Monthly Wrap Up - Sept 08
- 50 Comment
Photo provided by flickr.com
I’ll be doing a Monthly Wrap-Up every month on or around the 1st of the month. I just completed my first month with this Blog and I am pleased with it’s progress.
I’ll be listing my current portfolio’s value, my annual expected dividend income, what companies I own, and any other income I earn online through my Blog or other online activities. Now that you know what will be included in my Monthly Wrap-Up it’s time to get started.
Sept - 08
Portfolio Value - $32,294.55
Current Holdings - Bank of America(BAC), Kraft(KFT), Pfizer(PFE), Procter and Gamble(PG), and Marvel(MVL)
It was a pretty recent decision of mine to only invest in dividend paying stocks. I ended up keeping MVL but I dropped everything else I owned. As time passes my Portfolio will become more and more diversified. I purchase when I have the money and I feel it would not be a wise decision to purchase in smaller lots for sake of diversification. When I purchase I normally buy between $4k - $7k worth. I may start purchasing in the $3k range(but no less) I haven’t decided yet.
Annual Dividend Income - $1,166
Not a bad start to my Compounding Machine, my Income would be higher if I dropped MVL but I can’t bring myself to do it - I just hope they start paying a dividend within 3-5 years.
Online Earnings - Total -$11.43
Adsense - $11.05
Kontera - $0.38
Not a fantastic start - but it’s a start. I’ve only had kontera up for about a week - I’m contemplating on killing it off but on the other hand I think it will be worthwhile to keep once my search engine traffic increases - is it bothersome or tolerable?
125×125 Ads - I threw these up there when I put the Blog up without much thought, I just wanted something up. Within the next few days I’d like to change at least 2 of them - also geared towards search engine traffic. Realistically, not too many Financial Bloggers are going to be clicking on blog Ads.
The Google Chart -
This became my new crack a few days ago and then all of a sudden the forward progress stopped - the very next day! The day it was at its peak I submitted my site to a few web directories, I wonder if somehow I got penalized for doing so or if that was the same day as the PR change and sites got bumped ahead of mine.
I don’t know what happened but I want the momentum back on my side. This month I plan on learning a little more about SEO - search engine traffic is something I’d definitely like to build up. I’m not a sales man and I have no intention to sell my readers anything so the only way to make any money at this will be to increase my ad clicks - Search Engine Traffic seems to be more interested in Ads than Bloggers are.
This past month I covered a lot and I wanted to start off my Blog by setting a foundation for my readers who may not know much about Stocks, Dividends, or how the Market works. I covered some basics such as Stock valuation Measures and Dividend growth. I may go back to this and start a series from the ground up on everything that an investor should know before they get involved in stock picking.
In the month of September we’ve begun to witness just how bad the credit situation is. There have been numerous bank crashes in the U.S and it’s beginning to expand globally with the Belgian-French Financial Group Dexia needing a 6.4 Billion Euro infusion to prevent it from failing.
I wrote a few reviews this past month on The Single Best Investment by Lowell Miller, The Motley Fool Income Investor and The Motley fool Stock Advisor. Sometime during the month of October I’ll share a review on the Ultimate dividend Playbook by Morningstar Inc for you all to read. it’s been a great book so far but I still have a few chapters left.
Amazon sent me an email a few weeks ago to let me know just how much My Blog Sucks but I’m going to have to disagree with them; I’ll keep shopping there anyways.
It’s been an interesting month and I’ve decided that blogging is something that I enjoy doing, it keeps my mind busy while I’m out here in Iraq - sometimes too busy. I’ll probably be switching back to 12 hour days here in about a week so I don’t think I’ll be able to keep the content coming at such a rapid pace - I’ll be getting days off though so the few articles a week I do get out should have an increase in quality. We’ll be trading quantity for quality and I’ll get to see how my blog reacts. Working 7 days a week for the past few months is starting to get old - real old.
I also started a Competition in September where I will be giving away over $250 USD - it’s been going well so far but it’s still anyone’s for the taking. If you’re already involved - Keep up the good work! If you’re just finding out about it now then I recommend you get started today, there’s still 10 days left so catching up should not take too much work.
That pretty much wraps up the month of September, I don’t have a set game plan for this month but it’s sure to be fun and there’s the possibility of another competition kicking off towards the end of the month.
If you haven’t taken a look at my Blog Traffic Group go ahead and check it out- it’s free and available to anyone, and while you’re in the sign up mode add my RSS FEED, you can find it below this post or in the top right corner of my Blog.
And we’ll end my first Monthly Wrap-Up with a joke, the funny thing is - the joke’s on me. I meant to mark down how many comments everyone had this month before the comment list reset it self for the new month. well I went to the gym this morning and before I came back the list had changed-Doh!. it looks like I’ll be spending tomorrow morning counting everyone’s comments for the competition - you live and you learn.
If there’s anything you would like me to talk about this month then let me know and I’ll do my best to get to it. If you have any questions about the previous month you can go ahead and ask me here also.
Here’s to October,
Jake
50 Comments on this post
Trackbacks
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Online Dividends said:
You need to play around with your google adsense in terms of locations on your site.
The higher up the adsense code the higher the amount of earnings will be even if you maintain your traffic.Anyways my ad revenues were $8 the first month I started. I should be posting my own earnings report on Monday…
October 1st, 2008 at 8:45 am -
BM said:
True. Bloggers are not tend to click on other blog’s Adsense ads, because they know it’s an ad.
October 1st, 2008 at 12:36 pm -
Personal Finance Explained said:
Congrats on your first month. It is interesting that you went with the dividend only approach. I prefer selling covered calls against my current positions (which has not worked out too well for me this year). I look forward to seeing what is in store over the next few months.
Dusty
October 1st, 2008 at 1:18 pm -
Online Dividends said:
Oh yeah and I added a link to your competition in another post.. So there’s more counting for you to do..
http://onlinedividends.blogspot.com/2008/09/why-it-pays-to-be-diversified.html
I believe that’s 5 more points
October 1st, 2008 at 1:23 pm -
Jake said:
PFE -
(which has not worked out too well for me this year)
This is exactly the reason why I’m a dividend investor. It doesn’t matter what the market does - the share price could be up or down and my Portfolio is still making progress. Without taking a dividend cut my income will always be increasing.
Growth stocks don’t give me any added freedom - $3k a month in dividends will allow me to do anything I choose(within reason)
OD - That’s correct - well 6 points with your comment
October 1st, 2008 at 3:13 pm -
LAL said:
I’m impressed with adsense. I don’t think i make $11/month! Wow people are clicking on the ads! You guys are doing great, me, I haven’t broken $100 yet in 3 years.
October 1st, 2008 at 4:42 pm -
passivefamilyincome said:
Jake - Great job! I always debate if I should include AdSense on my blog or not. I have not done it yet, but have put it on some other niche sites that I have. I really like these monthly roundups that people post as it inspires me to keep motivated and provides new ideas that I have not thought of yet.
Personal Finance Explained - I also sell covered calls against my positions. I have had mixed results at this point. Trying to combine dividend yielding stocks with options is a little tougher than I thought it would be. I am going to jump over to your site and check it out. Thanks!
PFI -
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:40 am -
BM said:
3 years? that’s insane.
Me I got my first $100 from Google Adsense after 4 months, the secret is “make your ads, don’t look like ads” + put it above the fold.October 2nd, 2008 at 4:41 am -
Online Dividends said:
The real truth about adsense ads is that you need to always keep experimenting in terms of location, size, color etc. You also need to work on getting new traffic all the time. Some people tell you that the users that search google for compounding dividends are more likely to click on adsense ads that users who visit this site from http://onlinedividends.blogspot.com/.
I would love to see statistics proving this point.. As for adsense It took me 3 months before I made $100.. My first check was for $201 :-).
October 2nd, 2008 at 9:13 am -
Dotsky said:
Congratulations on your first month Jake. You’re lucky for having $11 in adsense. Me I haven’t even earned a single cents in my personal blog. Maybe we should also learn some SEO to gain more traffic and earn more.
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:25 am -
Jake said:
Dotsky - Are you using Adsense on your personal Blog? I earn a few cents a day from impressions even if I don’t get any clicks.
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:49 pm -
BM said:
Good thing, Google Adsense now sends payment thru Western Union not checks here in the Philippines. If that’s the case, I would be force to have a dollar account here.
October 3rd, 2008 at 1:32 am -
Personal Finance Explained said:
I have learned to set stop losses even when selling covered calls. I would rather be “naked” for a while than to have my stocks get crushed like they did this year (CROX from $40 to $4 and FRPT from $15 to $3).
I did buy CROX at around $7 (split adjusted) so the amount I lost was not that bad. I just wish I would have sold some of it earlier at a profit. You live and learn, I guess.
I am thinking about getting back into DRIP programs. I enjoyed doing those a few years back.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:54 am -
Jake said:
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one in FRPT - I rode it from the low 20’s to around $12 I think if I remeber correctly. That helped me with the decision to invest for dividends.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:21 pm -
LAL said:
I am a bit confused. How do I play around with my ads? I guess I could be making a lot more. What am I looking for? I stuck some ads in my side bars. Should they be folded into what?
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:57 pm -
Terry said:
Be careful with Kontera. If you don’t make $5 in a month then you earnings DO NOT roll over, they keep it. Pretty crappy but it’s in their TOS, too bad it took me a year to realize that.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:58 pm -
Dotsky said:
@Jake - yes I’m using Adsense. Maybe I have to change the location of the ads and work on getting more traffic.
October 4th, 2008 at 6:16 am -
ThemeLib.com said:
You’ve made a great money but so small with Adsense. I think you should change your Adsense placement
October 4th, 2008 at 9:59 am -
ThemeLib.com said:
Btw did you notice that your emoticons are always in the new line ?
October 4th, 2008 at 10:02 am -
Online Dividends said:
LAL,
You basically slapped all of your adsense banners at the same place and then you are wondering why noone clicks on adsense?
How about you get a top banner and a banner on the right as well? Some people claim that the left part of the page is a blind spot which consumers tend ot ignore..
October 4th, 2008 at 12:14 pm -
BM said:
@Terry, thanks for the info on Kontera, shady huh.
October 4th, 2008 at 12:28 pm -
LAL said:
A top banner? I am a bit not sure. I sort of had my theme modified and I’m not sure if I would want to reformat it to move the links and 125×125 buttons to the right?
What do people make from Commission Junction? I haven’t made anything from there yet either?
Maybe I’ll give up. I guess I could do more.
How do you do it at the end of the post? What people click on them? I love visiting sites but I never see the ads. I only read posts.
October 4th, 2008 at 4:36 pm -
ThemeLib.com said:
@LAL : me too, I’ve made nothing with CJ and I got rid of it
October 4th, 2008 at 9:49 pm -
ThemeLib.com said:
How do you do it at the end of the post? What people click on them? I love visiting sites but I never see the ads. I only read posts.
I’ll click on ads if their posts are interesting. I think it’s just a small donation
October 4th, 2008 at 9:50 pm -
BM said:
I’m not really good @ CPA ads, but I haven’t tried CJ yet
October 5th, 2008 at 12:51 pm -
ThemeLib.com said:
@BM: You should try CJ. I guess you can make more money with it
October 6th, 2008 at 12:41 am -
ThemeLib.com said:
@Jake: I know the problem with your emoticons in comment section. You should delete this css element .commentlist li img
October 6th, 2008 at 12:43 am -
BM said:
how much did you earned at CJ?
October 6th, 2008 at 2:15 am -
Rocks said:
congratulations on your first month! I was actually looking for my number of comments and was surprised when I didn’t see my name but I understand as I read through this whole post
October 6th, 2008 at 3:31 am -
BM said:
@Rocks: Yup, he said he unknowingly reset last month’s comment without tallying it.
October 6th, 2008 at 12:21 pm -
LAL said:
Has anyone made money with commission junction? What is CPA?
October 6th, 2008 at 8:05 pm -
Jake said:
Thanks Theme - I’ll have to look into that
October 6th, 2008 at 11:17 pm -
BM said:
@LAL: CPA = Cost per action. Before you earn someone must performed that ‘action’. An action can be a product being purchased, a form being filled, etc.
Google Adsense is CPC, when someone click you earn something. CPA ads doesn’t earn you with just a ‘click’
October 7th, 2008 at 4:04 am -
Escoofield said:
I have an adsense account but i still don’t use it.. for now i am focusing on my blog’s design.. i don’t want ads to make my blog slow hehe! but ill use it in the future! This is truly amazing and very interesting!
October 7th, 2008 at 5:01 am -
BM said:
Adsense doesn’t make your blog loads slow, actually it’s one of the fastest loading ad servers.
Slow loading ads are from Digxa and Project Wonderful.
October 7th, 2008 at 5:03 am -
BM said:
^ But I’m still using Project Wonderful on my blogs
October 7th, 2008 at 5:06 am -
Online Dividends said:
I think that clicking on ads without doing any further action is pretty bad and could result in google banning the account of your favorite blogger. Click fraud affects advertisers, publishers and the overall marketplace.
2 words- don’t do it!
October 7th, 2008 at 12:05 pm -
BM said:
I agree, Adsense banned publisher not just for click fraud but on the content of the blog too.
October 7th, 2008 at 12:48 pm -
LAL said:
How do they determine click fraud? What causes them to be suspicious? A sudden increase? What if you keep on doing it everyday to increase your numbers?
October 8th, 2008 at 9:03 am -
BM said:
They can do that by monitoring the IP of the publishers.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:40 am -
BM said:
^ and on ‘click pattern’ of a certain users. whey they’re coming from etc…
October 8th, 2008 at 9:41 am -
LAL said:
Interesting. I guess I haven’t been serious enough to get paid well.I figured that if I built up my subscribers and traffic then the adsense would naturally follow. I could do better but I’m not sure I really want to.
But I should move the adsense to the end of the ads?
Jake how do you do that?
October 9th, 2008 at 6:46 am -
BM said:
I think moving Adsense ad blocks at the end of posts doesn’t turn-out well. Of course, moving it at the bottom part means less people will see it.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:29 am -
BM said:
Anyway guys have you heard about WidgetBucks? I have been paid by these moneymaker twice ($54.14 & $52.46) without too much work I just pasted the javascript to my blogs and that’s it.
Actually it’s there first anniversary now, and if you sign-up from October 1-31 a $25 bonus will be credited into your account. Too bad, on the month I signed-up there’s no bonus like this one.
Check out my post about it here: http://www.makemoneyonline-x.com/2008/10/get-25-from-widgetbucks-first.html
October 9th, 2008 at 10:32 am -
LAL said:
What are widget bucks? How do you make money from them?
October 9th, 2008 at 6:19 pm -
LAL said:
I think that adsense can be largely revenue generating when you get a lot of traffic. I think it’s more likely to have people to click. I’m starting to get more traffic and more money from adsense finally. I guess I make $3-5/month and it’s going up faster with the higher traffic rates.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:20 pm -
Pweng Bee said:
“…Me I got my first $100 from Google Adsense after 4 months…”
That’s great BM. I still do not know to earn from Adsense like you did.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:17 pm -
Pweng Bee said:
I think Widgetbucks is a form of affiliate marketing LAL.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:20 pm -
BM said:
WidgetBucks is not an affiliate site. It works like Chitika.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
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