Daniel Felice

Wednesday Ramblings

// March 18th, 2009 // No Comments » // Buddypress, Contests, General, Projects

• I have extended the BuddyPress Theme Contest by a month. Submissions now must be in by May 7 instead of April 7. This gives everyone extra time to develop a nice looking theme! Checkout the first ever Free BuddyPress Themes Contest!
• My PageRank for danielfelice.com is back down to 0 for some reason. It was up to 3 last week but I have noticed in the last few days it has dropped to 0. I am not sure why but I will be investigating!
• I have added the BuddyPress Facebook Connect plugin to ExploreWithMe. This will allow users of Facebook to sign into the site which will then automatically create them an account based on their Facebook profile details.
• Traffic on all my sites this month are through the roof! Hopefully a sign of things to come!

Choosing Affiliate Ads for Your Blog: Part 2

// December 22nd, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Making Money

For those of you who read “Choosing Affiliate Ads for Your Blog” I wrote last week, I have just had another idea so I have created this post as an add on. For those of you who haven’t read it, then read it before you read this one so it all makes sense.

As you may have noticed I have changed a few of my ads around today just to try and generate some more revenue for myself as the previous ads weren’t getting any clicks, let alone making me any money.

As well as the steps I wrote in the earlier post, I also tried something I haven’t done before. It is a bit of an experiment I guess, but I thought it might be worth a shot.

I visited a few other blogs that are similar to this, but are successful. I won’t mention the names of the blogs, but if you know of a similar blog to yours that actually makes money you can do the same thing.

I went to the other blogs just to see what kind of affiliate advertising they have, just so I could get some ideas and try to figure out what I am doing wrong. I decided to click on one of the ads just to see what the landing page was like. I noticed that the advertiser had an affiliate programme so i decided to sign up and show their ads on this blog.

So the end result was that I am advertising exactly the same product as the more successful version of this blog.

I decided to do the same thing with a few other blogs that I know make good revenue each month and again I signed up to the affiliate programmes. I think all in all I signed up to 4 new programmes and now advertising the same products as the “competition”.

It will be interesting to see the results, however there is more to affiliate marketing and advertising then just showing a bunch of ads on the blog – traffic is a major part of it and I don’t think I get the traffic to make enough revenue to live off just yet. At this stage I’ll just be happy to make something!

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November Report: Hits Down, Revenue Up

// December 11th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Project Blogger

November was an interesting month for danielfelice.com. I was away for most of the month meaning that I did not get a chance to blog as much as I would have liked. However, although hits were down for the month, it was the best month yet in terms of revenue.

Traffic

There is not too much to report here. November was officially the worst month of all time. Not only did I post just 5 times in November, I also didn’t do the normal social bookmarking “marketing” or promote the blog in any way.

Traffic sources still seem to be coming from the same places, DNTrade.com.au and GoofBlogger, though most of the traffic is coming from search engines with top searches being “WordPress MU”, “BuddyPress” and “Create a social networking site using WordPress”.

Revenue

 As mentioned earlier, November was the best month for revenue to date. I made over US$50 which is more than double the previous best. This is due to a few private ad sales which I sold for US$50. I made a few dollars from Google, however it revenue from Google has really slumped over the past few months.

Freebies4Webmasters has stopped paying me, even though they said they would continue to pay existing clients while they are working on their issues. I have yet to contact them about this, however I might just take down the banners and look for some more private ads.

So that was November! It was a bad month for traffic but a good month for revenue. I have not got any advertisers lined up for December so I don’t expect to get anywhere near the $52 I made in November, however you never know!

Since I have been blogging, danielfelice.com has made over US$100. This has covered both my domain name and hosting expenses, so at the moment the blog is making a profit if you take out the time it takes me to create posts and respond to emails, as well as search for advertising.

Daniel Felice Goes AWOL

// December 1st, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Project Blogger

It has been a long time since I wrote a real post! Just so you all know – I have not given up on this project! I have been on holidays in Australia (home) for the past two weeks so I have not really had the time to work on any of my sites! It is actually nice to get away from the PC for a while.

Just looking over the stats for November and it was a bad bad month. I have not put the required effort into this blog over the past two months so traffic has taken a bit of a hit.

I only wrote a handful of posts in November, however I made good revenue this month – the most of any month to date.

I’ll tell you how much I made in November in a few days….stay tuned for it and the rest of the November report!

Tough October for danielfelice.com

// November 3rd, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Project Blogger

After such a great September it was always going to be a challenge to continue growing at that same rate in October. From the first day of the month things began to take a turn for the worse and that trend continued until the last week of October.

Most of my attention over the month was taken away from this blog as I put all my efforts into getting Explore With Me up and running. I would have liked to have blogged more during the month but there simply wasn’t the time.

It wasn’t all bad though. I did manage to blog the 100th post in October and my Google PageRank went from zero to two. It has already dropped to 1 though!

Traffic

Traffic was down all month and we ended October about 50% down on September. It wasn’t the worst month we have had so far – however it was nothing to brag about.

I blogged on average every second day so I am not convinced this is the only contributing factor to the poor traffic. However having said that I am at a complete loss at the why the blog struggled so much last month.

The best performing posts during the month were “Creating a Social Community with WordPres“, “Must Have WordPress Plugins” and “Why Most MMO Blogs Don’t Succeed“.

StumpleUpon and Digg seems to be one of the best traffic sources at the moment. I am still submitting most of my posts to the social communities and it is proving to be a success.  Nearly half of the hits from the month came from StumpleUpon.

Revenue

Not much to report here for October. I have said it before – the more hits you get the more revenue you earn and as hits were down so was revenue.

I am in the process of finalising a private ad deal which would go live this month some time so that will dramatically boost my revenue for November. At the moment it looks as though it is a one time deal however there may be other deals if this first one is successful.

November will be another tough month I think. I am going to be away for 3 weeks of it, so finding the time to blog may be an issue this month.

Freebies4Webmasters Not Accepting New Members

// October 10th, 2008 // No Comments » // Making Money

As you may have noticed from a few previous posts, I am a big fan of Freebies4Webmasters. Publishers can earn £5 a month for showing just three banners on their website. It is a fairly painless and easy way to make money.

I received a mail from the admin team at Freebies4Webmasters last week stating that due to technical issues they are no longer accepting new members.

Existing members will still earn their commission every month, however any new members will not be able to sign up until the issues are resolved.

I am not sure of the issues but hopefully it won’t be too long before the site is up and running once again.

Up, Up and Away

// October 1st, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Project Blogger

It is that time of the month again! Another month has just ended and after a poor August, September bounced back with a bang! September was the best month danielfelice.com has ever had in its short 5 month history.

Traffic

September was a massive 252% increase on August and 62% better than my best month so far, July. After a bad August I hoped this month would improve, however I didn’t expect it to be this good.

Having the contest really helped me this month I think, and also the first two parts of “How to Start a Blog” have shown some keen interest being the most viewed pages of the month.

I seem to be receiving traffic from a number of sources this month which is good to see. I have been making more of an effort to join forums, post comments on other blogs and submit my posts to social communities such as StumbleUpon and Digg. The top three traffic referrers for the month were DNTrade, StumbleUpon and TylerCruz.com.

Search engine traffic was big factor in Septembers success. A good 25% of all traffic was from search engines this month with terms such as “freebies4webmasters”, “daniel felice”, “promote blog for free” and “create a blog” being the best performing search terms.

Revenue

Revenue this month was also up on last month and also beat July’s record! I made a total of US$22.35 this month which is about $5 more than July. It has to be said though without the £10 from freebies4webmasters I would have only made about $5 this month – so thanks to them!

For those of you who don’t know freebies4webmasters give you £5 per month for just showing 3 banners anywhere on your site and an additional £5 when you sign up.

My affiliate ads still aren’t performing as well as I would like – actually I am yet to make a single cent from them. I will have to look at this again and see what I am doing wrong here.

So it was a great month and hopefully things will keep on flying away in October! Thanks for all your support over the past few months.

Hits Down in August

// August 31st, 2008 // No Comments » // General, Project Blogger

As predicted, hits and revenue were down in August which is a bit disappointing after a great July. Hits were down about 40% and I put this down to the lack of posting this month. I was away for 12 days of the month which made it difficult to keep on top of things, so hits have suffered due to this I think.

Revenue was down about 60% month, and for the same reason as above. It takes hits to drive the revenue up, so with hit being so low of course revenue is going to be the same.

Traffic

Hits were all over the place this month. Each day was as unpredictable as the next. As you can tell from the below screen shot, one day hits were good, the next day bad, then they would shoot up for no reason at all, and then the next day back down. I can’t figure it out.

Top referrers were AUDomaining.com.au, DNTrade.com.au and goofblogger.com. The most popular posts being Are .NET.AU’s Worthless? and 5 Ways to Stay Motivated.

Revenue

Google Adsense really pulled through for me this month. It was the only network that made me any money this month, and although it wasn’t much, it saved me from this month being a complete disaster.

I have to look at my affiliate marketing networks and try to figure out what I am doing wrong. I need to find the time for some more research and hopefully implement the changes during September.

So it was a bad month, but it is all part of the journey and the point of Project Blogger. Hopefully danielfelice.com can bounce back in September.

Earn Credit for your Website!

Record Month for danielfelice.com

// July 31st, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Project Blogger

It has been a record month for danielfelice.com! My hits improved by over 100% and revenue grew by about 361% on last month. Hits have been constantly on the rise over the past month, rising day by day.

Revenue is improving, and although a 361% increase sounds like a lot, it still really doesn’t equate to much in terms of dollars. But that’s not the point – the point is that the blog is growing at a fantastic rate and our users are continuing to return.

Traffic

Looking at the statistics for the month of July, traffic is increasing on a weekly basis. Each week this month was an improvement on the previous one and although there are some dips in the daily traffic, on average each day was an improvement.

Traffic seems to be coming from a number of sources, including a few domainer based websites that are also associated with NameSeek. DNtrade.com.au and AUDomaining.com were the two best performing referrers and Google, StumbleUpon and Entrecard were the best of the rest. Referrers made up about 60% of the months traffic with the remaining 40% from search engines and direct hits through type-ins.

Top Posts

Top performing posts this month were “Patience Is The Key” and “Blog Mastermind” with the all time top performing being “How I made $2.99 in 3 Months“.

This seems to tell me that people want to know more about “Project Blogger” and my success and failures as I attempt to make revenue on the internet. I will listen and focus more of my efforts into this next month.

Revenue

A great month in terms of revenue. A massive increase on last month and it is good to see finally. Although dollars were not huge, it was still an increase and very encouraging.

The biggest money maker this month was my affiliate marketing with a massive (!) $13.50 which made up the majority of the total for the month.

Overall it was a good month for danielfelice.com. I still have a lot of work to do if I want start making the big bucks, but after a few months at it the results and encouraging and are giving me the drive to continue.

Hopefully August continues to show signs of improvement and growth. I am not making any predictions, but I would like revenue to improve by at least 100% and hits to keep on doubling.

I am on holidays for the first 5 days in August for my big 25th birthday which is ont he 2nd, so I will try to post as much as I can, but probably won’t be able to every day.

Thanks for your support!

Hard Work is Paying Off

// July 7th, 2008 // No Comments » // Project Blogger

The first week of July was great for danielfelice.com. This month alone, the blog has had more hits than in the past 3 months it has been active. I put this down to Nameseek and also my increased efforts to generate more content for people to read.

As far the as the revenue goes, it is slowing climbing. I can now afford 2 cups of coffee! But it has doubled in the past few weeks alone, which is a good sign. Most of the revenue is coming from Google Adwords, and few cents here and there from Kontera.

Next I have to find a way to optimise my affiliate ads to suit my users. I have had the same ads up for the past few weeks, with the best performing being “Watch TV live on your PC“. Although I have not made any sales from this ad, it has been clicked the most.

I will start to change around the ads every week or so to try to figure out what the best performing are. I think “Domaining Manifesto” will be fairly good, as alot of the hits I am getting are related to Nameseek.

I have also been reading a few ebooks in my spare time to find out how the pros make money blogging. I have downloaded the new ebook from JohnCow.com to try and improve my blogging, and also try to make it into a business rather than just a blog. I also plan of downloading a few others to read over the next few weeks.

Hopefully I can learn a few things and implement some of their strategies to improve my blogging and my approach to making this a successful resource for my audience. Thanks for all of your support!