{"id":2772,"date":"2014-06-20T22:36:29","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T21:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.danielebesana.com\/blog\/?p=2772"},"modified":"2014-06-20T22:54:39","modified_gmt":"2014-06-20T21:54:39","slug":"online-income-report-may-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danielebesana.com\/blog\/online-income-report\/online-income-report-may-2014","title":{"rendered":"Online Income Report – May 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re curious to know why I’m sharing my online income reports, read\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I finished May report exceptionally late as I’m traveling the Balkan region… After the surprising Kosovo and the familiar Albania, I’m currently in Montenegro.<\/p>\n

So let me share\u00a0what happened in May.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What’s going on<\/h2>\n

Sell in May and go away<\/h3>\n

This is an investment strategy<\/a> that my brother uses a lot.
\nMaybe was just a coincidence, maybe not, but in May for the first time I sold one of my websites<\/strong>, and on the aftermath of the operation I sold a second one!<\/p>\n

The first was Salsa Travel Advisor<\/a>.\u00a0I started this project with my good friends Gianluca and Stuart back in October 2012. After a great start, things slowed down and we realized that the website needed more work we were willing to put it.
\nSo we managed to sell it for an undisclosed amount of money<\/strong> to someone that has bigger plans and capacity.
\nDid we get rich? No. But we could recover the expenses and be happy that our idea found someone willing to invest on it!<\/p>\n

The second was Empleos<\/a>, a job board targeting Colombia that I bought in December 2012 and that proved to be a very good web-investment. I already analyzed this website in this detailed case study<\/a>. I got a good offer from a Spanish webmaster and I sold it for twice the original price.
\nThis has been for long time my most profitable website, but things went down a bit in the last months and I think was a good moment to sell <\/strong>and capitalize the work done.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The forgotten website<\/h3>\n

In the last years I started few websites testing some ideas, sometimes with big projects never realized.
\nOne of them was JuniperJobs<\/a>, a job board collecting\u00a0opportunities\u00a0for\u00a0Juniper Networks experts, my former employer.
\nI left this website running for more than a year completely on auto-pilot and almost forget it… since last month, when I received a notification that someone paid to post two jobs:<\/p>\n

Local Route Truck Driver<\/em>
\nProduct Handlers & Fabricators\/Welders<\/em><\/p>\n

Considering that the target are network engineers and IT specialists, I found the jobs posted pretty amusing \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adsense test on this blog (part 2)<\/h3>\n

Back in April I run the ads for 1 month on danielebesana.com\u00a0and\u00a0noticed that the visitor behavior was negatively affected by the ads:<\/p>\n

With Adsense<\/span><\/p>\n

-30% Avg. Session duration<\/strong>
\n+6% bounce rate.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My guess was\u00a0that having ads on a\u00a0personal blog gives\u00a0a very different feeling to new visitors. In fact, personally I notice that\u00a0if\u00a0a blogger is trying to make few bucks with ads it would affect my trust<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

So I tested again in May without Adsense.<\/p>\n

Without Adsense<\/span><\/p>\n

+8.19% Avg. Session duration<\/strong>
\n-4.62% bounce rate<\/strong><\/p>\n

That’s not a 100% recovery, but the indicators are in the direction that supports my theory.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have a WordPress theme!<\/h3>\n

The last day of May I closed a deal to buy a website providing a free WordPress theme<\/strong>.
\nIt’s too early to say much about it, but there are side-services that should make this online business profitable.<\/p>\n

I’ve been interested in acquiring a WordPress theme or plugin for a while, as I think I can add a lot of value to it with my WordPress and customer support experience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Income Breakdown<\/h2>\n

Time for the numbers!<\/p>\n