2008 look-back and 2009 look-forward
Happy New Year to you all! I sincerely hope you all had a good one and that you’re now all geared up for 2009. Monday 5th is when we all officially go into work for the first time in the UK and it’s the start of another year. The years seem to fly by so quickly these days but the more I dig into the online opportunities as documented in my blog, the more I realise of how many more ways there are to making money online.
I started this blog in July 2007 and I although I had been looking at financial trading for over 6 years previously, earning money through affiliate schemes and other online methods was still relatively new to me. The blog has served two real purposes for me.. one to document my financial trading progress… it sure is a lot slog and I still haven’t made it to becoming the financial trader that I would like.. however, the last few months of this year have been fantastic for me trading and my account sits at it’s highest level ever! Now it could be due to what’s happening to the financial markets with the Credit Crunch.. there is so much volatility in the markets that when the markets go, they just go and make you huge profits (or loses).
The other purpose of this blog is to see if it is really possible to earn an income through blogging like that chap Darren Rowse of Problogger. Although I earn nothing like him, I do earn enough to cover the cost of the blog and a little more. As this blog grows, I am seeing increase revenues which has been fantastic.
By far, I made the most money through a sponsor who was paying me $165 a month to put their adverts under my posts… next Text Link Ads (which has also been endorsed by Darren Rowse) pays me $66 a month for keywords. I also get some payment through Oxado and other small sponsors. Overall, it’s been kind and a worthwhile pursuit.
I recently started to utilise more of the affiliate networks to sell things through Clickbank using Google. I have been paying for advertising with Google to sell other people’s products on Clickbank and taking a commission per sale. From the post the other day, ‘Making money with Clickbank – my first payment’, I got $490.60 through doing this. This could be quite lucrative as each dollar I spent on Google advertising, I got 3 back through Clickbank. I am currently looking for ways to refine Google so that I get a better percentage of sales against Google clicks. With Google, you can advertise to certain demographics and also choose which websites for your adverts to target and which ones not to target. I’ll write more about this as I learn it…
On the trading front, I feel that I am making good progress. Like I mention before, this could be due to the current market conditions. A successful trader should be adaptable and I really need to keep going to see if I can still make money. I had a couple of not so good trading situations involving 3rd parties which just goes to show that at the end of the day, you can’t rely on anyone but yourself.
For those who have followed, I joined a trading academy and they were to train me as a Futures trading. Each day I would come home and diligently trade the methods that they taught… the problem was that there was no structured program and in the end, I ended up formulating my own trading methodology (which didn’t work) but the trading mentor didn’t do anything about. Then they terminated my contract with them and demanded payment. I went through a lot of stress with these guys (I’m not mentioning any names here as the whole episode is still not over but going through lawyers!)
I also went on a course to learn Forex with Simon Grinter. He is a thoroughly nice man and his trading course stated that if you failed to make 20% returns or something (can’t remember exactly now) after the course then he would refund the money. Well, as soon as I did the course and followed his methods (and also his trading alerts), I lost a fortune! I demanded my money back as per his guarantee and he put up all sorts of excuses which annoyed me. He did spend a lot of effort on the seminar and materials so I settled for about 50% of my money back from his seminar… still, he should have honoured his guarantee.
So, 2009 should be a year of doing more of the things which I am seeing are working (Clickbank selling, Google advertising, affiliates, financial trading) and less of the things which don’t work (trading academies, going on ‘guru’ seminars (unless they are free!) and wasting money). I am also looking at creating eBooks and building subscription lists as other avenues to explore!Additionally, I will be reading a lot more books in the interest of the blog and I’ll review them here also!
All the best for 2009!
