Maximize Affiliate Programs, Google Adsense & Social Media Coverage

Over the past few weeks, I’ve identified a few important items that I need to take care of, starting with. . .

Google Adsense

A few weeks back, I wrote that most bloggers (& webmasters) don’t do very well with Google Adsense.

But. . . I might have been wrong.

Since writing this, I’ve read that some of my peers are averaging $50+ per day with it. That’s about $1500.00 per month.

Nice pocket change, right?

And more of a third of my monthly revenue goal for my first year.

I need to speak to a few of these peers and see if I can’t get some tips and tricks so that I can build a better Google Adsense plan for myself.

One that I can share with you.

As of today, the most I’ve earned in a single day with Adsense was $13.61 (7/8/11). The second highest day was $8.72 (7/9/11). Most days, though, I’m happy if I see $1.00.

I can stand to improve in this area, huh?

Btw, the spikes in Adsense earnings were the result of two articles that I’d submitted to StumbleUpon. If you’re not yet stumbling your posts, you’re missing out on an amazing traffic builder. Want to be friends on StumbleUpon?

Then there are my. . .

Affiliate Programs

I need to evaluate my current affiliate programs. I haven’t let myself look at the $$ stats the past couple of weeks, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t done very well.

Until now, I haven’t put a enough thought into these. Instead, I was focusing on my startup content.

Now that I have a good handle on that, and my blog traffic is growing, this revenue should be growing too, right?

Which brings me to. . .

Social Media Partnerships

Social media partnerships can be an EXTREMELY effective strategy for building quality blog traffic.

These partnerships consist of “friends” who agree to stumble, share, tweet or retweet each other’s content. Not only does your content get more exposure, but when someone else is sharing it, it has more clout.

Okay, so the question here is do I start my own group or join someone else’s?

So far, I haven’t been impressed with what I’ve seen out there, but I don’t want to invest the time managing a group. The trick, at least for me, is to maximize the power of social media without spending a lot of time on it.

So the jury is still out.

Do you write about blogging, fiction writing, freelance writing, SEO, nutrition, health, or family topics? If you do and have a StumbleUpon and/or Twitter account, contact me at jminar (at) writersbreak (dot) com with your blog URL(s) and social media profiles.

Maybe we can help each other out.

Having said that. . .

Remember to Enjoy the Journey

Sometimes you have to take breaks. Just step away and do something else.

I learned this last week when my mind began to shut down.

Scary, huh?

And completely unnecessary.

When you work for yourself, there are no clear boundaries between work and personal time if you don’t proactively create them.

The more success I see with traffic and subscribers, the more I want to produce even greater results.

But you can only sustain a frantic, caffeine-fueled pace for so long before you break.

Also, perspective is everything. Sometimes you might feel like you’re drowning in a million loose ends, but you’re probably not. And if you are, it’s okay. You’ll figure it out.

This is another reason to just step away. . . gain some clarity.