February Results

As you already know, I have been keeping track of my time and income on each of my sites and publishing that on my Stat Tracker page.  The theory behind this is that if you want to start earning money online or are considering trying the online money making options available, you should have an idea about the amount of time involved vs. the income received.

I started the blogs at the beginning of January and started my postings around the middle of January.  Thus, January’s numbers included setting up the sites (domain registration, hosting, site customization, etc.).  February was quite different.

For February I already had the sites set up.  I also happened to be sick for about a week where I didn’t get up early enough in the mornings to visit other people’s sites (I just made my post and then logged off).  The last 2 weeks I have had other projects keeping me up later at night so again I haven’t been able to visit other people’s sites to read and make comments.  All of this combined to create what I will guess is one of the leanest months in terms of work hours put in.  I don’t expect to have a similar work hour total for any of the other months.

As you can see I only put in around 26 hours of work for my 5 blogs (about 5 hours a piece).  This amounted to about an hour for each day of posting for each site.  I only post once per week so that was 4 weeks.  Then there was a little extra in there when I actually found time to comment on other people’s sites. 

What you can also see is that I made $0 money in February.  This is 100% due to the fact that I did not have any advertising up.  The biggest reason I didn’t have any advertising up is due to the Sandbox effect – I explain this theory on my latest post on Click Into Action.  Now that I have about 6 – 10 posts on each site and am starting to get into posts where I explain specific aspects of how to create something or make money, those advertisements are now applicable to the readers. 

My stats for my reader counts aren’t that impressive, but I have yet to employ some of the bigger marketing tools (myspace, facebook, twitter).  I will get to them in time, but for now am focused on creating good posts and getting my readers further along in their projects or at least starting their projects. 

As you can see, makeing money online is not a get rich quick scheme.  It is time consuming and could take years before you have actually built up your readership to the point that it actually makes enough to quit your job.  Don’t fret though, most companies weren’t built in a day – GE, GM, Berkshire Hathaway, Microsoft, Apple – all of these companies have slowly built themselves into the giants they are today.  There are many more examples of companies that started in spare bedrooms or garages and have become huge (Google anyone?).  What it does take is time, commitment, and a good product.

What are your experiences so far?  Anything to add to the discussion?

Johnny