Quite some time ago when I became disillusioned with Adwords and the general Google universe I installed Shareaholic on this blog (and my other sites).
I don’t depend on the revenue the sites generate (none, by the way) but I was hoping to get a bit more reach through some of the magic that was promised.
It was in January I decided to share my amazement at how people could travel and live worldwide without a “real job”.
Then in August I shared my successes with the Adsense income I was generating through YouTube and a few other sites. By that point I was hitting around 7 cents a day. Not exactly rolling in the cashola.
In short, no, not even close.
Instead I’ve joined what seems like thousands of small volume bloggers and content producers who are dropped from the AdSense program by Google for some non-specified breach on the month a long earned payout threshold is reached. That was it, I completed the review process trying to eek out a specific reason, but none was forthcoming. could I have clicked on an Advert while watching on of my YouTube videos? Maybe I wasn’t supposed to have Skimlinks running at the same time?
I just don’t know.
So guess I will have to move on from the easy wins of a passive advertising income until a viable replacement for AdSense crops up. There are a few but lets just say I’m fussy and I also like the idea of finding a program with a lower payout threshold to be sure I don’t spend years driving clicks that someone is getting paid for only to never see my share. You see that’s the real scam here, Google sold ads on my sites to advertisers for years, and do you think in 2014 they’re going to refund the advertisers who paid for displays on ausmicro.com back in the day? Nope, so they win and I (and every other content producer) get screwed. Not really impressed.
The time has come to move on – it’s likely I won’t ever utilize a Google AdSense program as an advertiser or as a content producer, well definitely not as a content producer, supposedly once the account is locked it can’t be unlocked, but yet because its never deleted its a breach of their T&C to create another.
Oh well back to the “Get rich quick drawing board”
Back in January I wrote about how I was so happy to be making 2.4c a day between this blog and Youtube content.
Well a solid 6 months has passed and it’s time to review the situation. I’ve not pumped this site full of content nor have I piled on the Youtube content so I guess in part it’s been a failure. As it turns out making interesting content is hard work!
As it turns out making interesting content is hard work!
What I can say is that typically my income is now much higher than 2.4c per day and peaked (after my March-April trip to Malaysia) at a massive 12.8c per day – a 500% increase in income!
So what have I “earned”?
| Jul 1, 2014 – Jul 31, 2014 | $2.43 |
| Jun 1, 2014 – Jun 30, 2014 | $1.73 |
| May 1, 2014 – May 31, 2014 | $3.93 |
| Apr 1, 2014 – Apr 30, 2014 | $2.75 |
| Mar 1, 2014 – Mar 31, 2014 | $1.12 |
| Feb 1, 2014 – Feb 28, 2014 | $2.97 |
| Jan 1, 2014 – Jan 31, 2014 | $0.88 |
| Total: | $15.81 |
| Daily (211 Days) | $0.07 |
I think that says it all, AUD0.07 per day on average for the 211 days through until the end of July 2014.
As you can see the income is sporadic and based heavily on how much effort I put into content and also into promotion. The Renault information certainly boosts the Google rankings and generates traffic but it’s also complex research to generate. Travel writing doesn’t generate much traffic, but I haven’t written much yet, and honestly really would need to start pushing it harder.
income is sporadic and based heavily on how much effort I put into content and also into promotion
What I do know and understand is that to build revenue I need to start pushing better content related advertisements. Perhaps Google Adsense isn’t the cash vehicle it’s cracked up to be? I presume using better targeted programs would work, or having a greater level of hits would drive up traffic? Maybe infusing some Airline ticket search engines would work, they can generate a decent return, assuming someone uses it to buy themselves tickets!
No matter what the outcomes are for me what I can definitely say is that unless a person has a lot of time on their hands and a fairly sizeable chunk of cash to spend on promoting their travel blog they’re not going to be living high on the proceeds of their words!
I’m also very happy to say that the experiment continues with my 7 cents per day almost 300% more than when I started!
Thanks for the Clicks on the ads and thanks for the page views.
Well the idea has been kicking around in my head for a while now, I’ve not really tried this before (Blogging that is) but have been known to post a lot of stuff on my FaceBook and Google+ in the past. I Twitter’d for a bit too…
But as those sites became harder and harder to keep up with, the constant battle to keep the Geotags under control, or the “Hey why not be friends with your ex” suggestions mean that Google+ is gone, The Twitter bird died and my FaceBook is locked down like a maximum security prison.
Yeah I hear you “But Aaron, anyone can read this!” – Yup they can, and indeed you’re reading it right now. But that’s because I’m writing things that you are welcome to read, that you’re welcome to share. The posts from herein may be opinions, facts, or just pure speculation, but they’re mine, and at the time of writing I’m proud enough of them for the world to see.
So welcome aboard and please don’t forget to Share & Like!
