It's been about two months since I posted my 2012 resolutions so I thought it would be a good time to post an update.
The first resolution was to make at least $2,500 a month with Adsense. I am slowly but surely working up to that amount. I made $70 in December, $126 in January and $128 in February. The one month of Build My Rank worked great at getting my websites ranking for their main keywords. I'm kind of confused about where to go now. In February, I focused my time on reworking my biggest earning niche site. I found a few more keywords I want to get it ranked for so I added a few pages to the site to focus mainly on those keywords. Now that I'm just about done with the site, I can start focusing on backlinking it and getting it ranking for the new keywords. I just don't know where to start. I could build quality backlinks at a slow and steady pace but sometimes I find that it takes too long to rank a site by going that route. I could also build hundreds of links quickly using AMR and Fiverr but I'm always afraid I'll get my site sandboxed by doing that. I also find that my sites bounce around more in the serps when I build a lot of links at one time. I'll probably end up doing the slow and steady route but, man, it takes forever to get my sites ranked. I wish I could afford to reactivate my BMR account. I keep hearing people saying bad things about BMR but I find it a lot easier to post there than to try to make fake account on forums, leave bogus comments on blogs or write crappy articles to post on article directories. I hate backlinking and wish I could just pay someone to do all my backlinking for me. I don't trust Fiverr and I can't afford anyone from Warrior. I'm sure I'll find a happy medium someday but for now, it's just a pain.
I'm pretty sure I'll reach this first resolution but it might take me until the end of the year to do it. I'll keep updating this blog as I go along. Oh, I also wanted to mention that to keep me motivated, I've decided that when I reach $1,000 a month, I'm going to buy myself a new desktop computer. I've had my eye on an HP TouchSmart for about a year now. Every time I think about this awesome computer, I get super motivated to work on my websites. I'm hoping to be making $1,000 a month by the end of June.
As far as the other resolutions go, I haven't gotten very far. I'm down to $2,800 on my car loan and I read 1 book in January (Gone with the Wind). That's about it as far as progress goes. My parents are selling their house so I haven't been doing sweepstakes because I don't want packages to get sent to this address. I'll start entering again after we move. They are thinking about purchasing a duplex. I'll rent half and they will live in the other half. I'm pretty excited about it. I would love to get my own apartment but I don't make enough money yet. This will be a good compromise until I can get enough money saved to buy my own house.
That's it for now. I'm going with my parents tomorrow morning to look at a house that's for sale north of here. It's not exactly what I want as it's not a duplex but the basement is a walkout so there's potential. I'll try to post another update around the end of April. Hope everyone has a great March and remember, spring is almost here!!
