| September Earnings |
Updated Oct. 1, 2007
Online Shops
CafePress: $0.00
Article Writing
Associated Content: $0.00
Get Paid To Programs
CashCrate: $0.00
TreasureTrooper: $0.00
Internet Marketing
AdSense: $0.00
ClickBank: $0.00
Commission Junction: $0.00
Amazon Associates: $0.00
Total October Earnings: $0.00
Total September Earnings: $688.24
Top Money Maker (Sept): CashCrate - $473.26
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| Friday, August 10, 2007 |
| An Accidental Success: My CafePress Shop |
Let me admit right off that it was luck. I'd like to say that I researched the market, found a keyword phrase and targeted that phrase till I owned it. Nope. The reason that I'm making almost $200 dollars a month on CafePress is pretty much dumb luck. But hey, there's no reason we can't duplicate that success and really put it to work for us. Ok. So what did I do and how did I do it? I opened a store on CafePress about a year and half ago, and within a few months I was making about $150 dollars a month pretty steadily. Here's a shot of my best selling products:  That goes on for 2 more pages - a bunch of products that I've sold a few of, but about 85% of the "I'm all in...Bitches!" design.  Is the design particularly great? No. But here's what happened. When I uploaded the design into CafePress, I made sure that I tagged it with descriptive keywords and I also wrote detailed descriptions of the design and products for every article of clothing that I offered in the store. And by descriptive I mean I didn't write "This is a poker shirt." I wrote descriptions like "This is a great shirt to wear at the poker table to show the other players you mean business and plan on taking all of their chips. I'm all in bitches!" Silly stuff like that. Soon the search engines picked it up.
Now doing a "gTrends" (google trends) search, you'll see that for the phrase "I'm all in bitches" I own the top spot, and 3 out of the top five spots. So it's likely that I'm catching almost all of the traffic for that phrase. It's not a lot - it's just a few per day, but apparently they're converting at a nice high rate.
A lot of people on Cafe Press forget that people don't search for things by images - and when they upload their designs, they don't describe them. How are the search engines ever going to find your beautiful design? They won't! You have to write about them. I didn't know any of this stuff when I opened up my store, but because of a little dumb luck, I had some success. This success caused me to start looking at why it happened, and because of the things I'm learning in the 30 Day Challenge - everything is really becoming clear now. Apply what you know about niche marketing to CafePress and you can turn some simple fun like designing t-shirts into a monthly paycheck. Technorati Tags: cafepress, 30 day challenge, making money online, money, internet, success, nichePowered by ScribeFire. Labels: 100 in 100, cafepress, internet, making money online, money, success
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posted by HarpersDad @ 2:42 AM   |
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| Saturday, July 28, 2007 |
| Affiliate Programs: T-Shirt Hell dot Com |
There are all sorts of affiliate programs out there. You can earn money by selling books for Amazon or electonics at tons of sites or even by selling something like t-shirts. You don't even have to design them.
When I first opened my t-shirt shop on CafePress, I spent a lot of time looking into different t-shirt sites on the internet. One of the sites I came across was T-Shirt Hell - home to some of the most offensive t-shirts I've seen anywhere. It's a funny and well done site with a ton of excellent t-shirts, and they have a killer affiliate program as well.
About a year ago I placed a few links on some pages and kind of forgot that I had registered as an affiliate. I came across the site again and actually remembered my password and username and logged in. And what do you know, when I logged in I actually had some sales. Not a lot - but remember, I did exactly zero promotion and basically forgot about T-shirt Hell. The program pays you $4 dollars for every shirt you sell, and a dollar for every shirt somebody that signs up for the affiliate program under you sells.
I thought I would give their affiliate program another look and see if I can drive some traffic to their site. I'm mentioning it here - but the majority of my promotion with this affiliate program is going to be on my t-shirt blog - ChewingGlass Tees.
So, if you're looking for something a little different to try, use one of my referral links (please!) and check out T-shirt Hell's affiliate program. Oh yeah - and here's two of their tamer shirts "Bros before Hoes" and "Lindsay Lohan Should Be Behind Bars"(most I probably shouldn't repeat here as they'll make me blush).
  Labels: 100 in 100, affiliate programs, cafepress, chewingglass tees, making money online, t-shirt hell
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| posted by HarpersDad @ 1:31 AM |
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| Thursday, July 26, 2007 |
| Create A Passive Income With CafePress |
One of the greatest things about working online is that there are a lot of ways that you can generate a passive income. A passive income is an income that you receive without having to work continuously. It's received for work that's already been done - a residual income.
My largest passive income right now is being generated by my online t-shirt shop hosted by CafePress. It's called A Pair and A Draw - it's theme is poker related shirts and gear.
I started that Cafe Press shop back in April of 2006. I'd say I put in about 3 weeks of work, designing shirts and setting up the shop. A few hours a day here and there. Since that time I've done very little besides the occasional addition of a new shirt. I did some promotion of the shop on places like MySpace or other social bookmarking sites, and submitted my designs to different sites that ranked t-shirts. But really, I did very little promotion of the shop compared to what I probably could do. I did make sure that all of the products I had in the shop had detailed descriptions - hoping that the search engines would pick up some of the keywords in the descriptions to drive traffic that way.
It didn't take long for me to make my first sale - a few days after I opened the shop I logged in and noticed that I had sold a shirt. I made 4 bucks on that first sale (on average - I make about 6 dollars per item sold). For the first few months I made a few sales each month, but things really picked up towards the end of the year. During the months of November and December I made over 200 dollars in commission each month. After the holidays, things slowed back down - but not too much. I regularly averaged $100 a month after that. This month - July of 2007 - I've already hit $160 dollars with about a week left in the month. So hopefully by the time the holidays arrive this year - I'm going to put last years numbers way down on the list.
Now the great thing is that - most of the income I've made is from one design. I'd say about 90% of my sales each month are from this one shirt.
I sell a few other designs each month - but if it weren't for this shirt, I wouldn't be making the checks that I am. It's nice when on the 16th of each month I get the mail and have a hundred extra dollars there for something I worked on a year ago.
Now that my checks are regular - I'm thinking about ways to increase my monthly check. I figure if I put in a few more hours of work - I should be able to increase those monthly checks without too much effort. Here's two things I plan on doing immediately:
- Increase the number of designs in the shop.
That's the only way I might hit some lucky popular design that does the same
as my current bestseller.
- Promotion.
I haven't done much in this department so far - who knows what this could add
to the checks. I started a new blog to promote my shirts as well as other ones that I like. ChewingGlass Tees.
What's really great about this is that I like to think of myself as creative - but I'm not a designer, but I'm able to make a nice passive income from CafePress. There are a ton of really talented designers that have some really great products. And there are a ton of really talented designers that are making a great income from CafePress. I've read in various articles and forums of people making six figures on CafePress. I don't know if it's true - but I do know that it's probably possible. Again - look at what I've done without trying too hard and think about what other people have done.
If you've ever thought of a funny t-shirt idea - here's your chance to make it a reality without any upfront costs. Who knows - maybe it'll make you some spare pocket change or maybe you'll be able to retire off of it :-)Labels: 100 in 100, cafepress, making money online
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| posted by HarpersDad @ 1:50 AM |
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| Saturday, July 14, 2007 |
| Hey what's that? |
Mom took this photo a couple of days ago - it's not at the pool, but a park. Harper's on the left and that's his friend Riley who's two. I thought this photo was pretty funny when I saw it.
We've been swimming the last few days since it's been so hot. We got Harper one of those little baby intertubes that he can sit in and float around the pool in. At first he was a little hesitant about the pool and clung to mom pretty tightly, but now that he's getting used to it, he's starting to really enjoy it.
It's hard to find a good time to go. About the only time we can go is around 4 oclock because the sun is low enough that part of the pool is shaded, but early enough that Harper isn't too cranky and ready to sleep.
He gets a big kick of me jumping into the pool and making it wavy. When the waves hit he kicks his legs and bounces in his tube - it's pretty funny.
Well here's the list of programs that I'm going to be focusing on. These are the ones that I've tried and that I like. Some of them are relatively new, while some I've been doing for a little while. Again - I think the real way to make money at these is by doing a few of them at the same time, and try to get some referrals. I've got 18 referrals for Hits4Pay and about 12 for DealsNCash. Some of them like Adbux and Clixsense I've only just started and have one or two referrals so far.
I'm going to categorize them in 3 categories: Pay to Read, Pay to Write, and Network Marketing.
Let's start with pay to write.
Pay to Write
Associated Content - 3 articles published for $14.50 and 3 referrals.
I've been talking about Associated Content a lot lately. I really like this one - it's actually taps some creative juices rather than just clicking on ads or something like that. It's one of my favorites out of all the programs.
Pay to Read
All of these programs work the same in that you are paid to look at ads, or like Treasure Trooper - take surveys or something similar. The important thing to do with these is to get some referrals as that increases your income without having to do too much yourself, plus there are only so many ads you can look at. So it you want to give one or all of these a shot - please click on my referral links and help me out a bit! =)
I cancelled my DonkeyMails Account today - it was just not up to par with these others. There were a lot of offers - but I got tired of them cluttering up my email and you are paid just fractions of a penny for each ad. Not worth the time in my opinion.
These others are easy to use, and what I usually do is open up a few browsers at one time and open up a few of these sites. So it only takes me a few minutes to look at all of my daily ads.
Hits4Pay - 18 referrals.
DealsNCash - 12 referrals.
Adbux.org - New, 2 referrals.
Clixsense - New, 2 referrals.
TreasureTrooper - Newest, a little different format - keeps it interesting.
Network Marketing
GDI - Global Domains International.
I still think that GDI has the most potential out of all of my programs. I have a website with a video on it that explains how it works. The site is http://www.cademarketing.ws (Cade is Harper's middle name). That's part of the program that you get your own .ws website when you start this program.
Anyways - those are the moneymakers I'm going to be using heavily. Hopefully I can get a few readers to sign up for them as well and help me out in my project. Other programs I'll still be using are of course my t-shirts on CafePress and things like Adsense in which I'm making a little bit - hopefully it will go up as my traffic increases.
If you have any questions about any of these programs feel free to email me at pwt5000(at)aol(dot)com. I'd be happy to chat with you about them!Labels: 100 in 100, adbux, adsense, associated content, cafepress, clixsense, dealsncash, GDI, harper, hits4pay, making money online, pay to read, pay to write, treasure trooper
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| posted by HarpersDad @ 11:36 PM |
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| Thursday, June 28, 2007 |
| CafePress: Turn creativity into clothing and cash! |
CafePress is one of the reasons I started this quest. About a year ago I started looking into different ways to make money online. I came across CafePress and was instantly intrigued.
CafePress allows you to open up an online store. In this store you can sell clothing - ranging from hats to boxers to t-shirts. The clothing in the store contains designs that you make. You upload the designs, place them on the shirts, and off you go - you're now a t-shirt maker. There's a base price for each article of clothing and you get to decide how much to mark it up. For anything that sells, you make the full mark up. So if something costs $15, and you decide to sell it for $20, then you make $5 for every piece that sells.
My store has been open for a little over a year. Right now my average monthy check from them is about $100. My shop sells about 20 - 25 shirts a month and I make 5 or 6 dollars a shirt. So if you break it down by day - I'm making 3 or 4 dollars a day on CafePress without doing anything now, and that is still slowly increasing.
I put a lot of work into the shop when I first opened it, but I would say I spend about an hour a month right now updating and maintaining it. That's one of the reasons I started this quest for multiple income streams online. I figured I am making a hundred bucks a month off of a little bit of work that I did initially. What else could I do online that would increase my income stream?
One of the keys to success at CafePress is to find your niche. Most shops have some theme on the clothing they sell - anything from dog lovers to funny movie quotes. My shop has a poker theme.
My best seller.
Also - know your limitations. I'm no artist, but I am creative. Most of my designs consist of text with minimal graphics. Some people have huge online shops with hundreds/thousands of products. There are people making a living just through CafePress. Building a large shop takes some work and effort - but there really is no limitation to your earnings on CafePress if you do it right.Labels: cafepress, making money online
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| posted by HarpersDad @ 6:30 PM |
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