Karlonia.com

Search traffic dropped off significantly this week, beginning on Thanksgiving day and remaining relatively low through the weekend. This is following the same pattern that I noticed last year; traffic is slowest during the holiday season but rebounds after the start of the new year.

Meanwhile, I am trying to focus my efforts on producing more keyword-targeted “money pages” that can actually generate sales or leads in addition to providing useful information. Income from this site is still pitifully low compared to the amount of content that I have, and I am keen to free up more time and money that can be used to expand my operations. My situation has reached the point where I really need to start outsourcing some of my most time-consuming activities, but I want to have enough cash flow in place to justify the additional expenses.

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The computer optimization site PC Pitstop is running a special promotion that runs through the remainder of this weekend. This particular PC Pitstop promo code allows you to instantly save 25% on all products from the site, including Optimize, Driver Alert, Exterminate, Disk MD, and Erase. In order to activate the code, click on the banner below, run a free scan, and use the code PCPERFORM at the product checkout.

UPDATE 12/14/08: You can now save 15% on PC Pitstop Optimize using the coupon code: JOY. This discount expires December 31.

Unfortunately, this particular coupon code expires after December 1. However, I will continue to monitor the program and update this page with any additional promo codes or special deals that become available in the future. I am planning to eventually write up a full review on PC Pitstop and its products, but for now enjoy the savings!

The finale to Season 2 of Sam & Max ends with a delightful romp through hell to right that which you have wronged. This guide will serve to help you solve the video game’s puzzles so that you can enjoy the whole experience without pulling your hair out. At the end of this article, there is a video review for those of you who do not yet have the game.

I will tell you that if you find yourself having a lot of trouble, you should make sure that you turn the hint level up all the way in the options menu. This will cause Max to give you hint statements anytime the game believes that you are stalled. They are generally crafted as a good middle ground for anyone who just feels stuck and needs a little inspiration.

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This article on student personal finances is one that I managed to find earlier today at a newly discovered site called DailyArticle.com. I could not find an author’s name to credit as the original source because it was purchased under private label rights, as is the case with most of the other articles from this particular venue. Eventually I will write up a full review of the site; it shows promise as a good place for webmasters to find original content of acceptable quality.

If you are just starting your college education, it probably has not yet hit you that for the next four years you will be poorer than you have ever been in your life. This is true for most students because usually parents will not send you much money for living expenses when you are in college, especially if they are struggling with money issues themselves. If difficult overall economic conditions are added to the mix, you will likely have difficulty finding a job since you have not yet graduated. Moreover, school can be very difficult and time consuming, putting further strain on your student personal finances.

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Private label rights, often abbreviated PLR, represent a license agreement which effectively provides the owner legal free rein regarding the use of an associated product. Technically, the original author retains copyright but under this type of license, the acquiring owner may alter the product in any way, including taking credit as the author. PLR products may include text, graphics, source codes, or software, but the most common form is written content organized into articles or ebooks.

Typically the original author of a written work will sell private label rights on it to another interested party for a fee. The author can then sell the same license to other parties as well, and eventually make more money than a regular ghostwriter would for selling a unique article.

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Yesterday I found a site offering free training videos for basic Internet marketing skills, most of which are essential for anyone who is just getting started in this particular field. These kinds of lessons may also be useful for those of you who are not necessarily looking to become experts in sales or marketing, but would like to know more about how to derive some extra income from your blogging or website development efforts.

After initially bookmarking the site, I spent some time earlier today going through all of the videos to determine their subject matter and learn anything that I did not already know. There are a total of 20 videos, each of them averaging about 5 minutes in length. Here are the subjects that are covered:

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Yesterday I received a contact form submission from someone named Desmond Solise, who apparently found this site using the keyword “internet marketing blogs.” He has requested publication of this “short article”, which frankly reads more like a long classified ad than an informational piece. In spite of its rather self-promotional nature, I have decided to go ahead and publish it anyway because the author’s offer may be of interest to other people who are near the beginning of their learning curve in this particular genre.

In effect, the author is offering a wide array of ebooks and other tutorial products in exchange for writing brief summaries of other documents. He does not go into detail about what the documents are, but my guess is that this a way for him to outsource some of his article writing or website content. It might not be a bad deal for those with little or no money as long as this person follows through on his end of the deal and can actually deliver the goods. Meanwhile, if any of you happen to have previous experience with this particular offer, you can let us know about it in the comment section.

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Although the week’s search traffic levels have not changed much, I managed to get a nice boost of traffic from StumbleUpon when my post on redundant words and phrases was submitted by jpearce01 and received four positive votes. Meanwhile, yesterday I managed to discover a plethora of Xbox-related keywords that show good potential for SEO and affiliate marketing. The popularity of console gaming and related issues is driving lots of traffic through the search engines as expected, but I was surprised at how many niche keywords in this genre still have very few competing pages listed. I wound up compiling such a long list of juicy keywords that I will probably not be able to cover them all with posts here without turning this site into some sort of gaming blog. Therefore, I will probably save most of these for one of my upcoming Blogger mini-projects.

This week’s sample of keywords is as follows:

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Although it is a relatively powerful gaming console, the Xbox 360 has been fraught with complaints from consumers due to high failure rates, which are estimated to range between 5 and 35 percent depending on the source. Similar to the infamous “blue screen of death” (BSOD) that indicates problems with a PC, Xbox failures result in a “red ring of death” (RROD) indicated by the presence of one to four flashing red lights that appear when a user attempts to turn on the console. For the remainder of this article, I will list the Xbox red light fix methods that other people have used to repair the ring of death and return to their former gaming glory.

1. Check your power cords and connections. If you have four red lights, this usually indicates that the AV cord is unplugged or not connected properly. This can be fixed by simply plugging in the cord or disconnecting it and then plugging it in again. You can also wipe the metal area (the end that plugs into the console) with a cloth before plugging it into the correct socket. Finally, you can check the connections of peripheral devices such as controllers or joysticks to rule this out as the source of the problem. Interestingly, this is probably the easiest issue to fix even though all four red lights form a complete “ring of doom.”

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This latest article by Angela Baca is a brief description of print design themes in Microsoft Word 2007. The feature is supposed to help in streamlining your document production tasks by saving you time that would otherwise be used to configure your formatting options. It can also affect the appearance of your documents by having them appeal more to your particular aesthetic preferences or making them look somewhat more professional.

Microsoft Word 2007 offers new features that give people without publishing experience the capacity to produce top-notch documents. One improved feature in Word 2007 concerns the theme. When you use themes, your publications look more sleek and stylish. Your audience does not need to know that you produce your own publications.

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When I first saw the title of this article by Claire Billips, I thought that it was referring to short sales of stocks, a “bear market” technique in which investors sell stock they do not actually own in the hopes of buying it later at lower price. However, upon closer inspection, I discovered that the article is actually about short sales of mortgaged properties. Apparently, in some cases it is less expensive for mortgage loan providers to settle for slightly less than what the borrower originally owes than it is to go through the process of foreclosure. Consequently, this can provide some interesting opportunities for real estate investors.

A short sale describes what happens when a mortgage company settles for a lesser amount of money than that which the borrower owes in order to avoid the expense of foreclosure. A short sale still involves the loss of money for the mortgage provider, but it doesn’t cost quite as much as the foreclosure process. The number of short sales here in the United States has increased dramatically in the past year or so because of the struggling real estate market.

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Over the past few days, I have been exploring the idea of creating some different kinds of blogs using Google’s free Blogspot domain and optimizing them for AdSense monetization. During my research, I read about a useful tip that was mentioned by several of the more experienced money-making bloggers in this particular genre.

They suggested the idea of removing the top navigation bar that appears by default in all blogs hosted by Blogger. From a monetization standpoint, it makes sense to get rid of the navbar because it plugs a possible “leak” in your site through which visitors could escape without clicking on an AdSense or affiliate link. Others may want to hide the bar for cosmetic reasons so that it does not cover up the top of the header and immediately tag the site as “just another Blogspot blog.”

It turns out that removing the Blogger bar is actually quite simple. Here are the basic steps:

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During the middle of last month, I had the chance to revisit Quick Rewards, an old get-paid-to program that I had almost forgotten about last year when I had problems with confirming my new email address with them. Fortunately, I was able to get the confirmation problem resolved, after which I promptly began earning money again by completing various clicks, offers, and surveys. Due in part to my new Firefox extension that I discovered while optimizing earnings for Treasure Trooper, I was able to increase my earnings surprisingly quickly. Last night, having surpassed the $40 mark, I decided to go ahead and put in a payment request before continuing with the day’s offers. By the time I woke up today, the payment message from PayPal was already in my inbox:

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It seems that the economic recession that began about a year ago in many parts of the world is beginning to affect the online advertising market. According to the latest statistics released by PubMatic in its third quarter report for 2008, prices for display ads have been trending downward since the beginning of this year, dropping 27% overall from last quarter. Measured on an eCPM basis, which is the price per thousand page views, the social networking category scored the lowest at 21 cents while business and finance was the highest at 86 cents. Both categories were down 22 percent from last quarter. Technology was the only category that did not decrease; its ad prices remained steady at 55 cents per thousand impressions.

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This was another ho-hum week for traffic, although I am starting to become more active with Entrecard again. I still need to figure out a way to speed up my keyword research and article writing so that I have more time for gaining backlinks and pursuing other revenue streams; progress in this regard is unacceptably slow. On the bright side, I have been doing more research on trend marketing and how to set up quick Blogspot blogs monetized with AdSense. Some of the tips found in Project Quick Cash are showing promise, especially if I use my accumulated SEO knowledge to speed up the process. Meanwhile, here are some more questions from our curious searchers:

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