As June comes to a close, it’s time to provide the second quarterly update to the $3000 Challenge.
Unfortunately, Q2 was not much better than Q1. I had high expectations, because I was going to launch my taco seasonings. I did, but it was a colossal failure.I haven’t sold the first jar yet. I do have a couple people who have told me they will buy, but they have to finish up the sample jars I had provided. I guess that is vindication at least, that my product is better than competitors such as McCormick.
I seriously don’t know what else to do. I have guest posts, positive reviews, and even an AdWords credit that brought 100+ qualified visitors directly to my sales page… and not one of them bought.
But this is supposed to be a post about successes. My AdWords revenue did go up by 50% this quarter (note, 50% of a small number is still a pretty small number). A multi-author blog project with which I am affiliated is growing and so is it’s revenue. My share in that is still rather small and below the payment threshold, but month three’s numbers were a big improvement over month two. Total advertising revenue at this point: ~$30
I mentioned previously that I do have a paid post in the works for an unnamed site. That payout is going to be significantly more than I’ve made so far, but it also won’t happen until sometime in Q3. I guess that’s going to be the post to watch!
I also participated in the MH4C Writer’s Challenge back in April. The challenge was to see who could write the most shared guest post on MH4C while the blog’s owner, Craig, was traveling. I didn’t win, but my post on making money by adopting a highway did make me $30.
SEAM Publishing is completely stalled out. Even the intern I got seems to have disappeared into the wind. This is largely my fault, but I believe that internships.com should get some of the blame because it doesn’t notify me of messages I receive on their site.
That’s pretty much it. I currently stand at $60 out of $3000 or 2%. Over the next 6 months, I need to earn an additional $2940. If current growth trends continue along with known upcoming payouts, I can anticipate another $300. I do hope that upcoming events will shake things up.
Other changes that I hope to cause a positive impact on my earnings include a redesign of my theme for If You Can Read, You Can Cook. The current theme is a cludge of hacks made to a free theme I found when I first started out. My brother’s web design company, Antro Designs (site looks like garbage right now, he’s focusing on mine before rebuilding his after getting hacked), and I are rebuilding it from the ground up (okay, mostly my brother is rebuilding it from the ground up as I say “I was thinking of something like this:” and providing half of a piece of code. I also plan on hiring Modest Money’s Jeremy for an SEO analysis because I’ll admit I’m largely clueless in that area.
Okay, my $3000 Challengers: How are you doing so far? Anyone reach the goal yet? I’ve got that Amazon gift card waiting!
Related articles
- 75% of Advertising Campaigns are a Failure (prweb.com)
