Dara's Progress: Month 2

Month #2 - November 2015:

This month things really started clicking! I've been focusing less on my WA promo site and really going to town on my niche site. My graphic design skills are improving and all of my web presences match! I'm especially proud of my Facebook header image:

My niche has transformed into something new and a little more specialized, in my opinion. I'm enjoying writing about it more than ever!

My 1 premium referral is doing well! I've had many others just coming by to look, and 2 of them in the last month have set up their profiles. I recently re-wrote my automated welcome message, and am hoping to see sign ups increase since I think it's much better. We'll see!

I did end up upgrading to Yearly over the Black Friday sale, I couldn't resist it and now I don't have to worry about paying again until next year. I'll also be locked in at the special Black Friday rate, bonus!

I did sign up for Jaaxy during their promotion a few weeks ago, paying $19 for the pro membership. I loved it and might go back to it sometime in the future. I'm trying to keep expenses down this time of year, especially since I went Yearly.

I learned a lot about what works and what doesn't specifically for me with regards to being an Amazon affiliate. My income for the month comes from there

Expenses:

WA Monthly Membership: $47 (includes web hosting, an approx. $5 per month value, with keyword research tool and ENDLESS training and education!)

1 Month at Jaaxy: $19

Upgrade to Yearly: $294 (pro-rated)

Income:

Amazon Affiliate Commissions: $66.48

Profit or Loss?

Income - Expenses = Profit or Loss

$66.48 - $360 = ($293.52)

YTD (year to date) Profit/(Loss) = (324.52)

I am still operating at a loss, but it is so nice seeing my commissions so high so quickly! If you're familiar with Amazon Affiliates you'll see that I got 94 items ordered, but only 46 of them shipped. You only earn the commission after the item ships, so I should be seeing about this much, if not more, in the first week or so of December.

Month 2 Takeaway

I'm really getting the hang of promoting Amazon items. I also joined Target's Affiliate program, but only had about 3 clicks on the ad in my sidebar since I only focus on Amazon in my posts. I took it completely off my site so as not to dilute my traffic to Amazon.

I also took AdSense off my site. During my continued reading and training here on WA, I learned that Adsense really just draws traffic away from my site and gives me pennies in return.

Goals for Next Month:

In December I want to learn more about Google Analytics and how to add special tracking to everything I do. I've been offering free printables on my site to draw traffic, but so far only have the file available for direct download through the file link on my site. I'd love to know how many people have downloaded what I uploaded!

So that was my Month 2! I hope it's encouraging to you to see that I do have money coming in after only 2 months here. Also note that if I hadn't invested in my membership here at a yearly level, I'd be seeing a YTD total at (30.52) and would be making a profit sooner than I would if I hadn't gone yearly. However, at the regular rate of $47 a month, I'd end up paying $536 for my membership for the year instead of $294. So by spending more now, I actually saved myself $242. That's awesome!

Keep at it! My notes from last month still hold true, to focus on content and not so much on your stats. Narrow your focus ad write, write, write! You'll never get traffic if you don't write, and you' never get sales without traffic!