Posts Tagged ‘2008’
from 2008 to 2009
Last year i said 2007 was the biggest year of my life for a number of reasons and that’s still the case. But online, 2008 has definitely been my biggest year so far. I vowed to complete BeerChief AT ALL COSTS in 2008 and i suppose it’s debatable whether or not it was completed. What i did mean by that though was that i wanted the site fully functional and online in 2008. So that was achieved mid way through 2008. ‘At all costs’ has now turned out to be $12k+ 
BeerChief
To date, over $12k has been pumped in to it which is an achievement in itself. It will succeed or fail in 2009 and we’ll see if the gamble has paid off. Even though i would say it anyway, i’m 100% confident that BeerChief can grow quickly and steadily. The way i see it, my neck is on the line and if it doesn’t succeed, i’ll have blown a massive budget, wasted hundreds of man hours in the process, failed to deliver on promises and ultimately failed to return a profit.
So there’s a lot riding on BeerChief and i’ve deliberately put all that pressure on my shoulders and convinced myself it must work. Why? Because when the stakes are raised and i’m under pressure, that’s when i work my best / hardest.
I’m personally revamping the BeerChief blog and will put a lot of time in to writing quality content for it. I’ll also be keeping BeerChief active on other social networking sites just to make sure we’re getting ourselves out there. Assuming we launch in January, it gives us 11 months to grow as fast as possible. Realistically, we should be looking at about 10,000 registered members by the end of 2009… an average of about 30 sign ups per day.
New Office
In may of this year i went all out and bought a new desk, PC, dual monitors and various other bits and pieces like an illuminated glass mousepad, gaming headphones etc… All in all, probably cost over €2000. Up until May, i had just been using my old Ferrari laptop. I could never go back to just using a laptop now. Dual monitors have me spoilt and they’re the best kept secret in IT. My XPS 420 isn’t too shabby either… so far it’s handled anything that i’ve thrown at it and i do have the option of upgrading to 64 bit and throwing more RAM in to it if need be.
Earnings
2008 was my best year online in terms of revenue. JPEGr was sold for $1k, i made another $3k by writing ebooks…. i sold various sites, worked on joint projects and did some paid reviews on this blog. All in all, i earned about $7,000 online in 2008 which is equal to about $583/month or $145/week. That’s surprising as i didn’t think i’d made that much.
When i look in to it more though, i did spend over $6,000 on BeerChief, about $2,500 on a new office plus i had to pay for domains and hosting and what not so all these online earnings are definitely not just money in my back pocket
I’m not sure what 2009 will have in store. The first couple of months will be quiet as i focus on BeerChief. Around March/ April i’ll probably be looking to create more sites and flip them. I really don’t care about cash though so long as BeerChief is doing well. I’d happily earn $0 if i knew BeerChief would finish 2009 with 10k+ members and an active community.
College
I passed all my 1st year exams in 2008, meaning i could progress to 2nd year and not have to worry about repeating. I did need a second crack at maths but it’s probably made be more determined to pass all exams first time around from now on. In 2008 i also sat my 2nd year Christmas exams (in December) which i should have passed too. Results will come out on January 21st 2009.
2009 will be a big year for me in college. A big transition. I plan on converting my ‘wasted’ time in to productive time with my new Samsung NC10. It’ll allow me quick internet access and the ability to jot down thoughts or do assignments in any free time i get. It means i should effectively gain an extra hour or two of work every day. We hear of the expression ‘water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink’ when out at sea and it’s a bit like that for me at college. I’m surrounded by computers, but i can’t really do anything on them as it’s just too much hassle to login to the network, plug in my usb stick, wait half an hour for portable firefox to open…. at which stage i’ll be informed the room is now in use by a lecturer and i have to log out and unplug my usb…
It’s a problem and a waste of time, so at least with a netbook i can just carry it in to the room next door, leaving it switched on, meaning i’ll only lose maybe 60 seconds of my time.
Upgrades
For the first time in a long, long time, i’m reasonably content with the technology i have. My PC is up to scratch along with my dual monitors, my phone is still fairly up to date, i’ll have a brand new netbook soon… So i shouldn’t need to upgrade anything in 2009. Laptop isn’t necessary. I could do with a wii and a ps3 along with a nice big LCD, but that stuff is what i’d call luxury and honestly, i wouldn’t have the time for them or make full use of them. If i did, there’d be something wrong as it would mean my online work or college work is suffering – neither of which can afford to.
I look at a PC or netbook and i think ‘productivity’. I look at a TV or games console and think ‘fun’, ‘entertainment’. In recent years, i’ve gone completely off TV… i’ll only watch TV now if i’m with someone, watching football or a movie. That’s it. Unless i’m sick or something you’ll never find me watching TV on a sofa or in bed. The internet has ‘replaced’ TV for me.
Blogging
Both this blog & the BeerChief blog will be getting a makeover in 2009. I also intend upping the quality & quantity of posts on both and will try to gain more RSS subscribers and traffic as a result. On BeerChief, i’ll be writing ‘made for traffic’ posts and i’ve toyed with that in the past on this blog, with some great success. It’s really difficult to create consistent, quality, made for traffic posts, but i’ll give it my best shot.
On smemon.com, i’ll be keeping things personal and trying to add more pictures and video. You know the drill anyway by now… i won’t be going missing in 2009 and this blog will be updated like clock work 
Here’s the amount of posts i’ve published on this blog for the past two years….
- 2007 = 705
- 2008 = 407 (+ a few more as we’ve a week or so left in 2008)
So 700 in 2007, 400 in 2008. A massive REDUCTION in content. For every 7 posts i made in 2007, i only made 4 in 2008.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that would mean my traffic would be down significantly. I’m afraid not
Traffic has in fact more than tripled in 2008 from roughly 25k unique visits in 2007, to almost 80k in 2008. It means i’m now averaging over 200 unique visits a day and that’s excluding RSS readership which has also tripled in 2008 to 120+ subscribers up from around 40 in 2007.
In terms of traffic and RSS subscribers, here’s some graphs which date back from day 1 one up until now (I only installed feedburner (to track RSS subscriptions) about 6 months after i created the blog).
In general, always on the rise. Of course i’ll have spikes here and there, i can’t control or predict them, nobody can – in one day alone this year i racked up 12,000 unique visits 
Overall, the blog’s progress is slow and steady and has been now for over 2 years.
I can safely say 2009 will eclipse 2008 again in terms of traffic & subscribers. Why can i safely say that? Because i’m in control and i call the shots. I have the power to destroy the blog or enhance it further. With just me running the show, it allows me to make instant spur-of-the-moment decisions and write about anything i want. That freedom is what makes blogs addictive to read… they’re uncut. Take my samsung nc20 article. I’d be shot if i wrote something like that for a newspaper or professionally edited blog.
The fact i can almost half content, but triple the amount of people coming to the blog shows that i’m either upping the quality of posts or just making more connections and getting myself out there more. It’s probably a combination of both actually. It’s not just luck, although that plays a part too.
I’m learning how to attract people, how to give them what they want, how to distance myself from the norm but at the same time do all that with a personal stamp of authority on everything. So long as i keep blogging, i’ll keep learning and it’ll only make both me and the blog stronger. That’s why i say 2009’s statistics will continue the trend of onwards and upwards.
You can also chuck in the fact that i’m always sharpening my SEO skills and trying to develop the blog continuously. In 2008, 36% of my traffic came from search engines. Almost the exact same percentage as 2007. But when we break it down in to unique visits, 29,000 came from search engines in 2008 -v- 9,000 in 2007. A four fold increase in search engine traffic.
SEO is definitely something i’ve improved over the last 12 months. Looking at the stats it’s pretty clear i’m working smarter rather than harder these days If I stop working though or stop learning, traffic will die – no doubt about it. But i’ve no intentions of stopping anytime soon.
When i started out, owning a blog of this size was fantasy stuff. It’s tough to do, but at the same time it’s very simple. The key to growing any site is simply determination and dedication. So many people start blogs, start out enthusiastic and then just go missing after a few months once the novelty wares off. The key to keeping motivated is renewing the novelty factor once it starts to ware off. Get a new theme, launch a competition, create some challenges to keep yourself entertained…
When driving on a long journey on a motorway or something you don’t just switch off and take it easy even if you’re tired and the road ahead is clear… you’ll turn on the cold air or put on some motivational music or something… anything which gets adrenaline flowing or ‘wakes you up’. Maybe stop at a petrol station and go in to a shop… You do all that because you know you ultimately need to get to the finish line in one piece and you also know you need to remain alert and awake 100% of the time.
If you apply the same thinking to blogging or running a website it makes life much easier for you. Slack off and you risk death (or your site does). It is of course easier said than done to keep motivated and keep working on something that may seem pointless or not rewarding financially, but if you want a career in IT, a proven track record of developing sites over a long period of time speaks volumes about the type of person you are. It is the ultimate reference for an employer (particularly a personal site/blog).
I posted a total of 33 entries in September on this blog. Although that crushes most personal blogs, that’s actually the joint worst posts-per-month tally since i started back in November 2006. My lowest ever posts per month was 16 in November 2006, but then again i only started half way through November
So that should immediately set off alarm bells… something’s not right… have i decided to pack it in? have i eased off on my online work? have i just gotten lazy?
Well, just to clear up that last question… i haven’t gotten lazy. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. I’m working harder than ever only the results and proof of that are invisible at present. The main reason i haven’t been as active this month is due to the fact i’m back at college.
Having said that, i did manage to take part in a site flipping challenge. I’m co-founder & author of listlunatic.com. I also managed to create chromeguide.com and nipped in just before pagerank got updated… so chromeguide.com now has a pagerank 2
I also created and sold defenced.com as part of my charity skydive competition (the domain was donated by raul (one of my readers – thanks!). Only sold for $30 but there you go… a site will only sell for what someone is willing to pay for it.
The other major event last month was of course my charity skydive competition. I raised 20% of my goal (~$200 out of $1000), which is respectable and yeah, i’d probably call it a success as it was my first ever online competition run solely on the back of this blog.
Although i’m not one to ‘do’ excuses, i did have broadband problems this month, which definitely held me back from posting a bit more. I was reduced to dial up speeds and was disconnected completely for about 48 hours. Thankfully, things seem to be back to normal now.
I’ve mentioned the fact i’m involved in producing a short film/sketch/movie thing as part of a college project. So again, i can’t show you what i’ve done on that as all i’ve been doing is brushing up on my editing skills… but here’s a video i put up on youtube to test out my cloning skills…
Yes, i realize it’s poor and that there are lighting issues + a lack of blending, but this was just a test and it was well received by people who aren’t familiar with cloning or didn’t believe it was possible. It’s my job to iron out stuff like this and leave them thinking ‘how did he do that?’ – that’s ultimately my goal on this and learning how to use premier pro and after effects on your own is a mammoth task for one man and basic quality video and audio…
Along with all of that, i have another ebook about 75% complete. It’s about 20 pages in length and on ‘SEO’.
So really i haven’t been lazy at all and the fact i’m not blogging as much as i used to isn’t me backing off from online work… it’s basically me beefing up my knowledge in IT at college and learning how to put together videos. Nothing wrong with that… i’ll allow myself to slack off blogging so long as i’m doing something productive. So long as i’m learning, i’ll never criticize myself.
In July, i made $634 profit. I had just issued myself a 3 sites a day challenge and was flying.
I said i’d be happy if i earned $0 in august and that’s pretty much what’s happened. I’ve no revenue to show for August, however i have $190 in deals already made, so that’s a nice start to september
I also have a few niche sites up and running like famousnerd.com and closelyguarded.com…. another new addition is chromeguide.com and i’m also participating in a blog flip team challenge PLUS i’ve issued myself a personal challenge.
So although August was pretty quiet, i’ve a lot on my plate for September. Along with all of the above, i have the small matter of raising $1000 for a charity skydive. I’ve got $9 so far but i’ve yet to really push the competiton… i’ll be doing so over the next couple of weeks.
This month, i’ll also be going back to college and i have to say i’m looking forward to it. It’ll be good to get back to college and start learning again. The stakes are raised now and that’ll bring out the best in me as i must get 70%+ in every exam if i want to leave with an honours degree.
September was *supposed* to be the official public launch of BeerChief. I can’t rule that out as there isn’t much left to be done, but with a packed schedule to try and get through, BeerChief might have to wait another month for my full attention.
If i can get together some funds from selling most of the above sites / projects, it’ll also give me some more cash to fire in to BeerChief.
On to stats now and here’s how traffic faired this month… (remember last month was unprecedented with 24,150 unique visits).
7,106 unique visits. Not bad… i was never going to top last month’s traffic, and apart from last month, i think that’s the best month on record for me
Top commentators this month were;
- Jonny (15)
- Lord Bloggit (7)
- Sean (6)
- Girish (4)
- ira (3)
- scoby (3)
Cheers guys – keep up the good comments!
I’m keeping up the trend of calling these posts ‘recaps’ rather than ‘earnings’. So here’s July’s recap…
Traffic wise, it’s been my most successful month to date on any site i’ve ever owned. Have a look at July’s (recorded) traffic;
Financially, it hasn’t been bad either… i’ve been keeping detailed records of all the sites i’ve sold;
In total, i took in $827 in july 2008, $634 of which was pure profit. I estimate all those sites took about 33 hours to complete.
So my average actual rate per hour works out at just under $20 
Not bad. Looking back, i *could* have done all that in one week, but it would have been extremely hard work and it’s not something i could replicate every week… i’m happy with creating a few sites a week – i find it’s just a nice balance. I sold bannedtvad.com this week for $249 – meaning for the past three weeks now, i’ve averaged over $200/week.
I’m definitely getting the hang of things…. i’ve also bought plenty of domain names this week… they all have a combined estimated value of over $2.5k. I only paid about $50 for them. Over the next while i’ll be building sites for them all, then selling.
I’ve now proven i can flip sites for a healthy profit, so i’ll be using that method to keep the cash rolling in from now on. I can only become more experienced, gain more contacts and sharpen up my skills, so the only way is up… i’ve been saying that for the past two years, but it’s true
It’s really only NOW that i’m beginning to ‘get the hang’ of making money online. I mean, if you were to put a bet on and ask me to make $500 profit in one week, i could do it. Not a problem. But it would mean sacraficing my time on longer term projects. I don’t like doing that.
Anyway, August will be the month of my maths exam – that’s all i care about now… pass maths and earn $0 and i’ll be happy… it’s just a case of getting the job done and being prepared for a tough paper. It’s less than 13 days away now (august 14th), so my study will start this week.
Will i pass? Without question. I simply have to sit down, read over the notes and concentrate. Dedicating the time to it is the hardest part. So expect a quite couple of weeks from me… i’ll still be working here and there but my focus will be on maths
