In 2007, I decided to give Google's AdSense program a try, and launched MakingMusicFun.net - an elementary music education website jam-packed with free resources. Realizing the potential, I added a few more sites. In just four years I surpassed my full-time income of $38,000 per year with passive income.

The following reports are annual summaries of what I'm earning and how I'm getting there. I hope that what you read in these reports is both encouraging and useful in the development of your own online businesses.

Annual Reports
Income reports from my first two years aren't dazzling by any means, though they may be of interest to those of you that are just starting out. Further on down the page you will see what's going on now.

December 2008
I launched my elementary music resource website MakingMusicFun.net last December, and things appear to be going well. I experimented with AdSense ad positioning to find the optimum placement, and worked hard to drive traffic with two WordPress.com blogs and classified ads (Craigslist.org/Backpage.com) to free resources. I later abandoned the ads, in favor of creating links that would be permanent.

I try to catch as many errors as I can, though I don't seem to catch all of them. As I believe an accurate, well-written website is a trusted website, I hired a part-time editor.

Website Traffic
MakingMusicFun.net - 64,000 visitors per month

Passive Income Report
For my first year things appeared to be going well.

Added this year:
SheetMusicPlus.com affiliate links
WoodwindBrasswind (WWBW.com) affiliate links

Total Monthly Earnings for Nov 2008: $508.00

December 2009
I launched MakingArtFun.com in May, 2009, and StorehouseBuilder.com in November, 2010, and pushed hard to market these websites. My primary resources were Flickr.com, a new WordPress.com blog, and my own websites/blog. I also tried to make the most of YouTube.com in the promotion of free sheet music on MakingMusicFun.net. On one day I launched a whopping 40 videos!

Website Traffic
MakingMusicFun.net - 145,754 visitors per month
MakingArtFun.com - 2,845 visitors per month/147 pages
StorehouseBuilder - Launched in November/42 pages

Passive Income Report
Earnings rose by 300% this year. Income was largely generated with AdSense, though affiliate links add a little.

Added this year:
MusicTeachersHelper.com affiliate link

I'm building a residual income with MusicTeachersHelper.com each time a music teacher signs up for their service. So far I'm receiving about $5 a month for my effort.

Total Monthly Earnings for Nov 2009: $1,538.38

December 2010
I converted my music studio website, WaveMusicStudio.com, to a blog mid-2009 and added AdSense ads. My main goal with this blog is to drive traffic and increase my website rankings for certain keyword phrases.

Beginning in January of 2010 I was challenged to write 100 articles for AssociatedContent.com in three months. The articles would provide me with an additional source of passive income and drive traffic to my websites. I don't make much with the articles, but the link building opportunity has been well worth the effort.

Website Traffic
MakingMusicFun.net - 277,000 visitors per month/1338 pages
MakingArtFun.com - 10,698 visitors per month/224 pages
WaveMusicStudio.com - 901 visitors per month/52 posts
StorehouseBuilder.com - 139 visitors per month/42 pages

MakingMusicFun.net has attracted almost twice as many visitors as last year. From this point on I think I will limit my marketing efforts for this website, as word-of-mouth will most likely prove to be the best, and most effective, source for additional traffic.

Driving traffic to StorehouseBuilder.com has proven to be a challenge. Part of the problem is the size of the website. I want it to be an everything-you-need-and-nothing-you-don't resource for beginners interested in building passive income, so I don't want to add too many more pages. I've decided to expand the current content to include personal experiences. This should help with search engine rankings, as pages with 750-1,000 words seem to achieve better rankings than pages with only 350-500 words.

Passive Income Report
Earnings rose by 280% this year. I'm beginning to diversify my income, and I'm glad to not have too many eggs in the AdSense "basket".

Added this year:
GoDaddy.com affiliate links
Private advertiser
VibrantMedia.com In-Text ads

Adding a private advertiser has provided a significant boost in revenue. I cut out the middle man, and replaced an AdSense ad making about $35 per month for revenue from a private advertiser of $184.28 each month. From what I can see, I gave her a great price and am still profiting in a big way. I set up a PayPal subscription payment to bill her each month to make this revenue source as passive as AdSense is.

I tried Kontera on a few pages, and it seemed to pay well, though it didn't care for the fact that their ad script turned my subheadings into in-text links. I elected to wait until I could apply for Vibrant Media's program (You need at least 500,000 impressions to be excepted). In late November I added Vibrant Media's ad script to MakingMusicFun.net. My AdSense CTR's have remained the same, and my passive income rose $756 per month overnight! It looks like in-text advertising is going to work out great.

Total Monthly Earnings for Nov 2010: $4,244.31

December 2011
It's been a year of diversification and marketing for my sites, and a year of enjoying the benefits of the 12 hour days I spent over the first three years developing my sites.

Website Traffic
MakingMusicFun.net - 407,804 visitors per month/1379 pages (plus 36 teacher added profiles for Teacher Directory)
MakingArtFun.com - 21,924 visitors per month/239 pages
WaveMusicStudio.com - 973 visitors per month/70 posts
StorehouseBuilder.com - 281 visitors per month/74 pages

Website traffic has continued to grow for MakingMusicFun.net and MakingArtFun.com. I've only added a few posts to WaveMusicStudio.com this year so things are relatively the same, and I've all but given up on StorehouseBuilder.com. Sometimes the effort is not equal to the reward. Such it true about StorehouseBuilder.com. I've made my last attempt with this website, adding seven free website templates. This effort seems to be boosting traffic modestly. If I can get to 500 visitors per month, and I'm making at least $10 per month, I will keep the site. (Update: Traffic to Storehousebuilder.com is up to 494 visitors per month now, in less than one month. The free website templates are working.) I've also added two new WordPress.com blogs that are focused on freebies, and have created an account on Pintrest.com to drive additional traffic.

I added a music teacher directory to MakingMusicFun.net this year. I'm currently offering subscriptions for free, and memberships are building. Free memberships will end in June 2012. Hopefully, I will have a few teachers in most major cities by that time. It's all about social proof with this type of product - if people think it's worth $59.95 per year, they'll pay $59.95 per year. Right now the directory is on a site that has a stronger Alexa.com ranking than the top directories. (MakingMusicFun.net currently has an Alexa.com global rank of 184,188 of 346 million websites that populate the internet as of June 2011.) However, without the teachers it doesn't look like much.

Passive Income Report
Earnings rose by 59% this year. VibrantMedia ads continue to prove themselves a good addition, though income has been erratic. I only have one private advertiser currently, and won't be looking for more. They don't seem to stick around. Probably because people come to my sites looking for free stuff, and advertisers want to sell products.

Added this year:
Music Teacher Directory

Dropped this year:
Woodwind & Brasswind affiliate links

Total Monthly Earnings for Nov 2011: $6,763.86

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