As you can see (unless you read my posts through a feeder and don’t ever visit my site), I made a few small adjustments that I thought my improve my blog’s look and possible number of readers.

The first thing you might notice is I removed my picture from the top right corner. I wanted to spare readers from seeing my face everyday, so I moved the picture to the About Me page where it is more appropriate.

I also moved the Feedburner graphic/link to the top of the sidebar. This will give it more visibility. I was looking around and noticed that most blogs have it at the top. I’m not sure if it’s to show off how many readers they have, or to make the Feedburner more accessible by not stashing it away at the bottom. I’m up to 11 readers now. Not nearly as many as most entrepreneur blogs, but hey… it’s better than 0.

Another small add-on is the top commentors plugin I placed on the sidebar. Thanks to John’s 16 Best Wordpress Plugins post, I can always find the download pages for all the top plugins. It is much easier than searching Google or the Wordpress site. As you can see, I am the top commentor. With Nomar and Nick coming in 2nd and 3rd. I’m not sure this wordpress commentor plugin is grabbing all my comments though. I think it’s starting fresh from comments made on this page and nothing in my archive. Somehow I think Nomar has a lot more comments than 9.. same with Jacob and Nick.

I also moved the Dreamhost advertisement down a bit. I thought it looked funky having two advertisements at the top like that.

That’s pretty much it for the blog updates. Look for another post or two sometime today!

A couple weeks ago I posted that Google had started their PR Update on some of my sites. I had done rather well, earning my first PR6 site ever, Free Myspace Layouts. I sold over $100 in links on that site in a day. Whoever says PR doesn’t matter, must not sell links on Digital Point.

Well, it looks like Google is just now wrapping things up on the rest of the internet. As you can see, my blog has finally updated to Pagerank 4. I’m quite happy with PR4 on my blog. Maybe when I reapply to Text Link Ads I won’t get rejected again. So, how about a quick run down on all of my sites and their new PRs.

• Lithman.net PR0 –> PR4
• FightSongLyrics.com PR4 –> PR4
• Layoutpimps.net PR1 –> PR4
• Freemslayout.com PR0 –> PR6
• Myloginspace.com PR0 –> PR5
• Mylink-space.com PR1 –> PR4
• MVPFlix.com PR0 –> PR3
• JoeMauer.info PR0 –> PR3
• BulletinTrader.com PR0 –> PR3
• RookieSpot.com PR0 –> PR3
• RyanHoward.info PR0 –> PR0
• PhilipRivers.net PR0 –> PR0
• Tracy-McGrady.net PR0 –> PR0
• MaskedMusic.com PR0 –> PR0
• GatorEnvy.com PR0 –> PR0

So as you can see I did really well this update. I had a bunch of sites go from 0 to something. The sites that stayed at 0 are because they are still too new. I think the update won’t affect most of my sites. One other site I’m hoping to cash in on is my Myspace Directory. Now that it is PR4 with PR3 and higher sub pages, hopefully I can sell some spots on it. I think I’ll post an advertisement on DP and see if I can make some sales.

I might also be able to sell some link spots on Myspace Login. Having a PR5 should get me at least $5-10/mo per link. If no one will buy anything then I can atleast get some solid link exchanges and start driving traffic to that site, and ultimately make some money.

I figure some of the Europeans who read this blog, might get a kick out of this one. I hate soccer, but this is pretty funny.

I remember a few years back, people used to play with mini skateboards and mini bikes with their fingers. They would do tricks and build ramps and stuff. Well, anyways…this guy takes the same concept and applies it to soccer. The only problem is I can’t tell if it’s real or not!

As you can see on my blog, I have two new revenue options. I have removed the Google 468×60 at the top of all my pages, and replaced it with a private banner sale. Links Juice is a PR6 link directory. It is a promising site. If you’re looking to spend some money to buy featured links in a high PR directory, I recommend this one.

Another revenue option is that DreamHost ad I place just above my picture. Dreamhost pays a lot of money if you can refer people. They pay $97 per new customer. That’s a lot of cheese! If I can refer 1 person a month that would amaze me. If you run a high traffic blog, it might be worth it to just stick this little button and see if you can earn some cash.

They also have an option to earn recurring payments equal to 10% of every payment your customers ever make. That could equal to a lot more than a one time payment of $97 if you can land some long term customers. Here’s a link for their hosting rewards information.

I’m still going to keep the 250×250 Adsense embedded into each post. I earn some money from it. Like $15 last month. They clicks pay pretty well, its just a matter of me bringing in new traffic to click them. I know all my regular readers don’t click on Google Ads.

At this point, I’m still not trying to turn this blog into a $1000/mo blog. It is more a journal for me. My goal by year’s end is just to have this blog pay for all my hosting costs, which would be around $50/mo. Unless I can start bringing in 1000s of uniques a day, then I might have to rethink my earning goals for this blog.

Yes, that long lost e-book I wrote might be resurfaced soon. Now is the perfect time to release it because of the seasonal changes in the weather, at least where I live. I have absolutely NO graphic design skills. The extent of my design skills can be seen on the several sports fan sites I have.

So I’m looking for someone that knows how to design little E-book cover pages. Here are a few examples if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

So If you know how to design these little things, or know of a tool…let me know. I am willing to pay someone (please don’t rip me off.. I’m poor. And if you don’t believe me just read a few posts back). Drop me a line in a comment, or shoot me an email (info on the contact page) or send me a message on MSN.

I’ve been unhappy with the way Adsense has been performing on my Myspace Layout Pimper site, so I’ve decided to run a week long test. The test is going to be very simple. All I am doing is changing the colors.

The previous colors for the ads on the site were that light sky blue color. I have since changed it to something more bold so it will stand out… red. One of the best ways to increase your earnings is to experiment. And that is something I don’t do. I often set something up and just leave it.

So I’ll give a quick rundown of the stats this January for LayoutPimps.net

January 1-7

• avg daily unique 1,215
• avg daily adsense pageviews 28,862
• avg daily clicks 76
• avg daily earnings $4.32

January 8-14

• avg daily unique 1,528
• avg daily adsense pageviews 33,301
• avg daily click 103
• avg daily earnings $4.22

January 15-21

• avg daily uniques 1,665
• avg daily adsense pageviews 33,049
• avg daily clicks 135
• avg daily earnings $3.67

So as you can see… traffic has been going up, as well as the number of clicks per day. However, my earnings are going down. So something is up. Hopefully this test can help give me a better understanding of changes I need to make. I will also be monitoring the different ad sections. I have them set up in unique channels. Maybe I will only have to change a few of them.

So if you have a site running adsense and its a site you never have to work on. Try changing the colors up a bit. Give it a week and see if it changes your earnings. It’s worth a try.