Apr
March 2008 Blog Income Report
As usual, I like to be totally open and honest on this blog, and once again I’ll be revealing my infamous “blog income report” for the previous month. This one covers the dates of March 1-31, 2008.
In case you have forgotten, these blog income reports began as a case study in December of 2005 to see if I could make money in the “internet marketing” niche by placing affiliate links and then telling people NOT to buy products. Reverse psychology, if you will.
The first month was pretty pathetic, as I made a total of 10 cents. I think the problem was that I was running Adsense ads alongside my affiliate links, and Adsense totally cannibalized my sales. Had I gone without Adsense, I could have made upwards of $10,000 at least. I mean, I was averaging almost three visitors per day, with only two of them being family members that took pity on me!
Anyway, those days are long gone. Last month (February 08) was a record-setting month despite it only having 29 days! This blog generated a total of $39,281.19, which averages out to $1354.52 per day. Pretty sweet if you ask me.
But not as sweet as March! The record-setting streak continued and brought in…
Total Blog Income for March 2008: $41,648.03
That’s what I’m talking about! Here is the breakdown:
- Paid-to-surf sites: $19,418.22
- Paid reviews that aren’t marked as such: $11,125.00
- Pharmaceutical offers: $5,104.31
- Trendy 125×125 sponsors ads: $3,829.36
- Subvert and Profit: $2,119.50
- Adsense Arbitrage: $51.64
The blog traffic for March wasn’t bad, either. I managed 357,186 page views from 215,921 visitors, according to my trusty Google Analytics stats. Calculate the site wide eCPM and it comes out to $more than you made!
The icing on the cake is that this is pure profit. Other than the time it takes me to write these posts, I don’t pay for anything. That’s a very important detail right there, so let me explain…
First, hosting. Normally, with the bandwidth I use, you’d be paying close to $2000 each month for the servers (one to run Apache, one to run SQL, and a load balancer.) But my day job has me in control of the IT department at the NYC branch of a fairly large conglomerate… Yep, you get the idea. Compared to the business they do, my blog’s bandwidth is barely noticeable… so it runs on top-notch equipment and no one in the office notices 
(It’s not really stealing, I mean, just watch Office Space and you’ll see how it works.)
Second, advertising expenses. Some people spend $30k per month to bring in $40k, but they’re doing it all wrong. See, my content is so amazing that not only do people link to me, they go out of their way and actually purchase advertising and direct the traffic to my blog. It’s really sweet!
Those people are probably thinking about the principle of reciprocity, and think that I’ll do something in return for their kind gestures. Well, they can keep thinking that all day long… but they’ll be losing a lot of money and I’ll be raking it in. I’m saving for a Bugatti Veyron, so I need every penny I get.
How To Be a Six Figure Blogger
I’ve already given you some tips on how to cut costs, but I’m so generous, I want to give you some more advice.
Making money on the internet, whether you’re blogging or twitting or spamming Myspace, consists of two things: driving lots of traffic to your site and then having sales copy so good that not a single person leaves without first buying something. Both parts are equally hard, although the second part can be improved easily by filling your site with lies.
It doesn’t matter how many people read your site if you’re not trying to sell to them the entire time. You gotta start with a pic of a sports car and mansion to show how rich you are (even if you swiped the pics from Google Images,) and then promise that if people give the money to you, that they’ll end up super rich like you are.
(This practice isn’t unethical, either, as long as you have a very tiny disclaimer hidden on your site that says it’s unlikely that the customer will make any money.)
So hopefully you learned something in there. Follow that formula and good things will happen!
(Probably not to you, but surely to someone out there that isn’t stealing bandwidth and deceiving customers!)
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Click here to buy me a beer, because damn, I need to get drunk to forget how much internet marketing sucks!
You only made $52 on AdSense arbitrage? Figures like that are for suckers. Big money makers like me will only laugh at you with earnings like that. But you’re in luck: I know of a really great program — with which I’m in no way connected as an affiliate — that will help you Make Money Online - Easy!
Wow, your the next John Chow
I was going to do an April fools joke too. I was going to give away my blog for almost nothing. I never got around to it though so I guess I will have to keep it
Darn, I meant to link to this: http://www.buymystupidebook.com/
John who? Probably one of the many who make less money than I do
And oh yes, Biff McProfit’s amazing creation. I have learned a lot from him but haven’t applied his teachings to my Adsense arbitrage endeavors yet
Congrats to you! It is interesting to see how your sources of income are continuing to grow
LOL. I come back every day just for the comments.
Ok.. I got to ask.. what do you mean by Paid-to-surf sites??? How does this account for income for your blog? That is the first time you have ever mentioned it from what I can tell. How did that account for such a large % of the income last month?
Jonathan, I can’t give away all my secrets! I will suggest the next best thing though, and that’s to learn from the source Melanie linked above:
http://www.buymystupidebook.com/
I didn’t ask you to give away all your secrets.. just that one.
If you are want to keep it private you got my email. 
I just have trouble understanding how paid surf programs would have anything to do with income here. Are you sure that isn’t a ’side project’ vs. direct income generated as a result of your blog?
That stupid ebook is cute.
You’ve already got it under control - the whole thing was an April Fool’s hoax and I made paid-to-surf sites the #1 earner because they are so cheesy and unlikely to make you any money
Ya got me
Cut and paste of chow with some rewrites.. nice
Paid to surf.. its just so 90s!
Congrats on your success. I’m impressed!
I love Office Space : ] Haha, anyways though — Great post and wonderful tips! Thanks for sharing!
You had me going for a minute but I knew paid to surf websites were dead…
that’s some serious money there. Congrats man!
@Norhafidz
Yeah, I wish it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke
I had to chuckle reading all the things we go through in ‘online marketing’.
As an overwhelmed beginner I finally decided to talk to a coach, Terry Dean (www.mymarketingcoach.com), and this is the best decision I could have made. You save MUCH more in time and money in the long run.
I like the blog and hope to be back. Looks like there’s a lot going on here.