Adventures in Lifestyle Design from a Path Less Traveled
November 2010 Earnings
November was my second full month traveling through Thailand. I made $2468.34 from my websites this past month.
Overall November was a very cool month in terms of internet marketing. I started out in Singapore where I met some great people. While I was in Singapore, I also started to pick up my work pace again on websites. When I wasn’t out prawn fishing or sleeping through a 3:00 AM movie after staying awake all night just to spite the expensive-ass hostels in Singapore I could be found in a random coffee shop pecking away on my laptop.
Back in Bangkok, I brought the same work ethic with me writing an average of one or two articles a day for some new websites. I also attended an affiliate marketing meetup group that met in a tea house on Sukhumvit Road. It was a very diverse range of people. Some getting started, some making money hand-over-fist with CPA stuff, weirdos like me, and everything in between. Sometimes I get so caught up in what I do that I forget how vast the world of internet marketing is.
Then heading up to Chiang Mai was a break from working for a few days. I did however get the opportunity to meet Sean Morrissy, the guy that really inspired me to keep plugging away at internet marketing when I was first getting started. This was really cool! Over the past year, every time I found myself feeling depressed, defeated, or just otherwise resisting all the mind-numbing work that comes with spinning articles, I would think about guys out there like Sean, Jackson Lin, or Jem008 that had pushed through and gone on to find good success.
Then back in Bangkok again, I’ve been working more on putting together some websites for another experiment that I plan on doing in 2011 and enjoying the rest of my trip to Thailand.
Anyway, my websites have kept the money coming in without me doing much of anything to maintain them. I’d just log into my IM e-mail account every now and then to make sure that my little business wasn’t imploding or anything, and then it’s back to doing other things.
Aside from a stupid thing with PayPal where they wouldn’t let me pay my writer until I verified that I lived where I said I do, and AMA terminating my account apparently just because I’ve had it for one year (I wonder if they’re just trying to screw over their affiliates…), nothing really needed to be taken care of.
I am probably going to stop doing these updates after a December / year end update. I really don’t think they have much value to them, and in some ways it feels like I’m bragging (even though most people with a day job probably make more than me). I guess some people find them inspiring or motivating, but I can’t really imagine they’re good for much else. But, I’m planning on doing something else which will hopefully be a lot more informative and, with any luck, motivating and inspirational as well.
Well, anyhow, here’s the CB screenshot. Sales have been a little lumpy this month. Went through a few slumps, but it all seems to have averaged out in the end. Plus I made a good amount with a non-CB affiliate program.
Next week, I’ll be back home in the US working again and able to crank out some useful blog posts here that people might actually enjoy (people generally seem to not like my blog these days–I’ve had a slump in traffic since I started traveling).
Well, have fun and I’ll write more soon!
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Hey Clayton,
You seems to have made more money while travelling. I think all the effort you put in before your trip starts to show. Anyway, is those non-cb income comes from the site you showed me previously or some other niche?
Cheers
Javier
@Javier, Thanks, the non-CB income is from one of my older sites. My new ones aren’t up and earning yet :)
Hello Clayton,
I sent an email to you. I hope you can read it soon, moreover I have some good informations about alternatives to AMA.
Talk soon.
Corrado
@Corrado, Cool. I have to run in a few minutes, but I’ll check my e-mail when I get back in a few hours. Hope you’re doing well these days.
@Corrado, Hey, I got an e-mail from you about 2 weeks ago. Is that the one? Anyway, I just wrote you back.
If you don’t mind sharing, would love to hear about them aswell. I thought about adding either UAW or Link Vana.
@Oliver, I use UAW myself and I think it is higher quality than AMA. I’m thinking of getting SEO Link Vine since a friend of mine has said some good things about it
AMA closed down your account? Wow that sucks.. is it back up or did you switch to a different service? I have my account for almost a year now and I’m worried they will just terminate mine, too.
@Oliver, I think I just need to pay them again to regain access to my account. But I’m not going to do anything until I get back home. As usual, AMA’s staff has ignored my service request to explain exactly why my account was closed. I’m just guessing that they automatically terminate your account after one year so that they don’t have to keep paying their affiliates for more than one year. If it’s true, it’s kind of a dick move on their part. Then again, AMA never fails to surprise me by consistently providing crappy service.
Hey Clayton,
that’s great for you! Keep it up!
I just wanted to ask also: Do most of your sales come from click throughs on your sites itself or through a list you built?
Meaning, the sales come from the site itself, rather than from a list which you have built
Thanks!
@Andy, Most of the sales come from two sites, which I haven’t added an opt-in form to yet. I don’t really know if the niches would be suited to have a newsletter or not, and I’m too afraid to try it out because I might decrease my income…
Other than that, I have newsletters on other sites, but my link tracking isn’t very good. I don’t really know if the sale comes from the list or the direct traffic to the site.
I should probably get that taken care of though when I get home….
Ok that’s good enough :) Would you mind sharing what the niches your 2 sites are in? I don’t mean the exact drill down sub-niches, but rather like the bigger picture – health, relationships,pets, etc…
If you arent ok with that thats ok too! :)
@Andy, Most of my money comes from the dating and relationship niches.
Basically what you want to do is find a niche that either:
1.) helps people deal with pain (either emotional or physical pain), or
2.) has “crazy” people in it that will go out and buy pretty much anything and everything (like video game subniches, or other hobbies).
Hope this helps.
Yeah, I guess so. I realized I stumbled upon one of your sites while researching on a certain niche, but there is one thing I found puzzling about the keywords
It seems that most of them only have an average of 400-600 searches/month(exact search in google keyword tool)? Is that enough? I used to think I need over a thousand searches per month to be able to see some results? and most of your keywords have less than 20k searches in allquotes in the search bar!
If that’s the case.. I guess I have been doing my keyword research pretty wrongly lol…have been aiming for searches above thousand and I always only look at the first 10 search results even when there are 200k results in all quotes
Thanks!
@Andy, There really isn’t a “wrong” way to do keyword research, you could go after a really tough keyword like “lose weight” if you wanted to. You had just better have some good resources at your disposal.
Are you sure it was my site? Most of my keywords should have more volume than that, unless Google recently updated their estimates on the keyword tool or something. I experiment with some low traffic keywords from time to time, if I’ve got a hunch about them, but usually I like 1000 or more monthly searches.
Im pretty sure.. well 90%, cause it looks exactly like an affiloblueprint site and the affiliate username is cterao with an ‘a’ somewhere in between! :)
@Andy, Yeah, that must be mine :)
Yup, your site is really great, sometimes I felt even compelled to click on your affiliate link to check out the website even though I have currently have no problems in my relationships LOL… by the way, do you currently only have around 7 websites? Or a lot more than that?
“Anyway, my websites have kept the money coming in without me doing much of anything to maintain them”
This is why internet marketing is the way to go! It is pretty awesome to make money while you are doing things that you enjoy.
I do agree AMA really provide some crappy service and I already stop using them. I just started UAW recently and it is too soon to say anything about it.
But I saw many people recommending it(including you) and I think it should be all right.
Now back to spinning articles!
Vincent
@Vincent, Ha ha! I wish I was as strong as you. I’m probably going to join AMA again just to get access to my spun articles so I can put them in UAW and SEOLV. After that, I’ll probably be too weak to give them up. It is like a vicious circle…
It’s great to see you continuing to earn well despite your travels and it’s very motivating to me to watch. I’ll miss your monthly earnings updates, but I completely understand your position and I’ll certainly be looking forward to your “more informative” posts in the future. I’m sure there’s a lot about your business strategy that you could share, and I would certainly love to hear more… :)
@Michelle, Thanks, I’m still going to try to put together a mastermind group when I get back to the PNW. I’ll let you know…
Hi Clayton,
Good to see you had fun in Thailand and that you have maintained your earnings. Looking forward to reading about how you plan to take things forward from this point.
@Rodderz, Thanks! How was the Philippines? I’ve got a lot to do in the next few months…
Philippines was cool man, lots of diving and other adventures. I’m one of those people with the huge backpacks, mainly because its full of dive gear.
Good luck for 2011
As I’ve said before, I personaly hope you keep posting your income. Be it in its own catatory or whatever. I look forward to seeing your progress (in figures), and it motivates me. It is NOT bragging at all. Bragging would be to put it across in a condescending way, and making out you’re better than others. You don’t do that. You put the figures across in an informative and informational way.
What new direction are you taking with the blog. The more informative approach / posts. I’m interested to see what you’re doing to do.
Now this blog is established, I guess you could turn it into an IM resource. A destination for all things IM/Unconcentional Life/Self Improvement?
Thanks for the update,
Ben :)
@Ben, Thanks. I’m not really sure exactly what is going to become of this blog. I’ve got some ideas, but ultimately I’m not really too concerned about what happens. I never intended for this blog to make any money when I first started it, but we’ll see. It’s mostly just something I do for fun to keep me connected to other people while I’m working on SEO and such. If it fades into obscurity, that’s fine. As they say here in Thailand, sabai sabai :)
Great update Clayton, I was really looking forward to this one as you’ve been abroad for quite a while now. Nice to know nothing ‘imploded’
@Devin, Ha ha! Yeah, there have been times when it seemed like everything was falling apart though. Like when AMA kicked me out for some unknown reason. I just assumed that my articles didn’t measure up to their bottom-of-the-barrel standards. Followed by paypal locking my account and me feeling like a total jerk because I couldn’t pay my writer. But, I guess in the end, it all wasn’t such a big deal after all.
Clayton, I’m another one that finds your posts really inspiring and am going to hate to stop seeing the monthly updates. But I’m excited to see what else you’re planning!
@Joe, Thanks. I’ve got quite a lot of work to do in the next month to set things up, but I hope what I’m planning turns out well :)
Hey man,
Let me know if you decide to go with UAW. I think a review might be a good thing if you switch.
P.S. Dude, you are dominating!
@Carl, Thanks. I’ve been using UAW for awhile now. So far I think it is pretty good. Much better than AMA. They have editors that review submitted articles to make sure they have proper grammar and I’ve never experienced any technical support issues with them. Very happy with UAW.
Hi Clayton,
Your updates will be missed. They are real and down-to-earth. I am not sure whether you have anything in the IM niche, but you are certainly making a credible contribution.
You are living it up exactly how I hope to do one day. Thanks for the inspiration!