I am writing this as the final hours wane in November, 2009. Just last month, I set a new record for online earnings, and I knew November had great potential due to a lot of links up for renewal. But I didn’t expect the results to be so awesome.
I almost doubled the earnings of October!
In November 2009, I earned a total of $2,971:
- $2,752 – direct banner/text links
- $143 – Google AdSense
- $70 – Linkworth
- $5 – affiliate sale (money collected)
All but $200 of this was earned from GoBackpacking.com too, which goes to show that you can earn good money by focusing on a single site.
I was especially excited to sell my first 486 x 60 banner advertisement in the header. It was my highest priced option at $200 per month, and I think I first saw the e-mail notification of payment from PayPal after working out at the gym.
Time after time, I check my BlackBerry mid-morning, as I’m walking out of the gym, and see money being sent to me for building a travel blog I’m passionate about. It’s an incredible feeling. I’ve learned so much over the last 3 years of blogging, with a whole trip around the world sandwiched in between.
The reason I’ve been so quiet here at Blog to Travel is the attention I’ve been giving my new travel blog project – a membership site due to be launched in January 2010.
I’m excited to be putting together my own product to sell, and think it will have a lot to offer the travel blogging community. I’ve already given a few previews, and I am confident it will kick butt when all is said and done.
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PS – if I factor in uncollected affiliate earnings for Nov ‘09, I surpassed the $3,000 mark Nomadic Matt cites for his ebook about How to Make Money with a Travel Blog. And I’m poised to easily surpass $10,000 for the year!
Tags: earnings
Last week on GoBackpacking, I reviewed Nomadic Matt’s popular ebook about how to make money with a travel blog.
I’ll save you the suspense of reading the full review, and say that I think most bloggers can learn something from Matt’s effort and experience of building $3,000 in recurring revenue from internet sites, the least of which might be what goes into an ebook of this nature. He’s sold over 300 copies, which sounds darn good in my book, especially at $27 per copy.
I thought my money was well spent. New bloggers would do well to reference it frequently, while I think one read was enough for me.
Have you read his ebook? If so, please leave a comment and let me know what you thought.
October was a record-breaking month for my web earnings! New, high-quality, high-paying sponsors seemed to emerge from the woodwork. I began to leverage Medellin Living as a lower-cost alternative to advertising on GoBackpacking as well.
I am finally experiencing the benefits of having multiple sites, though I’m still concentrating the majority of my efforts on GoBackpacking.
In October 2009, I earned a total of $1,610:
- $1,449 – from direct text/banner ads
- $91 – Text Link ads
- $70 – Linkworth
As you can see, selling direct pays, and BIG. Probably even BIGGER than I realize because I tend to undervalue my blogs and am not the hardest negotiator.
There’s no sharing revenue with a middle-man, though it does require you build up some traffic, Page Rank, and/or reputation first. The irony for travel bloggers is that the best time to leverage their blogs are before their trip, and even more so AFTER their trips. While they’re away, even though they are reporting back cool activities and photos, they have less time to engage with the online travel community, comment on blogs, and use social media to the fullest.
A cool thing about almost every advertiser that buys space on my site is that they come to me. Great rankings in the search engines (primarily Google) and being listed on the Trusted Travel Blogs Network have accounted for many a new advertiser.
As my traffic has improved on GoBackpacking, I’ve decided to steer away from selling text link ads. My homepage is a sad PR 2 (even after this past weekend’s update) because of them all. Yesterday, I canceled my account with Text Link Ads after being with them for almost 3 years. They were my second highest source of revenue, however now that I’m valuing my blog more, I should be able to make up the $70-$90 per month with one new, quality sponsor.
November will be dedicated to working hard on a new blog project I’ve got going. It has HUGE potential and I am really excited about it. I can’t wait to share more, but not quite yet.
For those that are interested, GoBackpacking received 14,000 visits and 30,000 page views in October, reflecting a 15% increase over September.
Tags: earnings
