Well I guess before I start updating people on how I’m doing in my attempts to become a Working Nomad, I should give you a rundown on where I am now – my starting point.

Adsense is my main focus at the moment and I’ve been registered with them since November 2004. In my first month I earned about $20, then $40, then $90 for a couple months and after that it all turned to crap.

Strangely, things went way downhill right after I discovered Digital Point and started tweaking some SEO type things. My traffic nosedived because Google seemed to have dropped me and I still don’t know why this happened. I don’t think I did anything naughty but it goes to show how relying on a single source for traffic can have devastating effects!

So for the next 6 months I clawed out of the gutter… during one particularly bad run it took me 4 months to reach $100. But thinks have been looking up since then and I’ve been coming painfully close to earning $100/month over the last couple months.

The only affiliate program I actively promote is Hostelworld and I’m lucky lately if I get a single booking a month for a couple dollars. After about 4 years I think I’ve earned about $550 in total – not the best.

I’m sort of stuck with them for now because their booking engine is integrated into each page of my site but this is why I like them. When a visitor ends up clicking to book a hostel they go onto a page hosted by Hostelworld but it doesn’t actually look like they’ve left my site which I think is key.

So that’s where my income is coming from at the moment. I think affiliate programs are the way forward so will start implementing a few and let you know how I go.