It’s time for an update on my own progress, which has been considerably hampered by my RSI which happened in early March. Having an RSI which is computer-related is really frustrating when you’re trying to make money with websites! However, here’s the progress for the last 3 months that I’ve made despite my RSI-forced limitations.

The RSI I have is aching in both arms from the biceps down to the backs of the hands. This is coupled with a pins and needles feeling along my lower arms. Even with help from a specialist, physiotherapist and some medication the problem hasn’t completely gone yet.

The occupational therapist at my workplace has recently given me some equipment in an attempt to tackle the cause of the problem. It’s early days, but I am optimistic. Due to the painful aching, I cannot spend too much time in front of the computer doing work on my websites. My primary job is more important at the moment as that brings in my basic income. The websites are for fun and extra income.

EnviroGadget

So let’s focus on what I have been doing. I have just launched a new gadget blog all about environmentally friendly gadgets. The site is using Wordpress as a content management system (CMS) and I designed the template for the site to be as clean as possible, yet being very easy to navigate. I avoided having columns on both sides of the template to ensure that visitors were not overloaded with too much information (often leading to “advertisement-blindness”).

I wanted to create space for square 125px x 125px banners once the site grows enough traffic so that adverts become worthwhile advertising (just like on Daily Blog Tips). In the meantime, I have a large Google Adsense banner to derive income until then.

The gadget niche is highly saturated, but there are very few gadget blogs that specifically focus on green gadgets. It seems to be fashionable to be an eco-warrior these days, which is why I think the green gadget blog will do well. My current work is to build back links and traffic for the site.

I had one of my green gadgets featured on Coolest Gadgets in an attempt to gain traffic and a free backlink. Please do visit Coolest Gadgets and vote on your favourite gadget (not necessarily mine). You can also enter a draw to win $50 for leaving a comment on that post too.

Spy Gadgets

Back in February I launched my spy gadgets mini site, which as the name suggests is a site about spy gadgets. I’m using a mixture of affiliates and Google Adsense to monetize that site. The income from affiliates has been negligible, but since February I have earnt over $150 just from Google Adsense. I never expected to earn a Fortune from the site but it has done well and I am very pleased with it. To sustain the income from the spy gadgets site, I am shortly about to do some more link building for it.

Bux.to Payment Date Calculator

The bux.to Estimated Payment Date Calculator website was a bit of an experiment in the slightly dodgy area of Paid-To-Click (PTC) systems. The idea was to allow users of the most popular PTC site bux.to to estimate their payment dates based on the terms and conditions of bux.to. However, bux.to has been exceptionally poor with their payment times, and it takes months to get paid with them. So my calculator site had become considerably less useful.

Since my 2 payments from Wordlinx (another PTC site) had both been paid within 24 hours, I decided to recommend visitors to my calculator site to Wordlinx. This means they actually get paid in a reasonable time frame. As a result, I’ve been earning a modest commission ($40 so far) referring people to Wordlinx. This means the calculator site has actually made a profit.

PowerDosh

And lastly, PowerDosh. I wanted to experiment with do-follow blog comments, and as a result I’ve seen a massive surge in comments on the site. I can only hope that this volume continues and that I boost my longer-term traffic as a result of the do-follow comments. I know that people are going to exploit the site to get a free backlink, but I value the extra attention.

If you want to see all of my current websites, please take a look at my JagoNetwork site.