A good start but then…

At the start of the month I thought I was heading for a bumper niche site payday with my main site bringing in almost £100 in the first 3 5 days. ‘Woo Hoo’ I thought but then something bad happened and I was punished by Google with the site getting a ‘minus 60 penalty’. I wasn’t sure what had happened but after doing some research it looks like my backlinking and site structure had come under scrutiny from Google and I had contravened their website guidelines policy. At the end of the day it’s pretty hard to pinpoint it to one specific thing but I believe it was because I built up too many backlinks too quickly, used the same keyword for most of my links, and also commented on some poor quality blogs.

The majority of my backlinks came from commenting on blogs, some of which were just a bit spammy, I’ll admit to that, so I know that was wrong but it’s interesting how Google works this out. If I were a competitor then I could spend some time spamming comments with my competitors details and hopefully see if Google would apply a penalty to them.

Tricky times but it’s all a learning curve and has influenced my link-building policy for the future. I am only commenting on blogs that are relevant to the niche I’m in, and yet again only useful comments that add some quality. The other thing is not to focus too much on keywords for backlinks and instead think about how a novice would write. They wouldn’t jam in keywords and instead it would all be a lot looser and more organic. Lessons learnt then and as usual I’m taking this a month at a time.

So now onto the numbers:

As you can see my overall income has taken quite a knock but that was always the risk with having one major earner so I’m not going to focus on that and instead focus on the positives of getting my other nice sites rolling.

Site F has seen a big jump in earnings which was partially helped by a £16.85 click late in the month (someone clearly isn’t using AdWords that effieciently) but even without that it was a good rise and I’m very happy with that.

Site C also saw a few clicks and started bringing in revenue and the aim as always is to increase this amount much like I have done with Site F. This means I now have 3 niche sites earning me money and we’re on the way to spreading the revenue and leaving me at less risk of suffering the same fate as this month.

I have submitted Site P for a reconsideration request from Google but I have read stories of it taking years to get back up the rankings so I fully expect my earnings to drop next month too.

Aims for the future

So I’ve got three sites earning revenue and as you can see from the above table I’m creating Site P2 and Site E, which if you’re good at maths, will bring me up to five sites  (excluding my blog). The route I will be going down is to create many sites each earning a small percentage of my overall revenue, and ideally I would like to have ten sites up and running and earning money by the New Year.

The thing to remember is that all this revenue is extra to my usual 9-5 job and for the moment if I make no money or suffer a drop in my AdSense income then I am not greatly effected (apart from my pride) but if I can succeed and keep building more sites then this could be something that would require more of my time in exchange for the income it brings.

My AdSense earnings for the beginning of the month were great, for the first few days they were amazing, but then something happened and they dropped down to only a couple of quid a day. What happened? The answer is that niche site P which had been ranking at #1 in Google for my main keyword had dropped down the search rankings in amazing fashion and was now languishing around the 7th page on Google which as you know is nowhere. To say I was disappointed is understating it as I’ve been happy to have been able to increase my earnings month on month but what started out as a month with great potential is now one where I will take a big drop in my passive earnings.

In my previous Income Report I wrote

The way I look at it is that I’ve earned over £1000 from my sites in less than 4 months and if I didn’t earn anymore then it was great fun whilst it lasted.

and it looks like that’s what going to happen for the moment. I’m still earning a little but nothing like before.

Why have I dropped in the Google rankings?

I’m only 4 months into my passive income journey and it’s all a learning curve but I believe I have been penalised due to my backlinking strategy which mostly revolved around using comments on blogs to get a variety of links back to the site. Some people won’t agree with this and will say it’s a bit shady but I will placate them slightly by saying that it wasn’t automated and involved me reading the blogs and leaving unique and relevant comments with my name linking to my niche site. I’ve now learnt that this is not the best way to go about things, but as I said I’m learning and am happy I’ve made these mistakes whilst my sites are still young.

I also focused primarily on one set of keywords and yet again this was a mistake. The Google algorithm is an intelligent thing and things like this stick out like a sore thumb and there is nothing ‘organic’ about it. It looks like you’re trying to cheat the system and I guess that’s what I was trying to do. All the SEO I’m learning is from what I see others doing and so I’m just as guilty and will now review my backlink strategy to something a little more honest.

SEO myths exposed and honest SEO

I came across an article today from Robert Dempsey called In Defense Of Search Engine Optimization which contained quite a lot of relevant information regarding the situation I find myself in. I’ve followed quite a few of the ‘SEO myths’ he mentioned and if you’re involved in SEO, especially if it’s your business, then it’s worth a read. Basically he has dismissed the ways I’ve gone about promoting my niche sites and proposes what actually works in SEO.

How SEO should work in theory and how it actually works

If a site is useful then it should naturally attract visitors and all the links will be organic with very little effort needed from the publisher apart from making sure the article is well written and original. I found Robert’s article useful and I’ve linked to it which is the way it should work on the internet but we all know that isn’t the case and there will always be competition to rank high on Google whilst there is money at stake. I am primarily making my niche sites to make money so I want to rank high on Google but I am now reviewing my strategy and will try and be a bit more ethical in my linkbuilding and how I attract traffic to the site. I could just follow the rat race, and do as others are doing, but Google are getting wise to this, and so I’m going to start being more responsible as I want my sites to be ranking for the long haul and not just a flash in the pan waiting to be punished by Google who provide most of my web traffic.

Link-worthy and Share-worthy content

Right from the beginning we’ve been told that ‘content is king’ and somewhere along the way that switched to ‘AdSense is king’ so the focus for me is ensuring that the people who are reading my websites and articles want to share them and that my sites have the option to to that simply. At the moment they don’t have a ‘share this’ button or anything along the lines so that’s the way to go which should hopefully improve my backlinks and spread the word to get more visitors. I’ll also be going through all my content and ensuring it is well written, unique, and that people actually would want to read them rather than them just being filler content for a site to solely provide me with income.

That’s a question I found myself asking today as I couldn’t find my current MOT and knew it was sometime over the next month or so.

To find out you just need to go to this Direct Gov link to check your vehicle’s MOT status and history online. The online MOT status check gives you information about:

• the date of the last test.
• mileage on the vehicle at the time of the test.
• the expiry date of the test.

You will need you vehicle registration (number plate) and if you haven’t got your old MOT certificate then you will also need your document reference number from V5C registration certificate.

It’s all explained on the site so just head on over to http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/OwningAVehicle/Mot/DG_10020539.

In case you were wondering mine runs out on 2nd June which is a bit of a relief as it means I’ve got a month and a half before I have to start worrying!

A lot of people have been moaning about the snow and the impact it has made on our lives but I for one actually welcome the uncertainty of it. We think we have everything sorted, so clean, processed, refined, and that we are in control of everything but the fact is that  we are  not, and I love it when a little bit of chaos enters our lives and adds a little unpredictability to it.  I feel a bit silly calling it ‘chaos‘ when it’s just a bit of snow, but the fact is that we treat it as such, and many seem to view it with impending doom. Of course, the snow doesn’t really effect me and so I can approach this in a whimsical manner, where as if I had to travel a lot, or didn’t have central heating, then I would maybe be a bit more annoyed.

You can probably link this feeling to this post I wrote last year, and I repeat what I said then: “the world isn’t always a rational, neat place, and nothing is ever under our control”.

I popped down Ramsgate town last week at about 5pm and I thought it actually looked very nice now that the lights at the centre are switched on.

Ramsgate Town

I didn’t actually buy much and only popped into the 99p Store (old Woolworths) coming out with a pack of metre-long drinking staws and a litre on Chilli Sauce!

I thought I’d just pop by and say ‘Hi’ as I’ve not been around much lately.

This month I am going to be proper skint and it’s the first time in a few years that I’ve said that. I’ve spent out quite a lot in the last month on doing up the kitchen which included oven, hob, sink, taps, worktops, plumbing, and even then I’ve still got to buy the finishing pieces such as kickboards and upstands which will all add more. I’m now a regular in Wickes, picking up items here and there, and it surprising how it all adds up with even a small trip for a few items costing a fair bit.

I do think that I’m over the main costs now though (central heating + kitchen) and can concentrate again on decoration with plastering, wallpaper, and painting coming in a lot cheaper due to my material costs. I still have the council tax to pay (due on 7th) and then I have to pay a gas engineer £85 tomorrow to connect my gas hob which will eat further into the remainder of my wages which I only received on Friday.

I know that once the refurb is complete then my costs will reduce again to the level I budgeted for myself but even then it will take a few months to reach an equilibrium. So I’m tempted to try and earn some more money. Getting a second job is out of the question as I need my spare time to work on the house, so I’ve opted to try out some online surveys! I know it’s a bit of a tinpot solution but looking around I could get a few quid here and there just for putting info in. I’ve set up a special email for it so that I can delete it if I’m getting too much spam, and will see how it goes. I can probably predict that it won’t be worth it, but any extra money will help.

I’m also having a look into Google adsense and will see how it fits in with the blog. If it’s just a small banner on the sidebar then fine, but if it’s too intrusive then I won’t use it.

Other ideas for raising cash are ebay, but I don’t have anything worth selling, or seeing about getting in a few quick web-design jobs through my Thanet Media site.

And as a last resort….

[paypal-donation]

I saw this on the TV this morning whilst I was eating my cereal and thought I’d pop it up here. I was just wondering what dates we had to look forward to? The millennium is a pretty special date, and of course it doesn’t really mean anything but it was a nice round date to look to and I suppose it seemed that the years were gearing up for something, where as now it seems that the years are getting further away from something. It’s all psychological though and I guess it’s the totality of knowing that I’ll never see 2100AD let alone 3000AD.

What an odd post this is becoming and surely one to be consigned to the archives.

hmmm…

Looking back, the amount of exercise I do has dropped down drastically over the last six months (and even that wasn’t a lot) and so I’m going to blog about my exercise in a bid to shame me and hopefully force me to at least do something instead of just sitting around and watching TV. 

I’m putting these posts into a category marked ‘exercise diary’ and I’m creating a separate page to show all  posts from the category and so that I can’t escape from them.

I’ve made a start to the exercise this weekend with a 9.4 mile cycle ride to Margate yesterday and then I cycled 3 miles today. I have to admit that my bum hurt a bit after Saturday’s ride but I’m sure that I’ll get used to that.

Just to let you know that I’m working out the milage using Google Maps and not just making it up but I have now got a little cycle computer but I need to set that up on my bike and will soon be using that instead.

Image used under CC by Fin Fahey

It’s at this time of year that you appreciate living in a house with central heating, so I guess I half appreciate it as only half the radiators in my house are working. It’s something that could be sorted out by calling out an engineer, but this will involve spending lots of money which is something I’m not too happy about and those of you who know me will know that I don’t mind getting a bit ‘practical’ if I can save a few bob.

The fact of the matter is that the radiators that are a bit dodgy are over 20 years old and after eliminating other variables (balancing, expansion tank, etc) the most likely diagnosis is that these ones are full of ‘sludge’, a build up of, well, sludge in the radiators that restricts water circulating.

The only way of dealing with this at this stage is to remove the radiators, take them outside, and attach as hose to one end and flush it out. All very technical you understand, but I should be able to manage. I’ve replaced a couple of radiators in the past (read about it here) and so it shouldn’t be a big problem but can be a bit tricky to avoid getting dirty water and sludge over carpets etc. I’ll do my best.

I’ll try and do this over the weekend so I’ll let you know how I get on and if it does solve the problem. If it doesn’t then I may have to call that engineer in but at least I’ll know I’ve done my best.