This income report has been revised because of an account adjustment by LinkWorth.
In an email dated September 11, 2007, LinkWorth notified all affiliates that a programming error had overstated affiliate earnings on new referrals. As a result of this mistake, they debited $300 from my account ($90 of which they had already deposited into my bank account for July, and $210 for September).
At the time, I had referred around 30 new publishers and each time I logged into my LinkWorth account, I saw a $10 credit for each of these referrals. LinkWorth claims that their policy never included this credit, and that it was a mistake to show it in our accounts.
Because of this change, my LinkWorth earnings in July were actually $66.13 instead of the $156.13 reported in this post; and total earnings were $444.48 instead of $534.48.
Genius Types income was up 35% in July, with total earnings at $534.48.
That brings the compound growth rate (three-month rolling average) to 50% per month!
With 43,442 page views in June, my ICM (income per 1000 page views) was $12.30, up 52% from last month.
The big star this month was LinkWorth, which has blown away all my expectations.
Income Breakdown
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$186.61 from Google AdSense
$156.13 from LinkWorth
$120.56 from Text-Link Ads
$45.00 from the SEO Book Affiliate Program
$13.95 from Amazon Affiliate Commissions
$11.00 from tips
$1.23 from Revver.com
Google AdSense $186.61
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AdSense reclaimed the top spot this month. My click-through rate has continued to increase ever since I changed the link color in my AdSense ads from red to blue.
LinkWorth $156.13
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I was introduced to LinkWorth last month as an alternative to Text-Link Ads. I was skeptical at first, by my mind was quickly changed when my first ad sold for over twice the rate that I was getting from Text-Link Ads.
LinkWorth allows you to set your own prices for ads. As an experiment, I set my ad prices at $100 per link (vs. $40 for Text-Link Ads). You also have the choice of taking 70% of the revenue and letting the market decide how many ads you sell, or 50% and having LinkWorth help market for you. I chose the latter and sold 2 ads within the first two weeks.
After those two ads were pro-rated for the remaining days in the month, I earned $66.13.
LinkWorth also has an outstanding affiliate program that gives you $10 per signup and 5% of the recurring transactions for the life of each account. Being a cashflow guy, I really like this model of recurring residual income.
As a result of an article I wrote about Linkworth, 9 people signed up last month for a total of $90.
Text-Link Ads $120.56
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Text-link Ads dropped from 1st place in June to 3rd in July. I’ve just about sold out of my links, but my link price has been stuck at $40 since I joined.
SEO Book Affiliate Program $45
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My review of SEO Book last month brought in a $25 bonus and $20 for a sale. This ebook is definitely worth the money, and they have a pretty generous affiliate program to boot.
Amazon Affiliate Program $13.95
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Commissions from Amazon have been steadily rising with every book review. It’s not much, but worth the time to put in the affiliate links.
Tips $11
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Thank you to all the generous readers who left tips last month! I’m always very surprised and flattered when I find a dollar in my jar!
Revver
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Bringing up the rear again, was Revver.com, with a total of $1.23. I’m obviously not very impressed, but I’ll take the money and buy a cup of coffee.
It feels great to be making over $500 a month!
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Well done. I also publish my income stats on my blog. Right now I am at a little under $100 a month.
BeachBum
Congrats. The exponential growth of money made from blogs is simply amazing. Most people are very happy with 5% increase per year (regular bank accounts), where you’re getting a 50% increase per month!
When I finally have a high traffic website, I’ll remember to setup LinkWorth on it, sounds like a great income stream.
Congrats! Looks like you’ve streamlined the layout of your site since I last visited. Much better on the eyes and for navigation. Keep up the good work.
Cheers!
-RY
Thanks guys! I appreciate your support.
Congrats Brian, 50% increases three months and running. Amazing!
Keep cranking out those great articles.
Nice job. It’s great to see other people posting income amounts each month as well.
I posted mine a few days ago here…. http://www.justingoff.com/?p=74
I haven’t monetized my actual blog yet, but I am looking into a few different ways, mostly paid advertising and text links.
Hey Brian, congrats on your achievements. Did you do anything special to get LinkWorth advertisers? I’ve been a Linkworth member for months now but only 1 advertiser from them. TLA on the other hand is just about sold out.
Thanks.
I chose the 50/50 option, where they supposedly suggest your site to potential buyers. It seems to have worked.
Wow that’s interesting. I need to check out different ways to monetize my blog.
Traffic can be a slow, gradual process. It took me almost a year to get to where I am now.
The most important thing when you are starting out is to contribute to other people’s blogs. Link to them, leave comments, and email their owners.
In time, they will return the favor and you will begin to create a reader base.
Also, if you’re really serious about blogging for income, I would switch to WordPress. It’s a lot more flexible.
Email me at mail@geniustypes.com if you want to get set up on the same server that I’m on. It’s $19.99 a month, it’s fast, reliable, and I’ll even install WordPress for you with all the plugins that I’ve spent the last year finding.
I launched my own blog recently, but I’m at a loss at how to attract more traffic. I’m using Blogger, so the layout is what it is, but I think the content is halfway decent. Do the search engines bring you most of your traffic? How do you get more than 40,000 hits in a month? I know it doesn’t happen overnight, but my traffic leaves much to be desired.
It’s great watching your site grow to produce significant income!
Quick question – how have you been able to get to #2 on Google for “passive income”? That is awesome!
Did you really optimize on “passive income” or has that just happened?
I am blogging mainly as a personal journal, but I would like to get some traffic as well. I know I need to use WordPress, but I am looking to pick up whatever other tidbits I can as well.
Keep up the good work!
Stephen
It was part planned, part secondary benefit of my overall pagerank. Google has ranked this site at a 6. Although no one knows their exact formula, I think it’s because I have so many backlinks.
A lot of the people who linked to Genius Types used specific anchor text that gave me a boost. If you’re really into that sort of thing, you should read SEO book.
hi i enjoyed the read
Your site has helped me begin to explore the passive income route using a blog. Its a personal selling/trading site. I just got if off the ground yesterday. http://www.beyondmyhorizons.com I have yet to do the ad stuff from google and textlink, but I’m in trial and error process. Thanks for the great tips and motivational topics. Keep up the good work.
Hey Brian,
Great work. It appears theexponential factor of your site continues and that you are also on target to reach the 1K subscriber reading by month end.
Good luck!