First revenue today

Received revenue from two sources today; it isn't much, but it is a start. First, I sold my first product at zazzle.com today. It is a poster of Mt. Rushmore. Click here to see it. This is promising because I haven't started marketing the zazzle store to non-zazzle users yet. Second, after refining the adwords search terms and maximum price per click, one person used the coupon at diapers.com to get $10 off their first purchase of diapers and free shipping for orders over $49.

Using Adwords

As of today, Adwords has shown that there have been 33 impressions, but no clicks. I have changed the maximum cost per click so that it I manually am able to adjust it for each keyword or phrase. I raised the cost per click to $0.35; Google's estimater stated that the number of impressions should raise to about 140 per day. We'll see how it goes.

Google Adwords

After logging into adwords today, I discovered that it provides recommended phrases and words to modify the ad campaign. I followed some of their recommendations, but as of now, I have only received four impressions and no clicks yet.

Update on analysis

Six people have taken the survey posted on surveymonkey.com. I'll reserve judgement on the data until the end of next week.

I have opened an adwords account to drive traffic to another blog which serves two purposes. First, it provides the diapers.com referral code that will earn me 1 dollar for each new member and an extra dollar for each time they make a purchase at diapers.com. Second, it links to a successful zazzle store that sells baby gear. I have set the maximum price per click at $0.15. I haven't seen any clicks on the ad yet, but am giving the adwords account about a week to see if it is worth while. The cost of driving people to the blog should not be more than the savings gained from referring people.

Analysis for the upcoming week

Today marks the first day that someone became a fan of my zazzle site. I don't think this is a big deal really; my impression is that zazzle members become the fans of others in a hope that their store is promoted. My current theory is that having a large number of fans does not equate to sales. How many zazzle store operators are buying products from other zazzle members? I'll set up a survey on surveymonkey to evaluate.

In the mean time, I will be evaluating the costs associated with selling photos on eBay, setting up a website with e-commerce capabilities, and using a third party service such as shutterfly. I also want to research search engine optimization. Stay tuned for more.

New Calendar

I posted a new calendar on zazzle.com. Tell me what you think. It can be found at http://www.zazzle.com/celebrate_america_2010_calendar-158607081873591129.

Trademark Licensing

My designs for the military invitations were based on the logos for each branch. I was not aware that I needed licenses to use those logos. It is important for me to run a legitimate business; therefore, I pulled the invitations from zazzle.

Selling Invitations on eBay

In addition to Zazzle.com, I thought I might be able to attract sales using eBay. My first set of invitations can be seen at: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=260522865114&Category=47113&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26its%3DI%26otn%3D2#ht_500wt_1182

Goals of this blog

The main purpose of this blog is to keep record of my attempts to make extra income. I have explored many websites and after finding zazzle.com, I have found that with a little bit of creativity and focus in a niche market, there may be potential for me to earn some extra income; I am hoping to make an extra $100 dollars a month within 6 months. I am not trying to get rich quickly and want to set realistic goals.

To learn more about selling products on zazzle.com, please visit this site. If you are interested in my store on zazzle.com please visit www.zazzle.com/delawson734*. You'll find photographs of some of the most beautiful places I've been in the U.S. After learning that customers can alter products if the seller allows it and reading about how one person was successful selling invitations, I realized there is an opportunity to sell military invitations. I will focus my efforts on selling military invitations. I have created four (one for each branch); you can see them on the bottom of the page.