Karlonia.com

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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In freelance writing, it is always important to make sure that your prose is grammatically correct. However, it is also important to make it as clear and concise as possible, especially if you’re trying to meet word count limits. One of the ways in which our writing can become annoyingly long-winded is through the use of redundant words and phrases that may be grammatically correct but would read (or sound) much better if they were shortened to more concise variations. Here is a list of common English redundancies, beginning with redundant acronym phrases and followed by other types of wordy phrases along with suggestions for improved versions.

Redundant Acronym Phrases:

1. ATM machine: This is probably the most common redundancy I have encountered, especially if we include spoken English as well as the written form. ATM stands for Automated (or Automatic) Teller Machine, so the word “machine” in this phrase is unnecessary — just say “ATM.”
2. SEO optimization: This one is far less common in popular culture and is not even listed as a redundancy on most other websites, but I encounter it quite frequently in my daily reading. It is gradually becoming a pet peeve of mine because SEO already means Search Engine Optimization, so we are actually over-optimizing by adding the word “optimization” to it.

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Today I received a nice little tip from one of my SEO-oriented email newsletters about an informative question-and-answer dialogue that took place on October 22 over at Google Webmaster Help. In this session, Matt Cutts and a few other important figures who work for Google answered questions from people in the webmaster community via live chat. Most of these questions pertained to search engine optimization issues, some of which have been the subject of much debate.

Although Google’s staff did not directly answer all of the questions (which is not surprising because the company is known for vagueness and lack of transparency), there were a few persistent myths debunked along with some additional nuggets of information that one can reasonably infer from the general tone of the answers provided. Since the full text of the conversation is rather long, I have summarized the most useful answers in bullet point format below for those of you who do not want to read through it all.

1. On site age and length of domain registration: Matt Cutts significantly downplayed this as a factor in the rankings, even saying that it doesn’t matter in the majority of cases. Google did not rule it out as a factor completely, however.
2. On submitting your site to directories: Google acknowledges that this suggestion was removed from the Webmaster Guidelines, but says that they have NOT changed the way that links from directories are weighted.

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Major retailer Barnes & Noble dispatched its latest newsletter to affiliates today, highlighting some “best practices” and suggestions for the upcoming holiday season. Mostly known for its brick-and-mortar bookstores, the company has recently expanded to include additional product offerings such as toys, home furnishings, games, magazines, and music. This latest guide details many of these new item categories, some of which have recently become eligible for commission payments. Meanwhile, if you would like to visit the main Barnes & Noble site for some holiday gift ideas, you can do so by clicking on the logo banner in the upper left portion of this paragraph.

It’s that time of year again, with the holiday shopping rush about to begin in earnest. To help prepare you for this busiest of seasons, we have put together a brief guide to keep you in tune with what Barnes & Noble is doing this year. Remember that you earn 6% on products purchased through your affiliate links, including PC/Video Games and even Gift Cards!

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This afternoon I received a warning about an autosurf site called MegaLido.com indicating that the program may close down soon and move into the scam category if late-arriving “investors” are not paid. John Stankiewicz, a frequent reviewer of cyclers, autosurfs, HYIPs, MLM programs, and other decidedly non-mainstream investment vehicles, sent out a brief email to subscribers informing them that it might be a good time for people who have a significant amount of money in the program to cash out their profits. Here is the text of the message:

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Today Wes Benedict has released a letter detailing election day results and other related issues to members of our Libertarian Party affiliate in Texas. Despite the disappointing totals for presidential candidate Bob Barr, the party set several new records in other races, including highest percentage and vote total for U.S. Senate, highest number of candidates on the ballot, and over one million votes for our Court of Criminal Appeals statewide candidate. Only one other LP candidate, John Monds in the race for Georgia’s Public Service Commission, surpassed the one million vote mark nationally.

Here is the text of Wes Benedict’s email, which includes a link to the vote totals and percentages for all Libertarian Party of Texas candidates. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for the election results for LP candidates nationally, you can find these at the LP.org site here.

Dear Texas Friend of Liberty:

Thanks to our donors for coming through recently and helping us to purchase more door hangers and yard signs. Our Assistant Director, Arthur DiBianca, and I worked feverishly for the past couple of months recruiting volunteers and shipping door hangers and signs to as many of you as we could find and recruit.

Texas Libertarian candidates did great on election day, breaking some new records. Thanks to all of our candidates and volunteers who worked hard for the past two years, and to our donors.

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According to this article by Kristie Leong, we may be seeing new ingredient and nutrition labels appearing on food and beverage products coming from some of the major distributors soon. I’ve always been a big fan of reading ingredient labels on food items to find out exactly what they contain or perhaps some hints about how the product was made. There is nothing quite like the experience of finding out that select ingredients such as “glycerol ester of wood rosin” have been added to certain kinds of sodas to improve their flavor. Yum!

If you’re like most Americans, you’re trying to eat a healthier diet. You may realize that too many calorie-laden processed foods are not the key to a long and healthy life and won’t help you maintain an ideal body weight either. But sometimes it can be difficult to make the proper food choices. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that nutritional labels on food products at your local grocery store can be difficult to decipher. Other times food nutrition labels can be downright misleading, especially when they give a caloric value which sounds reasonable and it turns out that it’s only for half of the item.

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Overall traffic did not change much last week, but I am beginning to see an increase in the number of article pages receiving visits from search engines and other sites. According to Google Analytics, there were 312 different pages on the site that received traffic with a total of 5,248 page views. Meanwhile, the best news of the week was that I received my first AdSense check from this site’s earnings, which I will probably be posting about in a few days after I do the image scan. I am also beginning to broaden my range of available affiliate programs, which should increase future monetization potential. Meanwhile, here is our usual eclectic mix of questions from the search engines.

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