This is the Investorblogger’s MoneySpinners for 2009… It’s simple I will tell you where I made money in 2009 on my websites, and where I didn’t.
I’ve rated the means in two ways.
By Income over the year
- <$ = less than ten dollars
- $ = ten to fifty dollars
- $$ = fifty to two hundred dollars
- $$$ = two hundred ~ five hundred dollars
- $$$$ = five hundred dollars ~ one thousand.
- >$$$$ = more than a thousand dollars in 2009
and also by effectiveness. In other words,
- was I paid promptly (one star);
- is it regular income (one star);
- easy to implement/maintain (one star);
- prospects for future income (one star);
- and no hassle factor (one star).
These are aggregate numbers and I make no apologies if I get them wrong! But I’ve done quite well in the past six months and in the first six months. I will likely post an income report for the 2H in a few weeks once the final figures are in.
| Item # | Means | Rating | Effectiveness |
| 1 | Private Ads | $$$$ | ***** |
| 2 | Amazon | $$ | *** |
| 3 | Hosting | $$$ | *** |
| 4 | Consulting | $$$ | ** |
| 5 | BlogRolled | $ | *** |
| 6 | BuySellAds | <$ | * |
| 7 | PayU2blog | >$$$$ | **** |
| 8 | Text-Link-Ads | >$$$$ | ***** |
| 9 | Clickbank | <$ | * |
| 10 | InTelliLinks | $$$ | **** |
| 11 | Linkworth | $$ | ** |
| 12 | LoudLaunch | $$ | * |
| 13 | PayPerPost | <$ | * |
| 14 | SocialSpark | <$ | * |
| 15 | Adsense | $ | ** |
| 16 | ProjectWonderful | <$ | * |
| 17 | Adwidgetize | $ | *** |
| 18 | Entrecard | <$ | * |
There is no particular order to these sources of income, rather I posted them as I thought of them. It’s worth noting that things vary:
1. Izea and Payperpost Properties
Payperpost was initially a very good way to earn money online but in the past year just became a waste of space. Socialspark never had any potential for me at all. I barely made payout, then quit because it was so hard to find opps. For me, the death knell of Izea was the increased use of regional segmentation which ruled me out, not because of my audience (largely US) but because I was based in Asia. The final convulsion was their ‘experimental’ changes at the beginning of 2009. I was very thankful though because I met some great bloggers, discovered some good opportunities and learned how to blog. For that, plus earning nearly $2000 with PPP, I will always be thankful.
2. Entrecard, Adsense,
Entrecard, both as a means to attract traffic and earn money, wobbled seriously several times in 2009, such that many bloggers left the system, and removed the widget. I was sorry because it did bring me some good traffic, but it just became too troublesome with the rules changing every week, as well as the feature set.
Adsense also produced relatively little, as I removed the ad boxes from almost all of my sites. I was being smart-priced by the Adsense system, which I thought was unfair. In my opinion, it’s best to cut losers early, and go with the winners, so I started using my private ad sales to generate income.
3. Amazon vs. Clickbank
Amazon worked much better than Clickbank, though commissions were quite low. I never did break into the 6% range. But I’m increasingly interested in Amazon as a possible source of income, because of its leverage and familiarity to users. On the other hand, the niches I picked for Clickbank just did not work. I ended up being my only purchaser! Even Amazon did better than CB on the niche site I started.
4. The Big Winners
The big winners for me in 2009 have been Text-Link-Ads on several sites in my network, Intellilinks on several sites, PayU2blog on one site, and my own private ad sales on several sites. Each of these has chalked up quite a bit of cash, even though IntelliLinks came on the scene quite late.
And 2010, well, who knows? Literally, I expect the big winners will start off 2010 strongly, but I’m already planning for the next phase as I move away from Blogging to running standalone sites. I’m using SBI (as some of you may already know), because of its keyword research tools.