I was giving this blog a little facelift today and noticed that I never did a review of 2010 to tell how that went and what I learned. Income wise I earned 16% more money than in 2009. The amazing thing about that is the fact that I didn’t really work that hard to increase my income in the first place. I would say I did the bare minimum but some new hobby projects as well as the aging of already established sites and projects brought in more cash.

The Back to School season was very profitable for me, again. I think I doubled last year’s earnings in that regard and I think my bento lunchbox site may have overtaken my naturemoms site in that arena. I have been updating the prior site often, adding content, in preparation for another great year in 2011.

I dipped my toes into the Halloween niche in 2010 too. I created two blogs, a static html shopping site, and a few Squidoo lenses in a specific vampire niche. I created them all just because I am completely fanatical about the cable TV show that they were created for. I did it because it was fun and I wanted a place to share my thoughts and ideas not so much for the money but they were all pretty successful anyway.

Both of the blogs started getting good traffic and one in particular got up to around 20,000 monthly page views after only a couple months! I started selling Blogads spots like crazy for romance novel sellers and made an extra $500-$600 in just a couple months. The shopping site linked to various costumes for the TV show characters and between it and the Squidoo lenses I made another $500. I actually got my first ever check from Commission Junction! Not bad for my first foray into Halloween sales. The sites are still getting nice traffic and the show they were created for starts its fourth season in mid summer so I am looking forward to seeing what type of income they will bring in.

I almost always choose niches that I am truly passionate about, and not ones that I think will monetize well but it still works out well. It just goes to show you can make money without analyzing niches and keywords. Just write about something you LOVE!

Christmas was also better than in 2009. Honestly I did almost nothing to increase sales in that regard except update my existing green gift guide. I am going to assume it was the economy that spurred the increase in sales. I did make some decent money on Squidoo for those months, on old lenses.

My ebooks are still selling well… several dozen a month (each). I REALLY hope to add two more ebooks to the mix in 2011 and see what magic that will bring.

Anyway that was 2010. The year was full of personal turmoil and I didn’t really work that hard on my business but made 16% more anyway. I LOVE Internet Marketing!

My Money Makers for 2010:

• Amazon
• AdSesnse
• Private Ad Sales
• Vita-Mix Affiliate Program
• PLR Sales
• My Recipe Books
• Shareasale
• BlogAds
• Text Link Ads (TLA)
• Squidoo
• Linkshare
• Commission Junction
• Various Small Affiliate Programs (ebooks, ecourses, ect)