoting five different affiliate products, two which may have some interest at Christmas time, but I need to also work on the Adsense sites since they are unlikely to be impacted in the same way.

Wish me luck - and happy holidays!

Goals for November

2009-11-01T15:32:00.000-08:00

When I first started doing work online last April, my main focus was earning cash quickly to meet bills for my son and I. Much of my time was spent writing articles for cash with companies like Textbroker and for Amazon's Mechanical Turks program. Generally the pay was low ($3-8 per article), but it was (and is) a reliable source of income. I was earning between $200-250 a month writing a couple of articles almost every day. However, this also felt a bit precarious since my daily earnings were based on what kind of articles were available, and there were some days when there were simply no available orders that I could fill.

The writing was also often tedious, since I often found myself writing articles about which I had no personal interest. And it was also frustrating, since I knew the people I was writing the articles for were profiting from them - although I wasn't quite sure how they were doing this, and I became determined to learn more about how they were doing this.

Thus started my research into the complex world of advertising, affiliate marketing, website development, search engine optimization and much, much more. The results of this research also started a big shift in my own earning strategy from focusing on "active" source of income coming from daily freelance writing jobs, to "passive" sources of income (also known as "residual income") from Adsense and affiliate marketing programs.

What does passive income mean for me and my son? It means that if I can't work for a day (or two or three), I'm still earning money. I'm no longer tied to what jobs are posted that day - I have much more flexibility in terms of developing and promoting the websites that are earning passive income for me. In sum: it's great!

By October I was earning almost the exact same amount I earned in April or May from freelance writing jobs, but nearly all of that income was coming from passive income streams. Passive sources of income can take some time to develop (often several months), but I have a feeling they are going to really explode for me in the next few months - so I hope you follow along to see how that goes for me!

For November, I am hoping to double my income from October. In October I earned $213, so for November I am hoping to earn at least $426. I believe much of this income will come from a new affiliate program I have just become involved with: Clickbank. I just learned about Clickbank last month and made my first sale last week, and I'm looking to earn at least a couple hundred dollars from this revenue source this month. The remainder will come from Adsense - which I'm earning over $100 reliably now each month, and which I hope to get to at least $200 this month.

I'll be making updates as the month goes along!

October Earnings

2009-11-01T10:28:00.001-08:00

Here are my earnings from last month, broken down in terms of residual (passive) online income and active online income.

RESIDUAL INCOME

Adsense $119.22
Amazon Affiliate $19.10
Clickbank $26.30

Total Residual Income: $164.62

ACTIVE INCOME

Textbroker $38.36
MTurks $10.23

Total Active Income: $48.59

TOTAL INCOME: $213.21

Welcome from a Work at Home Mom

2009-11-01T08:51:00.000-08:00

My name is Michelle and I'm setting up this blog to track my earnings and to give general advice and tips regarding how to earn money online at home.

Nearly a year ago my husband and I separated. It was a horrible time, and I ended up driving nearly 2000 miles across the country with my one year old son in an old beat up van to go live with mom during the middle of the winter. I arrived at her house early in the morning on New Years Day, heartbroken and with only $3 left in my wallet.

The first couple of months after arriving at my mom's house I spent recuperating from the drive and the emotional impact of my separation, spending time with my family, and thinking about what to do with my future given my life had seemingly turned upside down. Although my mother was supporting us at that time, by late March, it became clear that I needed to find employment and start contributing to our expenses. I was not keen on putting my young son in childcare all day (my mom was physically unable to look after him), especially given that I was still breastfeeding him and dedicated to pursuing attachment parenting methods. So I decided to look into online writing jobs I could do at home while he napped or slept at night.

This journal will discuss the different jobs and strategies I have tried, and document my online earnings. I started researching online writing jobs in April, and by early May I was earning a regular income by writing online content of a couple hundred dollars of month.

However, since early April, I have also put a lot of time and effort into researching other methods of earning income online. Most of this focus is on residual income streams. This source of income has rapidly developed into my main focus in the past few months, which I will discuss here on the blog as well, and I hope the information I post here will be of use to other single moms (and dads!) who are struggling (like me) to make a living while raising a child. Please leave me feedback if you find this information useful or have something else to add. Thanks!

- Michelle