Stats & Analysis for October ‘07 & Podcast 2

Caroline, congratulations on this success, which I´m glad to have contributed a small part to. :-)
I´m still on my way to get my subscriber numbers to 3 digits, but I´m soo close.

@Marco, Keep on trucking, and thanks for your contribution :)

Congrats on your growth. I look forward to your posts and think that you are doing a great job.

BTW, the Twitter Guide is fantastic!

Ah, Caroline…
I wish you’d make a transcript available for your hearing-impaired fans. Yet, you already spend too much time in the churn.

Here’s the thing: you’re doing the most important thing you can do. You are establishing yourself. Your products won’t make you a dime until people care enough to buy them.

I’m no marketing expert. I am traveling much the same path as you are (which is why you intrigue me so much.)

The big difference is, I have a job. So, I can afford to let the online stuff simmer until it comes to a boil.

Without knowing what your podcast is telling us, I can only hope that you have a plan to stem the tide of red ink.

Having said all that, I believe you will succeed.
Some of us have to run the race barefoot over hot coals, but so be it.

As you said to Marco: Keep on Truckin’!

Cheers,

Mitch

@Don, thanks!

@Mitchell, Hmm I have no idea how to make a transcript other than typing it all out. If you can’t hear it you didn’t miss much - the podcasts I do are just me waffling about stuff in general - I’m not giving out any tips or tutorials etc.

The gist was that after seeing where my time went, I need to focus on those activities that bring me money. My blogging time will be spent more in writing and less on marketing. And seeing as the blog is doing quite well, I’m going to try and monetize it.

Hey Caroline, those are really some impressive stats. Congrats for quiting your dayjob as well, that’s something bloggers should do often :D.

Hi Caroline, like you I am very new to blogging. I joined Yaro’s BlogMasterming group at the launch and each week he comes thru with terrific training. I am watching my RSS feeds which are up to 43 now after about 6 weeks and I have had a total of 18 visitors from 23 countries which I find amazing.

Good luck in your future!

Sorry I meant 1800 visitors :-)

Caroline,

Congratulations on your success. You are doing awesome.

I have the same problem of spending more time reading than working on my articles. I am not really worried about monetization yet, but I am getting there.

@Tibi, Thanks. I wouldn’t really recommend quitting your day job unless you are a fairly chilled out person though :)

@John, If you don’t mind, I’ll mail you privately about Yaro’s mastermind program as I’d like to get some feedback from somebody who is actually in it. And well done on your progress!

@Fred, I think a lot of bloggers do it. After all I imagine most people get start blogging after getting inspired by reading other people’s blogs. It’s easily done.

Hi Caroline,

Thank you for a great post! I don’t think tracking your time is anal at all :).

I really enjoyed your post and I will now use Slim Timer thanks to you. That is a great tool.

Good luck with it. I hope you make some money next month, look forward to that post.

Cheers,
Steve

I know how you feel Caroline :D

I do a lot of stat tracking but don’t normally publish all the results - it does open our eyes on where we can increase our efforts.

Great post.

Alex

Caroline those 31 visitors from Blogrush didn’t cost you any time, and if that is the figure from your independent tracking (don’t go by the interface), it possibly represents a 0.25% CTR (depends on how many page views you got from that SU crowd)

Hi there Caroline

I think you should at least set up a Paypal Donate button. Wouldn’t that be a good start?

Love your blog by the way. Keep it up!

Caroline, you are refreshingly open and honest about how well you are monetizing v your traffic. However, what chance does that give the rest of us just starting out for monetizing, who cannot match your blog stats?

Great blog Caroline. You deserve your success having worked so hard. ;)

@Stephen, Yep I hope I make some money this month too hehe :)

@Alex, my intention with this blog is to share what I learn and teach others as I go along so I intend to continue to disclose all my stats including income when that is part of the equation.

@Patrick, actually I’m not keen on the various kinds of donation systems. They remind me of an online version of a busker begging for spare changing in a tube station :/ I plan to open some some advertising spots to start with.

@Hughmax, It’s not a race, nor a competition. I started at 1 subscriber (me) just like everybody else - everybody has the same chance. I really and truly believe that absolutely anybody can make money online and have a successful blog.

@Patricia, thank you :)

@Andy, no BlogRush doesn’t cost me time but it costs me screen real estate, it adds clutter and it slows down the loading of the blog. According to the Blogrush dashboard my blog (not including referrals) showed 28,000 impressions. Thats something like 0.11% CTR which is pretty lousy. I’ll leave it there for the moment but I’m got some theme changes coming up and when I change it, I think it will go.

Hi Caroline,

I am a recent subscriber to your RSS feed. I am a Domestic Diva at heart and a Computer Geek in the making. I just learned that I have a passion for website development and computer graphics: stopping only when I am tired, when the kids say ‘Ma I’m hungry’, or when whatever I am working on at the moment is finished.

I just learned recently that it is possible to make money with all my tinkering with html, css, etc. I hit upon your blog on Stumble and I am glad I did. I will be paying close attention to your making money online journey as I hope to parallel my own similar journey to yours. Which is why, for selfish reasons, I will be praying and rooting fervently for your success. Congratulations on meeting your targets. I know I will too.

My first website is currently on a free web host and hopefully by Monday I will be able to transfer it into my own purchased domain. That should be exhilarating and thus far will be my own first little contribution toward “world domination” (LOL).

The jump in RSS subscribers is outstanding!! Excellent job! The small amount of search traffic is very odd in my eyes though. You obviously run a tight ship, you publish quality content etc. The search traffic should really be higher. I wonder why they aren’t sending more.

I really need to start reading more of your social networking posts. I’ve recently gotten more into SU and I’ve tinkered with Digg a few others, but I’ve never really been serious with any of them. Seeing your stats is just another reason for me to get going on social media.

The 11 visits I sent is a bit embarrassing lol I’ll have to bump that number up a bit.

Great job! I think you’ll hit 500 subscribers by next month ;)

Hi Caroline

Thanks for a great post I enjoyed reading this and am looking forward to reading more of your articles. you seem to have a business mind when it comes to blogging which will stand you in good stead.

those are impressive stuff caroline. i’m still scratching my head as to how stumble upon traffic goes to one’s blog if it’s supposed to be random.

@Ana, It’s quite a thrill when you create your first real site isn’t it? With more and more people watching what I’m doing I have even more reason to succeed as people are counting on it now hehe.

@Josh, I optimise for the search engines. I’m really lazy - I forget to even tag most of the time. Most of my posts are not targeted for keywords at all. Plus the site is very new so it’s probably been in the Google sandbox all this time. It will be interesting to see if the SE traffic will increase now that I have PR.

I absolutely recommend social media. It’s time consuming though - it takes time to get to know the sites but it really does help.

My RSS goal for November is 450 :-)

@Steven, I’ve been self employed for 8 years of my life. I started my first business at 19 so that’s where the business head comes from. Comes in handy I think. Now to turn that into cashflow…

@Javi, when you submit a site to StumbleUpon you select a category for it such as blogs or photography, animals etc. When people sign up to StumbleUpon they select topics they are interested in so when they hit the stumble button they are served pages from that category. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the basic gist.

Hi Caroline,

Yaro just sent you another visitor. ;-) Actually I’m also subscribed t you and would have landed here anyway at some stage soon. I loved your post, it was very detailed and showed me that I could improve on my own stats.

I publish my earnings and traffic stats every month (still to do Oct) and never thought of tracking my time. But after your recommendation of Slim Timer I will be using this tool myself, so thanks for this.

Also, podcasts are a great way to bring the message across. What kept me away from them so far was the fear that others would laugh at my accent. But then , who cares as long as they understand what I’m talking about right?

I think your idea on using the blog to share your journey and help others to make money is great. I’m doing the same and it seems to work. There is nothing more satisfactory (besides earning some money) than helping others do the same by inspiring them. Keep up the great work Caroline, you will earn money this month I am certain of that!

Monika

I do the same. I don’t even use tags. I do try to optimize the title somewhat, but I’m normally lazy with that even. I’d imagine the site being very new is what the problem is. Many of your pages are probably in the supplemental index for now. The visual PR doesn’t have anything to do with traffic or anything else. It’s really just eye candy. That can be proven by looking at Andy and Yaro. Yaro went from a 6 ro a 3, Andy went from a 5 to 4 and they both getting just as much traffic if not more. I also have a PR6 site that gets about 20 hits a day lol Then look at my blog. It’s PR3 and gets 300-600 uniques a day.

The actual PR, which is not visible, is what matters. The way you’re blog is growing though, I’m sure it’s on the rise as well.

I believe you’ll reach and exceed your RSS goal ;)

Wow, what a great blog!! I am very impressed and intrigued with the work you have done and plan to do. I am actually not interested in blogging, although I do have one. However, I think your techniques and strategies will work for almost any online business, so I am going to keep a close watch by rss-ing your site.
One thing that stand out in what you said keeps resonating in my mind. “Focusing on activities that earn you money.” Lately I have been consumed with making it, but not doing the activities that would take me there. I think there are a lot of people out there who do the same thing. I too spend a lot of time reading other blogs and making comments, like right now. I need to slow down and focus on activities that will earn me money, or at least lead to that.
Its nice that you take the time to reply to each comment you receive, but I don’t think its necessary. Although it does pad your comment numbers. Keep on keeping on, I love it. I plan on reading more of your posts, so you may hear more from me.
One more thing, a lot of people have asked for a transcript of your pod cast. You could have someone volunteer to do it for a link, or a some kind of beneficial reward. You could have a link under the pod cast player that says something thing like “Transcript of pod cast” and then next to or right below it there could be some kind of acknowledgment of who did it with some sort of link to there site. Just an idea. (Hey, that would be a great service to start. I know someone might be doing it already, if not some will be soon.)

@Monika, I was also worried about my accent but you know there are so many different accents in the world that who cares? There’s no ’standard’ is there?

@Serge, thanks very much! At the beginning of any new thing its worth taking time to read around a subject, brainstorm, do some planning etc but at some point you have to cut that down and get down to taking action. I can be a procrastinator in this respect and I know I’m not alone - it’s so easily done.

I like to reply to comments, I don’t do it to pad numbers - if I was trying to do that I’d reply to each one individually :) I love hearing what people have to say and I like to acknowledge people who take the time to give me feedback, I really do appreciate it.

With regards to the podcast, I could have done kind of a transcript if I had thought about it before. See before I do the podcast I write myself a mini script - just a bunch of one liners that dictate what I’m going to talk about and I use that as a very loose script to stop myself from wandering off topic. What I could do is expand on that after recording and put that up on the site - I’ll do that next time.

Congratulations Caroline, I think you did an excellent job so far. It doesn’t matter you didn’t make any money, because the time you invested in reading, learning and experimenting will pay off in the not so far future, because you now know what doesn’t work for you.
I’m looking forward to see your 1st-of-the-month report in which you announce that you pay all your bills from online activities ;)

Wow, grate studies, i never thought about commenting. In stead of commenting I was just writing my content. But now I’ve learnd something new.

the only problem with the comments ist that lot of people are just spamming to get a backlink. Thats another probelm that has to be solved.
Lernen

I came across your blog via Problogger this morning. I am guessing this may be boosting your traffic again :)
Your statistics on the time you spend, and where, were really interesting and gave me the boost to examine what I do too. My traffic is nowhere near 3 figures yet, but I have a narrow niche, and I am sure it will build in the future.

As I am about to subscribe to your blog, it looks like I will be adding more reading time though! I am appreciating more, how important it is to be selective in what I read, and the activities that eat those hours.

Thank you for an interesting and informative blog.

Firsty Congratulations Caroline on the results for the month! Secondly, what a FANTASTICLY detailed report on your figures for the month, it really shows you`re on top of your blog and in touch with its performance. Here`s to you for continued success into the future!

@Simone, Yup I’m looking forward to posting that one too. I’ve rehearsed it in my head a few times to help it along a little quicker :p

@Lernen, You know the only comment spam I get is genuine spam - viagra links etc. I really haven’t had anyone posting comments just for links, at least not that I’ve noticed. It’s all been really good quality comments whuch I’m really chuffed about!

@Heather, You know the funny thing is that after worrying about how much time I spent reading and commenting on other blogs and then seeing the payoff in terms of Yaro & Darren’s posts, it has just made me want to do it even more!

@Neil, Thank you very much!

Congrats on your success thus far. I’ll love to see you making some big money through this blog, hehe :) By the way, what’s the secret of all the love from SU? ;)

It’s nice to hear another English voice, although may I say I did struggle to hear it. You must have been broadcasting from the other end of the country :)

Caroline, you’ve done way too much learning and not enough doing. I know this because I do exactly the same thing.

Caroline,

Congratulations! You have been doing things by yourself that many people try and just can’t do it. I understood every single word you wrote because I’m also pursuing similar goals to my niche website and as well to my life. Let me know about your upcoming success.

By the way, nice graphics!!! 8)

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with the blogsphere.

@Ruchir, the secret to SU love is, in a nutshell, getting thumbs up. Obviously as I have more regular people here who give me thumbs ups it gets easier to get more.

@TextAdSearch, I used a different piece of software than before for this podcast and had trouble with the levels. I’ll fiddle with it some more next time.

@Alex, Thanks for the support Alex!

You made some points in your podcast
1. You are not making money because your site is not monetized
2. There are plenty of make money online blogs.

I work probably 2 X as many hours as you running a network of sites. At end of the month I make very little money from sites but made money from selling domains to other people getting into web business.

I would advise you to build some more sites and diversify yourself.

@George, actually my goal was never for this blog to be the main income source. My goal is to have a variety of niche websites, software tools, membership sites perhaps that earn money. The blog is here to report my progress.

However what I didn’t expect was for the blog to grow in popularity as quickly as it has and for me not to have made any money on my niche websites yet. So I’m in a situation where I would be silly not to monetize the blog at this point - but it is not the sole focus of my business efforts.

Hi Caroline,

Congrats on all that traffic - it’s a fantastic achievement.. The quotes from the search engine referral have just made my day.. How some of those terms made it to your site baffles me :)

The principles: 80/20, 30/30 and 90/10. Don’t beat yourself up about these. I have to follow these everyday of my life and I still can’t figure them out.. You need to decide what the important parts of your business are and try not to spread yourself too thinly across them all.

Act 80/20 - You’re supposed to spend 80% of your time in 20% of an area - you just need to figure out what that is.. Like in my line of work, 80% of our issues, come from 20% of the code base - so you’d think if we just made that better, it would solve all our problems.. hmm that would be the life :)

Live 90/10 - Apparently this is how you approach the times when you have your back against the wall and everything coming at you.. It’s about how you react in 10% of the time when the sh*t has hit the fan :). I’m not sure how that would apply to your business.

Think 30/30 - well your guess is as good as mine on that one :)

I know you set yourself a target figure for income in October and you shouldn’t be disheartened to have missed it. This is where you’re being tested… A lot of people would just give up after 2 months, but you’re not in that league of people. It will come, persevere and keep tweaking… Just remember the light bulb dude Thomas Edison… (you’re always telling me that one)

@Emma, You’ve been doing that sigma stuff again haven’t you? :) I’m not going to agonise over time ratios but if things are not working I will try to figure out what my most productive activities are.

I’m not disheartened at all, and giving up is not an option - I made sure of that my quiting the job. I simply have no choice but to keep on trucking until I succeed.

Caroline,

That’s a really detailed account of your month. It’s incredible the amount of traffic you got from stumble upon. You say it’s not as targetted, but the question is with all that traffic, is there more a way to turn it into something useful for you in terms of getting some income. If you made $0 in Oct. 07 from you blog, but you have over 11,000 visitors, should you start looking at adding advertisers?

One thing is sure making a living online is quite the challenge, but it’s possible since people like Darren (Problogger.net) is proof of it.

As for BlogRush, it seems that no one is really getting real results with the widget…which is too bad because the concept was a great one.

Gisele
http://www.mybeautymatch.com

Hey Caroline,

Keep up the good work. Always great content.

While it’s great to quit your job to work full time from home, I didn’t realize you were putting yourself in debt. It would have been a much better approach to have put money away to cover your expenses while you’re trying to make it online.

I’ve been following you (in the good way) since the Thirty Day Challenge and know you will be successful. It’s only a matter of time.

Keep working and don’t give up… Even if you have to go back to your J.O.B. and do this during the night…

You will succeed… I know that.

~Shannon

p.s. I don’t like stumpleupon traffic. It’s just internet channel surfers. The traffic is not targetted and pretty much useless… IMO… The others are good though (Digg, etc). :)

@Gisele, Yup I plan to add some form of advertising soon.

@Shannon, I’m going not into real debt. In my first podcast I explained my financial situation in more detail and explained why its okay for me to go into ‘debt’ for a few months. You can listen to it here:

http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/ive-got-a-headset-first-podcast/

Yes it certainly would have been far more sensible to put money away but that just wasn’t practical. I was on such a low salary that with the money I had left over at the end of the month I calculated it would take me 40 years to save up six months worth of income!!

And you know what? A ’safety net’ is just a fantasy anyway. Let’s say I had six months worth of savings. I might still make nothing at the end of six months and be no better off or, I might make a fortune in 3 months. Who knows?

I’m a risk taker and by burning my bridges behind me in the way that I have I a have left myself no choice but to succeed. The only question is when :-)

Oh and I will absolutely NEVER EVER EVER go back to a day job.

NEVER.

EVER.

AGAIN.

You can hold me to that!

Wow Wow Wow. You’re my hero. This post is the kind of real-life oriented posts I want to make on my own Blog. Caroline, you give it all here and I’m realy impressed. You enter in my favorites to read starting from today. Wow. Good job! Just let me the time to read your former posts as I’ve just discovered your blog. but really, well done already.

@Blogadollar, thanks very much :)

@Caroline: I know what you mean… I’m the only one working and feeding a family of 4… To put money aside is just not a feesible option. That’s why I’m slowly working my way up on my own terms and doing this nighly when the kids go to bed.

Who’s your mentors? This sounds a lot like Napoleon Hill. I love the work of Napoleon Hill.

Once I leave my JOB I don’t see myself ever going back either. :)

Caroline, I read this post fascinated - until I reached the bit where you said you made $0.

OUCH!

Now the numbers of ‘hours worked on’ looked, well, ‘different’

I learned from Corey Rudl long, long ago, to set up ONE product sales process, tweak it until it was selling, automate the process, and then move on to other things - like the next product, or learning more, or blog commenting or social networking and the like.

Sounds like a plan you could follow very profitably - that way, all this valuable data will help layer onto a functioning profitable process instead of being little more than an ‘ego stoking’ blog stats report :-)

Thanks for sharing that data, I found it quite helpful.

All success
Dr.Mani

@Shannon, I hope you don’t mind - I edited your post for readability as it was a little confusing for me :)

Yes I love Napoleon Hill’s work - I have read Think & Grow Rich three times as well as several other of his books and of other similar authors.

@Dr Mani, yes I have been all over the place in the first month trying all sorts of things and not really finding my feet. I had a lot of new ideas to explore so I’m not surprised really. I have a much clearer picture now and I am confident that I’ll earn some money in November!

That’s ok… I was trying to figure out the best way to respond to the individual sections! :)

Yeah… Think and Grow Rich is awesome… I borrowed the book from the library a few months ago. You should check out Your Right to be Rich - it’s an audio seminar he done back in the 1950s. It’s just amazing. I have listened to that seminar at least 10-15 times.

I’m actually listening to The 21st Century edition audio version of Think and Grow Rich right now.

~Shannon

This is such a great idea you’re running, Caroline. For the past few weeks I have been thinking of doing the same thing you are by commenting, but it seems like you beat me to it. You’re inspiring me to don’t give up because you don’t make money from your blog, but you still provide the content that we all enjoy reading!

WAY TO GO!

-Mike

@Shannon, Never heard of that seminar, thanks for the heads up.

@Mike, what do you mean by ‘I beat you to it’? Everybody can comment - the more the better! Everybody wants more comments. And thanks very much for the support.

Looks like you are doing some good stuff! I look forward to seeing you make it big in the near future. Good luck!

Hi Caroline, You won’t believe how I ended up here. Talk about stumbling. Ros Gardner made a comment about your post for $0 in October. She had a link from her blog to your blog. If you don’t know who she is, you should. Her book inspired me to get my site going and gave me a LOT of information anyone needs to know to make money online. If you haven’t read her book, just do a google search for Rosiland Gardner. You’ll find her!

I also read a comment from one of your bloggers about using Slim Time. I remembered reading it in your comments. So I surfed back up to the top and skimmed the page to check it out. When I clicked on the link, it took me to the site. Problem? YES! The link did not open in a new window. That means you are driving traffic away from your site. (some might not think to use the ‘back’ browser to find you again. Bad mistake. I have just hit the 10,000+ visitors a month traffic stats also. But I made money. It wasn’t much but I have MANY streams of revenue on my pages. Thats the other part of monetizing. Don’t hold all your eggs in one basket.

You are at the point now where you must monetize if you expect to earn money. I would start with Adsense. Thats the easy part. Figuring out the format; which color schematics and which size ads to post is the hard part!!! Then test them. Test them again. Find out which ones are working best and use those. Google makes it very easy to track them, using different channels for various ad formats.

Find affiliates who offer either ‘discounts’ or ‘tools’ which you can add to your site too. Money saving tips help alot in the economy we are in.

Hope you start making some moola by December so Santa can be kind!

Best wishes, Carolyn

Fascinating stuff, Caroline. I’m going to link to you from my blog. Let’s hope you get some extra traffic from it!

What are your plans to monetize this blog (that could be a post in itself, so you don’t need to answer here)?

All the best
Jonathan

1. Dearly Beloved Caroline:
2. Greetings!
3. As I said earlier, it is very easy to spot someone who is going places and that was all I saw from your very first post!
4. The keyword has always been and will remain the same and that is to “NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, EVER, GIVE UP!”
5. When you are at such a junction as this, there is only one way to go - UP!
6. To follow without halt, one aim; there is the secret of success. - Anna Pavlova
7. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour. - Mary Kay Ash
8. Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - William A Foster
9. It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. - Ursula Le Guin
10. Know yourself and you will win all battles. - Sun Tzu
11. All what I said is already known by most people it is just worth a while to remind one another once in a while.
12. Remain blessed and a blessing! Thanks for the SlimTimer - Just signed up myself!
13. Can I add one more? Thank you… No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings. - William Blake
14. You are changing lives and do keep soaring higher!
15. Regards, Olakunle Solomon Fatoye.

Where is adsense on this site…. you need to have adsense… with that kind of traffic, you would have made a high 2 figure or 3 figure income easily… Try putting it and give it a shot…

PG

@Ross, thanks!

@Carolyn, yes I saw her post. She kind of misinterpreted what I was doing exactly but it was a great post and she gave lots of very helpful information.

With regards to links, I think its good etiquette to have links open in the current window. Its the standard linking practice, people can choose to open in a new tab or window if they choose. Forcibly opening popups and new tabs is rude imo. I’m not worried about losing visitors to SlimTimer :-)

I am using Adsense on my niche site (which one of the projects that I intend to earn money with - see my projects tab at the top of the page) but not in a million years would I use Adsense for this blog.

@Jonathan, I think a lot of people seem to think that my income plans center around this blog which they do not. I shall monetize it but only through some ads or affiliate banners etc - nothing heavy. I do indeed intend to put up another post along these lines at the weekend.

@Olakunle, I alawys love reading your comments, they make me smile every time, thank you :-)

@Alesse, no no no! No adsense for this site. I believe that the readers of this blog are intelligent, web savvy people who probably have blogs of their own and who do not click on ads. That is not a good market for adsense.

There are far better ways to make money. With the traffic & readership that I am now seeing, I am fairly confident that I could get far more from sales of direct advertising than a few penny clicks from Adsense.

I do appreciate the support though, seems everyone is desperate for me to make some money lol! :D

GREAT BLOG-please keep it up as long as you can. Despite the $0 income this month, I think your efforts are very successful and you are learning tons in a short amount. You’ll be making income soon. I just wanted to know if you saw that according to 45n5’s ‘blog valuation’ your blog is worth $9542. So the income is yet to come, but you’ve created an asset this first month!

Hey Caroline,

It looks like Amazon has it… Here’s the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Your-Right-Rich-Napoleon-Hill/dp/193242900X

~Shannon

@Tracey, heh that’s good to know but this blog is not an asset in that sense. The blogosphere has been alight with people selling their blogs over the last week or two but I would never sell this one - wouldn’t be able to as its personal.

Hi, thanks for the comment caroline. Building the traffic first was a great idea and while you’ve got what it takes to make some cash, just place the ads and you are on! So I hope you are not worried about the $0 income. I’ll be visiting your blog on a regular basis because I figured you can teach me a lot :D

Wow Caroline…I’m really impressed with your blog growth! The number of Subscriber is fantastic.

I did listen to the podcast and heard you say that you spend 54 hours on reading and commenting on blog…WOW! Thats a lot!

@TJ, no, not worried at all - when I saw where my time had gone and what I had actually achieved with that time it was obvious. If I had spent hundreds of hours building my niche sites and still not earning, then I’d be worried.

@Warrior, yeah, a bit too much heh!

I like your blog, and I also love the way you get traffic to your blog. I will try it in my blog Voice Of Dingchao. Thank you very much.

Hi Carolyn - I am very interested in your endeavors because you are in the midst of trying what I would like to try and also I love the way you write - your posts are so “meaty” and worth reading that I was surprised you have yet to make money. Have you seen “235 Hours Worked - Zero Dollars Earned” on this blog? http://www.netprofitstoday.com/blog/235-hours-worked-zero-dollars-earned/ where Roslind Garderner (who says she earns 100K+ per month) mentions your stats and posts some suggestions ???
thanks, Megan

Good traffic growth… I launched a new site on October 1st and my growth rate is pretty decent but haven’t reached your leve yet… I also haven’t quit my job either… My site is http://www.theTechBrief.com and I am going to link to your twitter guide - after I read it :)…

I subscribed to your feed as well, because I want to learn from your experiences… I hope you will subscribe to mine too :)

Question… How will you earn money? I don’t see any advertisement on your site…

I am personally very impressed with WidgetBucks, it seems to generate decent money but works better for product based posts…

@Megan, Yes I saw that post of Rosalind. What is perhaps not apparent from this single blog post, is that I am not trying to make money with this blog. (Hence no ads.) I have been experimenting with various techniques in several niches and trying to monetize those, with no results so far.

I did actually post quite a lengthy comment to Rosalind’s post about what my actual circumstances are but it seems to have been mysteriously deleted…

Rosalind’s post is very helpful but her suggestions don’t quite fit in with my long term goals and visions. I’ll probably put some ads in the blog now that it is attracting some decent traffic, but this is not supposed to be my source of income :)

@Emad, I’m actually going to be putting up a new post later in the week about my plans for making money because my ideas have changed over the last weeks as circumstances have changed. Stay tuned :)

RE: comment to Rosalind’s post - thanks :) I did look for some sort of comment regarding her post before I posted my own comment, but did not see any - I will be very interested in reading your upcoming items :) ~megan

I think the reason that this post got so much attention is that its pretty hard to get any real data of how people’s sites are doing - and the the revenue earned!

@Lissie, I do see a lot of blogs that do an income report, but I intend to share as much of the juicy details as I possibly can - not just the end figures. I want to dig in and find out *why* I got the results that I did, and then share them.

I would love to do what your doing. Maybe one day, I’ll be in a position to! Going to go through your site now :-)

Looks very informative!

@Carly, If you say maybe one day - that just isn’t going to happen any time. Be sure of your dreams and do everything you can to follow them. Don’t settle for second best.

As Caroline has already stated, if she had waited for the right time, the right amount of emergency income, it would be years away… You’ll know when the time is right, follow your gut instinct - it’s usually right..

Emma

@Carly, I’m putting up a post in the next week or so about the financial implications of quitting the day job and offering some advice on how to do it even if you think you can’t - so stay tuned for that.

And as Emma says, ‘maybe one day’ is a success-killing phrase! Remove it from your vocabulary!

After ProBlogger posting about your commenting skills, it seems like it has paid off :) Your RSS count has raised so much! Congrats!

-Mike

Great Job! I think announcing your goals publicly will help you achieve them!

dammm.. you guys are writing small essays in your comments? LOL
I wished I had such commentators on my blog.. I spend much too and no commentators :( which is very frustrating for a blogger..

Anyway, keep going Caroline!

- Wakish -

Caroline,

It was very inspiring listening to your podcast.

In terms of how to generate a profit from the blog, I think you will be interested in taking a look at Yudkin’s website. She’s one of the most expensive copywriter in US, to create a passive income, she’s focused on producing intellectual work such as report, courses (self learning) and provide marketing advice.

http://www.yudkin.com/

Caroline, I believe your strength is in producing outstanding content, since you intend to focus on writing, I wouldn’t suggest you to post them for free. Many books authors make 1 or two charpters of their book freely available, so reader get a taste of what it will be like and they can make a decision to purchase.

I really enjoy your posts, and personally I prefer not to pay for it :) , but since you are spending extraordinary amount of time producing quality content, it doesn’t make sense to not make a profit from it.

Plus in terms of time management, I recommend an audio book by Brian Tracy.
Most time management books on the market only suggest a few techniques but don’t solve the underlying problem, however Brian Tracey’s audio book really focus on the real cause of poor time management, how you spend your time must align with your value in life and the goals you want to achieve, not simply doing things faster or speed it up. The basic principles are:
1. desire
2. decision
3. determination
4. descipline
I have a copy of the file and I’m more than happy to email to you, just send me an email.

All the best.
Lei

I’m fascinated by your number crunching as I only recently got access to my stats. When I found out that I had between 350 to 400 readers per day, that heartened me…but, I’d been wondering what the numbers all meant and your explanations and charts help.

Thanks!
Janet
http://www.riehlife.com

Just keep trying. You’ll make it!

Bill

I’m just giving new spices to my blog and so i’ve found your case very interesting and useful. Hope you’ll reach the targets you’re planning for.
Do you plan to reach a balance between your old salary and the revenue coming from your blog at which point in the future?

@Mirko, really that is something that I cannot plan. My hope is that within a year of working online full-time (September 2008), I will be earning enough to support myself properly. We’ll have to wait and see…

Great numbers - I am so jealous that you can keep track like that - I am fiscal recording challenged! You might want to check out the podcast Internet Business Mastery on iTunes. Sterling and Jay have some great ideas that make tons of sense on how to make money on the Internet!

One of my Realtor friends and I who are tech minded are currently trying to figure out the same things you are - how to take our knowledge and make money from it (while still helping people list and sell houses!)

I am adding one more reader to your tally! Tara

I think i’m making that mistake too - reading too much and not “DOING” enough! I just went travelling for a month and need to catch up on the Blogmastermind lessons :( keep up the good work.

@Tara, now that I am self employed I *have* to keep track of every single dollar for accounting purposes!

@thehealthblogger, I think we all do that from time to time especially when starting something new. It gets easier though.

I have found the cheaters way to do it, I do everything by credit card or check and then have my bookkeeper keep a record for my accountant BUT I still have to go through the charges and they are seriously on me right now to get that to them so we can do my business taxes. sigh. There are SO many more interesting things to do than to go through my bills!!!!

Tara Jacobsen’s last blog post..Man Vs Wild - Whack Job or Not?

@Tara, it really doesn’t take me long at all - I only do it once a month when I write the end of month stats post so I find it really fun because I have no clue how much money I’ve earned!

i’m learning to promotion my blog. Thank you for your experiences sharing ( your listing will useful for me ;) ).
Keep growing Caroline.

moongy

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