September Review: “Best Economics Blog”… and the Worst Earnings of the Year

by Darwin on October 2, 2011

Since I’ve been reporting my online earnings monthly for some time now (see my Blogging Section for more tidbits and history), the trend had historically been up, but the month of September saw my lowest earnings for both this site and total online income for 2011.  There are a few reasons for that, but I’m encouraged by the fact that it isn’t because of anything alarming, but rather, I put a lot of effort into other income streams that won’t pay off for some time.  In the long-run, will be excellent substantial and diverse income streams.  First, let’s talk about what happened at Darwin’s Money for the month:

Best Economics Blog

I was taken aback this weekend when a saw a tweet from the 2011 Financial Blogger Conference that I’d won the award for Best Economics Blog from the Plutus Awards (winners for all categories here).  Not only were the blogs I was up against GREAT (Pop Economics, Studenomics, Weakonomics (last year’s winner), Zero Hedge), but I don’t consider myself to be an economist by any means.  Seriously, all of those blogs are better economics blogs than mine, so please check them out.  It was truly flattering and evidently, enough of my readers appreciate my content enough to have voted for me – so THANKS!!!!

And screw you to whoever didn’t vote for me for “most controversial blog” category – Just Kidding.  I’m flattered to have been nominated for two categories and blown away that I actually won one.

Traffic

Traffic came back down to normal levels in September.  I had cited in August how I had “planted some seeds” to drive thousands of extra visitors to the blog with particular events and keywords, it had worked.  But that was a one-time thing.  And I haven’t planted any new seeds recently.  So, while I dropped from last month’s record high of 30K page views, the trend excluding August is still up at 24K for the month, which is good.  If I could pick up an extra 1-2K page views per month for the indefinite future, I’d be satisfied.

 

Earnings

  • Adsense – $460 (slight drop from last month)
  • Affiliate Income – $120 (BIG drop from last month)
  • Direct Ad Placements – $761 (BIG drop from last month)
  • Freelance – $404 (slight drop from last month)

So what happened to my earnings?  Well, as you’ll see below, I shifted a lot of time and energy to my other projects last month.  Adsense was a slight drop tied to traffic drop – no surprise there.  Affiliate income dropped bigtime.  Over the past few months, I’ve had REALLY great success using Flexoffers but for whatever reason in Sept, conversions were way down.  I’ll try again next month!  Direct Ad placements are tough to predict.  Aside from some recurring ad spots which I can count on, the one-offs for a full year placement which may pay several hundred per pop don’t come around every month.  Finally, I’ve continued to cut down on Freelance.  While I’m approached occasionally, I just don’t have the time to take on new clients, so I just have 2 small gigs and some residuals from stuff I write from my ETF persona at Seekingalpha.

 

Multiple Streams of Income!

As I mentioned, this month, I shifted gears and put quite a bit of effort into two other endeavors – we closed on a college real estate deal in September which took a lot of time, effort and coordination to pull off, and next, we’re really doing some incredible things with the CAD Outsourcing business.  I have two incredibly motivated and effective partners that are coming up with new ideas practically daily and while they execute some on their own, some entail coordination with things in my space like SEO, content generation, affiliate ad networks and such.  So, because the anticipated ROI on our efforts is so high, I did divert a lot of time and attention to the business this month and I could see this pace accelerating in the coming months as we blow out the ad budget, bring on a new account manager and continue to hire more drafters.

What does this mean for Darwin’s Money?  No bad news there – since this site is my primary blog, I fully intend on continuing to deliver at least 1-2 quality, unique articles per week, aside from my occasional rants and link roundups.  However, previously, I had multiple other site launches in mind that will just have to wait.  I’ve cut back on freelancing and trying to delve into other genres.  I have to prioritize what’s most important and missing opportunities on the growing business or screwing up the real estate books isn’t acceptable, whereas some of my other ideas can wait.  Rather than taking on too much and accomplishing nothing, I’d much rather take on a few key initiatives and execute like a champ.  So, in the interim, I can probably anticipate steady traffic/earnings, you can expect good quality articles, but not a lot of side projects sprouting up.  There’s just not enough time in the day.  But I’ve reached a level of comfort with that.  While I used to view any month that saw a drop in earnings as a failure, I’ve reset my expectations given the opportunities in the other income streams.  I hope to report back in a year that I’m making more online than in my day job – now that would be something to celebrate!

How Was Your September?

{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }

krantcents October 2, 2011 at 3:56 pm

My traffic numbers almost doubled from the prior month and I stated earning money this month. It is the result of a two month effort I made this summer. Now I have to keep it up!

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Darwin October 3, 2011 at 11:41 pm

That’s awesome; 100% increase! congrats!

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Invest It Wisely October 2, 2011 at 5:03 pm

Congrats on the win! Interestingly enough September was my best month, but you are destroying me in Adsense.

What type of work were you doing on Freelance? I’m curious…

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Darwin October 3, 2011 at 11:42 pm

Freelance; I used to get around more like Amex, Wisebread and a few other outlets. I used to write a bit more for Seekingalpha paid as well, but not so much lately.

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101 Centavos October 3, 2011 at 6:54 am

Congratulations on the win, Darwin! I’m gobsmacked by your traffic numbers.

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Darwin October 3, 2011 at 11:42 pm

Wow, thanks. I don’t think I’ve ever “godsmacked someone”, although I’ve wanted to on more than one occasion.

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Moneycone October 3, 2011 at 7:52 am

Congratulations Darwin! Very deserving of the award!

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Darwin October 3, 2011 at 11:42 pm

Thank you very much!

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Ash @ Sterling Effort October 4, 2011 at 5:29 pm

Nice work, Darwin. Congratulations! Hmm, you’re clearly not being edgy enough though. I want to see you winning ‘most controversial’ next year 🙂

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20's Finances October 3, 2011 at 11:02 am

Even though these numbers are down, they are still great numbers! Congrats on the award! Well deserved.

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Darwin October 3, 2011 at 11:43 pm

Thanks again!

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Jacob @ My Personal Finance Journey October 3, 2011 at 12:13 pm

I didn’t know you had the CAD business and were an active real estate investor! You keep quite busy!

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Darwin October 3, 2011 at 11:44 pm

My wife watches horrific dance shows and bachelorette; I work. It works for us! About 3-4 nights a week and a few hours on weekends. Going for that passive income thing so someday I don’t have to work so hard!

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Echo October 9, 2011 at 12:00 am

That sounds familiar 🙂

I work pretty hard on Thursday nights while my wife’s watching Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. She doesn’t mind that I’m glued to the computer and I can tune out her awful TV programs.

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retirebyforty October 3, 2011 at 1:25 pm

Congratulation on the win! I’m looking forward to hearing more about the CAD outsourcing business. Great job there.

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Darwin October 3, 2011 at 11:44 pm

Very excited about it! Growing and big things on the horizon with some new ad outlets we’re trying. Will have to write more on it.

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Andy Hough October 3, 2011 at 1:41 pm

Congratulations on the win. My affiliate income was way down in September as well so perhaps it is just a temporary lull.

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Darwin October 3, 2011 at 11:45 pm

Yeah, some weird deal where one product I had highlighted and was getting credit for wasn’t part of their program?! So they deleted out some earnings, weird.

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Financial Samurai October 3, 2011 at 11:27 pm

Not too shabby mate!

I don’t do affiliate income. Should I? Maybe I should. I’m having trouble reading more dense pieces of material and going through everything.

September for me was not bad. I don’t think I’ll starve, yet.

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Darwin October 3, 2011 at 11:45 pm

Surely you use some products that have affiliate programs, right? If you like one, do a review. You have the traffic to get a few conversions here and there!

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funancials October 4, 2011 at 6:33 pm

I had something incredibly nice to say but once I read that someone was gobsmacked I got all flustered. Congrats again on the Plutus

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