* HART-Empire Earnings for 2007 (January-April) Released .. sounds like a press release, eh?

According to THIS POST back in 2006, I estimated that my 2006 earnings would be about $3,665 USD .. which turned out to be pretty close to actual. Actually, it was closer to about $2,200 USD plus private deals of $1,800 USD (that expired March 2007) for a total around $4,000 USD earnings.

Don’t ask me where the money went! It just went! But keep in mind, this is EARNINGS .. not cash.

Now .. I’ve deducted the $1,800 private deals from the lot to better represent the online earning potential and growth that I have accomplished from earning revenues online, and actually included (or ‘accrued’) revenue from sources that I have yet to receive payment from. You see, as an accountant – I’m anal like that! Not only can I tell you what I’ve earned, I can cross reference it by blog, by type of ad, and one other criteria .. but I won’t. What I do want to reflect is that without the private ads .. the $2,200 USD relates to:

* $183.33 per month average
* $6.03 per day average

So .. although I have all the details for 2007 recapped and itemized in excel spreadsheets on my computer, I have created a Google Document Spreadsheet and (hope this works) set it to SHARING in case anybody is curious to see a rough summary of how I keep track of my own personal earnings, from blogging – excluding private deals.

* HART-Empire Network Draft Earnings 2007

Summary of Gross Earnings 2007

* January 2007 – $344.61
* February 2007 – $372.37
* March 2007 – $492.41
* April 2007 – $476.08

** Year-To-Date Gross Earnings (Jan-Apr/2007) – $1,685.47

* Average (so far) $14.05 per day or, $421.37 per month

Reflection

I don’t know .. what do YOU think? Is that good? On one hand – I’ve struggled making my first $10 per month for many months .. and anything is good, right? But I’ve been blogging since May 2005 and now have over 40 blogs on 32 different domains. Also, I know of a lot of other bloggers that make about the same, or more, or less, but certainly spend a HECK OF A LOT LESS time blogging than I have been spending. But, I think the social aspect and ‘stress-release’ factor of reading, participating, commenting and just following the links is all part of the blogging process. It helps me get perspective, and lets me see what the world is doing out there online. It’s also fun too 🙂

It was only this recent March 2007 that I finally exceeded $100 per month level on Google Adsense earnings. I personally feel that if I were to SPEND more money on advertising, I would do more – but, I wanted to avoid that at all costs. As it turns out, I’ve actually started to purchase Text-Link-Ads to advertise the PetLvr site on a few sites .. just to test the waters .. but it hasn’t been much, as I am a cheap bastard 😀

* Advertising SPENT in 2007 – January $0, February $20, March $20, April $45 (I have also prepaid May/2007 for the same amount $45 at this point)

I have no savings, as I have actually been “bootstrapping” my business by reinvesting these gross proceeds towards certain other online aspects of my business that, I’d rather not go into at this point in time.

* Oh .. that’s nice.

Although, it’s an aggregation of all our pages so, looking at our traffic individually on a blog by blog basis would be more meaningful. And, although we’ve manage to receive more than 1,000 page views on a single day before .. we haven’t been able to maintain it for 7 straight days since last February 2006 (before the Technorati Incident).

All the stats for our blogs are public, and can be viewed by clicking on the individual sitemeter button at the bottom of the blog, or the network sitemeter button below the network code in our sidebars.

I think this is pretty good, for I know that we have been slowing down with the posting and promotion of this network of sites in these recent months (and probably April and May as well). I wasn’t sure about Easter Sunday .. but, we just nicked it with 1,000 page views!

* I was thinking that by the summer .. this annual graph view will start to look .. coooool .. At least, I hope the trend continues – going up!

Yes .. I have been adding my own posts to a few social bookmark sites ..

* Furl, Blogmarks, Spurl, Simpy, Del.ici.ous, Blinklist, Rawsugar, blogmemes, Linkagogo, feedmelinks, magnolia, google, backflip, looklater, and wink

I only post to a few random sites on each post and have a few accounts at a few of these sites.

* What I have not been doing is anything with REDDIT … so, I decided to open an account today, and about 2 hours ago I’ve added one post of mine ..

* Here are the results after 2 hours .. 69 referrals? Can this be true?

According to my other ‘real’ stats .. it appears to be the case and, it’s actually less than 2 hours .. it was at 69 referrals after 1-hr, 50-min.

PS: the post in question that I’ve added was today’s post ..
When Computer Geeks Get Bored…They Create Stuff Like This

This tip was suggested by Ryan (via link at Performancing site) from College-Startup and I definately have to take more interest in this REDDIT.com site .. I’ve got an account over there .. It’s hard to believe this much traffic in 2 hours .. I wonder what my refer statistics will look like after 24 hours?

* February 2007 is the first time I have broken $100.00 Google Adsense Earnings in one month

Last month, January 2007 .. I came close – and received $99.50 earnings.

So is this a good thing? // I think so! Because if I can maintain that level of earnings, at least there will be some payment coming in from Google (direct deposit) into my bank account around the 24th of each month. Most of my automatic debit payments occur in the last week and 1st of the month .. so, that helps a little.

BUT – keep in mind the following:

1) I’ve been blogging since May 31, 2005 with adsense on my blogs
2) I currently have over 30 domains with blogs mostly all having adsense on my blogs

You see, it’s not really a BIG success based on the above knowledge .. but I always keep in mind: I remember back in 2005 in the first 6 months – you know, when everybody who WAS making money would saying .. “Don’t worry .. It takes at least 6 months to make money” – and when I would be earning something like $10.00 per month OR LESS and was still as WooHoo! happy as I am today.

* Firestats

I first noticed this plugin today .. while searching around for an invite to Virb.com .. on the Zzap Blog (aka Pearce from Australia).

Thanks to Zzap .. I have now received an invite .. plus a really cool statistics plugin!

At least .. it LOOKS cool. What I like the most is that in the comments .. it shows where the user is from, what browser he/she is using and what operating system the user was on. And I didn’t have to modify the template to add any code .. I just ticked a box in my dashboard firestat options.

Okay. I know what you are thinking .. “Wait! HART doesn’t get many comments” .. well, YES that’s true .. so those little icon graphics shouldn’t be a burden to load.

I will let it collect statistics and see how it looks and what it is really collecting, before I add it to my other blogs and PS .. it works on wordpress version 2.1

* I received a commission cheque from Linkshare today – for the Canadian Accounts

* But – it was all on one sale at Dell Canada – 0.93% commission (less than 1%!)

* After I saw that crappy payout last spring – I started to concentrate on my Amazon products, to reach that $100 minimum threshold (which I also recieved earlier this month). I did want to do more with the musical instruments .. Woodwind and Brasswind .. but they had financial problems and went into receivership or something like that .. I think they mentioned in an email that they were not going to pay any balances, then again mention that they would .. it was too much Drama for a non-earning thing for me to continue.

After tax season when I am less busy, I think I will go back to promoting product like this over at 1800HART.com/picks/ The-Furniture-Site.com The-Lingerie-Site.com Medieval-Site.com and the Item-Site.com .. but I want to take time to represent companies that offer a much higher commission payout than Dell! Now that I know LINKSHARE (LinkSynergy.com) actually pays .. well, as I said .. it’s just good to know!

* It’s about friggin’ time .. since 2004

* Of course, $79.96 of that cheque was one sale (believe it or not!)

So, needless to say .. it is SAFE TO SAY .. that I suck at this Amazon commission earnings thingie. I’ve installed the new WP-AMAZON plugin that has been upgraded for wordpress version 2.1, but it only works if you use Firefox and only if you use visual editor as well. Otherwise, it doesn’t work – but, it is still in beta testing.

Now that I’ve got the balance of my Amazon Account … I don’t really see a need to further promote anything. However, I do have some links around my blogs – I will leave them online until the end of March 2007 Q1 to see if any earnings is generated. Most of the remaining earnings seems to be made from my PapillonLvr.com/blog/ selling Papillon Books!

RSS Submit

I placed the above affiliated link on my other site 62-151 Media Group (in the sidebar) and people can download the trial version for free. If they choose to purchase the registeration code, I earn a commission.

There are 3 plans currently, according to their website:

RSS Submit (affiliate link)

Submit RSS feeds to over 80 directories … Track your FeedBurner & Technorati statistics … Manage your RSS feeds

* Personal Edition $44.95 USD
The Personal License allows RSS feed submission for non-commercial purposes including personal blogs, personal projects, and personal web sites. This license includes:

Unlimited time usage of software.
All search engines activated.
Unlimited submission of up to 10 RSS feeds for non-commercial use.
Feeds may not be used for commercial or re-sale purposes.

* Professional Edition $64.95 USD
The Professional License allows RSS feed submission for commercial purposes by businesses and organizations. This license includes:

Unlimited time usage of software.
All search engines activated.
Unlimited submission of up to 30 RSS feeds for commercial use.
Feeds belonging to other businesses or clients may not be used.

* SEO Edition $94.95 USD
The SEO License allows unlimited RSS feed submission for commercial purposes by SEO businesses, corporations, and web masters. This license includes:

Unlimited time usage of software.
All search engines activated.
Unlimited number of RSS feeds may be submitted.
Submission of RSS feeds used for commercial purposes.
Submission of feeds belonging to other businesses and clients.

I’m terrible at SEO .. the concept .. and everything that is about this notion of submitting your RSS feeds. I do have a free-for-all directory listing available to anybody but, hardly anybody is adding their own sites. But, I have been submitting all the links in the directory to Google every few days. I’m not sure if it is working or helping or not helping.

In all my WordPress options, I do have more than one RSS submission URL site to ping, on every post. In my PetLvr blog, I have 5 of them .. but I think it slows down the posting times, so all the others had just the 2 (feedburner and technorati). Since google blog search now pings .. I have added their code as well.

But – then a friend signed me up on the Rzye Network .. and I’ve been looking around at posts and networks involved with blogging. Everybody is either promoting the pinging of blogs, or submitting their blogs to “sites” …

I don’t – simply because it is too time consuming for me to do that. Also, most of the time .. I find that I have to add some text description to each blog’s RSS … sometimes, it remembers my last time, and my blog might have changed!

So, back to this RSS-Submit program … I came across that page and wanted to try it out. First, I signed up to be an affiliate .. then, after my last month’s Text-Link-Ads paypal receipt .. I used the funds to just buy the SEO version.

This weekend, I finally installed the program .. took a few screen shots and will just use this post as a future reference to look back and see if it was all worthwhile, and if it made any difference.

So – here are the pictures!

A Snapshot of the HART-Empire Network SiteMeter October 8, 2006

You add your RSS Feed, and if using Feedburner, it gets that info and Technorati stuff too

So, I’ve added all my 74 RSS Feeds to the bloody program

It shows you keywords and I’m not sure about this 8217 keyword – I see a lot of that

Yah. It took 3 hours to submit all 74 RSS feeds to these built in 71 RSS Sites

I didn’t bother to add other sites manually – yet- maybe someday

Conclusion?

If one is supposed to be submitting their blogs regularly to RSS Submission sites = (are we?) = WELL THEN … this is quite easy to submit, when you just press SUBMIT ALL and sit back and let this program do it for you. I plan to run this submission every few days (after postings) and take a look again at the statistics in a month or so. I don’t think I will be doing anything out of the ordinary to generate more traffic – as work keeps me busy offline .. So, I’ll try to re-blog the outcome in the future.

If you are familiar with other RSS Submission programs, or are using this program – I would like to hear your comments and thoughts of how you think this program is working for you or has worked for you .. not that I will be asking for any refund .. I truly think that I need ~something like this .. it’s long overdue – but who knows if this is it!

Hmmmm

I’m almost there .. “there” .. being at the stage where I can concentrate on building up the blogging end of the HART-Empire Network. May is still very busy for me, and I expect to be super busy until June 15th (the deadline for personal tax returns for self-employed individuals) and busy until June 30th, which is the deadline for any Year Ends dated December 31 .. which I have a lot.

Site wide (just for my share of the blogs on this network) .. it pretty much was a disaster over my “tax time” period, which is March 1st to April 30th … That’s the busiest time of the year for me. As a result, more attention was kept to offline business routines over online business routines. I still managed to spend time online – was mostly for “stress relief” time .. (reading and commenting on other blogs rather than rather researching and/or writing for my own).

Yes .. I expected my traffic to decrease

With lowered blog entries, I expected my traffic to decrease. Repetitive blogging entries maintains repetitive blogging readers. For my own blogs, the main one that I was concerned with .. was PetLvr.com – [The Blog] .. because it is the one getting most “search engine” type of visitors .. and “technorati” search types of visitors. Sometime, in Mid-March .. I noticed on the Successful-Blog someone had a problem with technorati, David Sirfry from Technorati was on the ball and solved the problem. Now, people who know me .. KNOWS .. that I am a firm believe that “it never hurts to ask“. Also, I’ve noted that whenever I go to Technorati to look over my accounts, they never seemed to make sense nor was current with the linking, indexed etc. So .. I asked the question .. Please Help!

This is what “Asking A Question” got me

Just in case you have your graphics turned off in your browser .. let me read the important parts, as I read it – when I first saw the comment ..

HART’s blogs have little or no original content and appear to be computer generated … In the meantime, our systems will automatically mark all blogs that are using his adsense ID as spam
David Stirfry

Powerful statements, eh? Whatever! I never really cared what people think of me, and if that’s what they think .. I am comfortable in the TRUTH knowing that I am not a spammer nor am I a splogger. Certainly .. all my blogs are created on WordPress on a computer! Actually ..one blog is computer generated .. my Cancer Horoscope one .. A year ago, I signed up for a horoscope to automatically be emailed to that blog. I have been unable to cancel it or divert it .. because you have to be able to send email from the one that is receiving it, which I can’t – because it’s a Blogger.com blog. But you know what? I sleep well at night knowing what I do and what I’m doing .. and have no intention other to point out people’s errors .. and move on .. Life’s too short! I know some would have had TONS of blog entry material for weeks if this happened to them! There are other things I would rather do with my time .. NOTHING (and I would be more productive).

But – like any business plan – you have to adapt to the changes around you. I know my site traffic will be decreasing .. but, basically since the “Technorati Incident” (as I like to call it) .. my traffic has declined by 40-45% …. I do have adsense ads all over my site and was building up something. I think, the stage at that time was that every 2 months I would exceed the $100.00 payout and receive something. Not much (about 3 hours billable time in two months time), but it was there.

So … Is Yahoo Buying Technorati? Good!

~~~~~~~~~~
Heads up from The Blog Herald Ben Barren regarding a ZdNet post
~~~~~~~~~~

I think I have been posting activity on my 1800HART.com/blog/ site .. as I always have! Some amusing stuff, some business related stuff, some stupid observations stuff .. // Last updated 290 days ago.

Recently .. I have been blogging a lot on the callHART.com/crazy site … // Last updated 71 days ago.

Even my daily horoscope hasn’t been updated! HART-oscope.blogspot.com // Last updated 17 days ago.

BUT == > This is the funny part .. the PetLvr blog is always updated now… go figure!

Why? Is it because of Technorati? I don’t know .. All I do know is that for some reason, there are sites popping up creating the content of my sites, and linking back to me .. so .. I haven’t really cared much the reasons or the effects of them doing so. So far, as far as I can tell .. the only effect from my statistics are (1) it causes my sites to show up in technorati now, when you do a search for my domain .. and (2) I have received absolutely NO traffic from them. I hope they don’t penalize me in the Page Ranking google dance .. Oh well.

(Sites listed on there .. like the following … THIS .. and THIS .. are these scraper sites? I have no clue!)

ANYWAY … .

It’s just been a while posting in here. So I thought I would.

What should you expect in the near future from HART-Empire.com ?

Probably not much before Summer (July 1st) .. maybe back to the weekly “sweet-HARTs” postings? … maybe some more promotion of this network, so it might seem when we ask for updates on the BlogNetworkList pages .. (yes I know Matt’s busy and not in too much of a rush) ..

We are still in the middle of the behind-the-scenes implementation of our Battling-Series of blogs .. plus we will be introducing a few more blogs in the network in early June .. Once they are ALL ready .. there will be a ‘grand opening’ announcement here.

Take care.
HART

Today we’ve cut back our 9 different Network Codes into 2 codes … one for our members’ Blogger Sites and one for everything else. Included in these codes are statistic coding from Sitemeter so everybody can see what our traffic is like and find out who is accessing our sites in the network.

While I was at it, I modified our Network Sites page for new additions, and name modifications. Be sure to check this page and our BIO page for the updated changes.

So – what does all of this mean?

1) Uniform HART-Empire Network code on all sites
* HART likes it anyway .. I suppose that is all that matters, but .. what do you think? We’ve added a new channel, and reorganized a few sites within some of the other channels.

2) Cool Network Statistics, like … this!
* Here’s the picture of today’s Unique Visitors (489 today) and Page views (649 today) and graph of the last 30 days. The code was not on every site for the entire time at the beginning of this chart, but for the most part towards the end of the period shown in this chart. I think I would like to display the results of these statistics every month.