Weekly Income Report - 7
Every week on I will report on the performance of this blog. Target is to give full transparency on money and hours spent and money earned. DO ask questions if things are not clear.
This week I had virtually zero activity online. Not on my personal blog How to be an Original, not on Scraping Pennies and not even on Twitter. The biggest reason is because I started to write an e-book, related to How to be an Original. I’m going to use E-Junkie to sell it. When I set it up, I’ll post my experiences here.
My Google Adwords campaign is interesting. Massive numbers of views for the advertisement, but not that many clicks. Somehow I’m not too unhappy about it, because the blog is shown to a lot of people. I know that there’s a lot of people that don’t even see Adsense ads, but still the name is out there and helping to build the brand.
Key Performance Indicators
| $ 0.00 / hour | |
| $ 1.40 / hour | |
| Cumulative hours spent: | 52.75 hours |
| Cumulative result: | - $73.83 |
Money spent
No cash out.
Money earned
No cash in.
Hours spent
- Creating Content: 0.25 hours
- Monetization: 0
- Design: 0
- Technical: 0
- Marketing: 0
Total hours: 0.25 hours
Budget status (this week)
| Balance (start): | $ 126.17 |
| Cash In: | $ 0 |
| Cash Out: | $ 0 |
| Balance (end): | $ 126.17 |
Weekly Income Report - 6
Every week on I will report on the performance of this blog. Target is to give full transparency on money and hours spent and money earned. DO ask questions if things are not clear.
This week I spent most of my time creating content. The OIO Publisher tutorial took a lot of time to create, but I learned some more about the plugin while writing it.
I also started experimenting with advertising using Google Adwords. I had $25 worth of credits, because GoDaddy offered that with the sign-up of this account. I have set it up, but it ended up costing me $10 nevertheless, because you can’t start without paying. That was unexpected, but I decided to go ahead with it anyway. I’ll report on it later.
Key Performance Indicators
| $ 0.93 / hour | |
| $ 1.41 / hour | |
| Cumulative hours spent: | 52.50 hours |
| Cumulative result: | - $73.83 |
Money spent
$10 payment for signing up with Google Adwords.
Money earned
No cash in.
Hours spent
- Creating Content: 9.25 hours
- Monetization: 0
- Design: 0
- Technical: 0
- Marketing: 1.50
Total hours: 10.75 hours
Budget status (this week)
| Balance (start): | $ 136.17 |
| Cash In: | $ 0 |
| Cash Out: | $ 10.00 |
| Balance (end): | $ 126.17 |
Tutorial: Basic Installation OIO Publisher
This tutorial will guide you through the process of installing OIO Publisher Direct. At the end of this tutorial you will have:
- successfully registered an account
- downloaded and installed the plugin
- configured basic and advanced settings
- implemented an ad zone on your blog
- tested the purchase and payment procedure
- applied for a listing in the marketplace
OIO Publisher currently only supports self-hosted WordPress as a blogging platform. Other platforms are in the development roadmap, but are not released yet.
Registering an account
First hop on over to the website of OIO Publisher Direct. When you’re there, click on the register button.
After clicking that button you get a straightforward form to register your account. I recommend you start using the Pro (full feature) plugin, but as you can see there’s an option to register for a free account. In this tutorial I’m going to assume you’re working with the paid Pro version.
After this you’re ready to go to the next step.
Click to continue »
Early Stage Strategy: Focus on Cash Flow
Profit is an illusion, cash flow is fact. ~ Unknown
As you know I work with a $200 budget to reach my goal of getting an income from online activities. One of the things I’m doing is monetizing this blog, but there are more ways I will be exploring. In the early stages though, you’ll want to focus on cash flow, no matter what tactic you’re using.
Cash Flow
Cash flow is a term that refers to the amount of cash being received and spent. It’s what you see on your bank statements. Money comes in, money goes out. Earnings and profit are not the same as cash flow. Cash flow is what happens now, earnings and profit are what might happen in the future. Earnings turn into cash flow as soon as someone pays you.
Cash flow is exactly what I’ll be focusing on when directing my energy to making money online. I want to see that cash coming in. I don’t want to see some virtual profit accumulating on some site, without the cash flow associated with it.
The fact that cash will flow out is a certainty for me. For instance, every month I need to pay my hosting. And every year I need to renew my domain registration. Both aren’t really expensive, but on a $200 budget, they nibble away the budget in a steady pace.
Using Cash Flow Characteristics
Some ad programs have several restrictions that hurt their cash flow attractiveness factor. Google Adsense for instance has a payment threshold of $100. If your earnings balance at the end of the month is below the $100, it is carried over to the next month. Month after month after month, until you finally hit the $100. When that happens, they wait another month before issuing a payment. If you’re in one of the countries that’s elligible for electronic funds transfer, it’s only a couple of days before the money hits the bank. If you’re not, you have to wait for the check to come in the mail and then wait before the bank decides to clear the check and deposit it to your bank account (while deducting their processing fee). From the point of cash flow not very attractive at all. Kontera has similar characteristics.
Other ad programs like Text Link Ads and LinkWorth offer better terms. Low or no payout limit, payments to PayPal in the week after the previous month ended. Affiliate programs like those offered at e-junkie or Web Warrior Tools show similar characteristics. From a cash flow perspective this is a lot better already.
And if you provide private ad sales, you get the money in your account instantly. This is what makes OIO Publisher so attractive to me, the money you charge for advertisements is deposited instantly in your Paypal account. This is cash flow heaven.
When you dedicate a part of the layout of your website to show ads, it’s worth checking out the payment terms for the program you intend to use. It could take many months before you actually see any money. For me it’s a deciding factor in the early stages, and it might even be in later stages as well.
I only mentioned a couple of programs in this article, but I’m working on a big list of programs, comparing their cash flow characteristics and more. Subscribe now and be among the first to know about that comparison.
Weekly Income Report - 5
Every week on I will report on the performance of this blog. Target is to give full transparency on money and hours spent and money earned. DO ask questions if things are not clear.
I worked on implementing OIO Publisher this week. Took more time than I anticipated, partly because I got interrupted too many times. It’s really a job that needs a certain amount of concentration.
Key Performance Indicators
| $ 0.72 / hour | |
| $ 1.53 / hour | |
| Cumulative hours spent: | 41.75 hours |
| Cumulative result: | - $63.83 |
Money spent
Monthly payment for hosting ($8.32) is deducted from the budget.
Money earned
No cash in.
Hours spent
Some design tweaks this week, and backing up databases and upgrading WordPress. But mostly implementing OIO Publisher.
- Creating Content: 2.75 hours
- Monetization: 6.25
- Design: 0.50
- Technical: 2:00
Total hours: 11.50 hours
Budget status (this week)
| Balance (start): | $ 144.49 |
| Cash In: | $ 0 |
| Cash Out: | $ 8.32 |
| Balance (end): | $ 136.17 |
