Yesterday a good friend of mine Jeff, who runs Myspace Tweaks, helped me redesign my biggest earning site, Pimp Myspace. The sole purpose of the redesign is to increase earnings. I was tired of only making $15-20/day from YPN when I approach 4,000 uniques on a good day. I should be earning a lot more compared to other people with similar sites and stats.

I haven’t quite finished all the pages yet in the redesign. The custom pages I made that were not included in the script haven’t been finished. I plan to complete everything this afternoon.

My site used to look like this. It was the default script that a thousand other people use. By redesigning the site to have a new look and feel, I hope it will keep visitors coming back for more. Also visitors from search engines won’t be so quick to hit the back button. If they click on a site and it looks the exact same as a site they were just at, they will click the back button and move on. Now that I have a new design, people will stay thinking the layouts and content is different (which it is).

The old design was 3 columns and was dark in color. The new design is bright and light and only has 2 columns. I like the 2 column feel because it leaves a larger amount of room for the content.

The new design also allows for better ad placement. Currently I am running a 728×90 or 468×60 ValueClickMedia ad in the header of every page. I also have two 250×250 YPN ads on every page above the content. Then in the footer you will notice a 728×90 Adbrite unit which also controls Adbrite interstitials.

So as you can see, I am really trying to maximize my earning potential on this site by using 3 different ad companies. I also want to explore CPA offers, like free ipods or free ringtones. That will give me 4 different ad companies.

After I finish the entire redesign, I will also look into adding a third YPN ad unit to the pages. Possibly near the bottom.

Two weeks ago I posted that I would attempt a .edu link sale. Over the past few days I successful sold several links on my school page for a total of $120. I sold 6 links for $20 each. These are permanent links though, so I really feel the buyers got a great deal. My school’s homepage is PR9 and is a top 3 university in the country. I have no doubt that my personal school page will have some PR on the next update.

Selling links is great and all, but now I am trying to delve into deeper waters. I’m trying to sell custom pages. You can view the sale thread at DigitalPoint here. I am letting people write custom pages (their own content, meta tags, titles, links) and I will publish it on my site and then link to it from my index page.

These threads always garner a lot of attention. I am selling them at $40 a pop, so hopefully I can make an extra couple hundred dollars from this. It’s easy money. Like I said before, if you go to college you have to look and see if your school offers free web space. Take advantage of this while you can.

I just received a message on MSN from my buddy Andreas Bard. He added me to the most recent link train stopping at all the blogs. It’s supposed to raise your Technorati level. I’m not really sure if it works, but it’s worth a try. I think I have about 1 person who added me to their Technorati favorites list. If you want to add me, click here.

It is very simple and if you just follow the rules below, I am sure you rank will increase.

***Start Copying Here:***

Here are the rules:

1) Write a short introduction paragraph about what how you found the list and include a link to the blog that referred you to the list.

2) COPY the Rules and ENTIRE List below and post it to your blog. To avoid duplicate content and increase the amount of keywords your site can accessible for, go ahead and change the titles of the blog. Just don’t change the links of the blog.

3) Take “My New Faves” and move them into the “The Original Faves” list.

4) Add 3 Blogs that you’ve just added to your Technorati Favorites to the “My New Faves” section. Remember to also add the “Fave Me” link next to your new blogs (i.e. http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://www.yourfavesdomain.com)

5) Add Everyone on this list to your Technorati Favorites List by clicking on “Fave the Site.” Those who want good kharma will fave you back. If not, you will for sure get the benefits of faves from the bloggers who continue this list after you.

My New Faves

Bryan Le - Fave the site
World of Joel - Fave the site
Matt Propst - Fave the site

The Original Faves

David Lithman - Fave the site
Blogtrepreneur - Fave the site
Jon Waraas - Fave the site
Gary Lee - Fave the Site
Dosh Dosh - Fave the Site
Nate Whitehill - Fave the Site
Ms. Danielle - Fave the Site
Jeff Kee - Fave the Site
Scribble on the Wall - Fave the Site
Jimi Morrisons Head - Fave the Site
Jon Lee - Fave the Site
Samanathon - Fave the Site
Eat Drink & Be Merry - Fave the Site
The Man of Silver - Fave the Site
Hannes Johnson - Fave the Site
My Dandelion Patch - Fave the Site
Nathan Drach - Fave the Site
SiteLogic - Fave the Site
Julies Journal - Fave the Site
Tea & Slippers - Fave the Site
Stephen Fung - Fave the Site
Ed Lau - Fave the Site
QMusings - Fave the Site
Andreas Bard - Fave the site

***End Copying Here***

I’m not really kicking butt, more like tapping it. But seriously, so far this month I’ve brought in $46.93 in Azoogle Ads. If the pace keeps up, that’ll be over $100 in my first full month. And I’m not promoting the Azoogle offers at all. I just slapped the links on my sites and in comes the money.

The ringtone offer I placed on Gator Envy is performing the best. You can see it on the homepage, in the left sidebar. It’s a very small link, yet somehow banks. The lead per click ratio is almost 7%. Each lead pays out like $14 for that offer. Now you know why a lot of those ringtone people got so rich. $14 per lead is insane. Get 10 leads a day and you’ve got yourself a full-time income.

Right now traffic is slow on Gator Envy because college is almost out and college sports won’t pick up till August or so. But once traffic steamrolls on that site, I could see myself getting 1 lead a day.

I finally got around to registering at Value Click Media, one of the larger ad networks out there. The site accepted was Gator Envy. I signed up with VCM primarily because they offer CPM solutions. And not just pop-ups.

CPM advertising seems like a logical solution for the forums I run as well as my main myspace site, Pimp Myspace. By adding VCM to Pimp Myspace, I might see an extra $5-10/day. The site is currently getting 20,000+ pagviews/day.

If anyone runs VCM ads on their sites, please feel free to comment on their performance. How does VCM compare to other large networks such as Adsense or Adbrite?

I’ve decided to start up a new blog again. I do have a domain purchased, but I’m not sure if I like it enough to keep. You will have to wait a few more days for the domain and niche information. I can’t just reveal things without having them set up. You know that by now…

After reading reading Matt Coddington’s post over at Problogger about Custom vs. Premade Blog Themes, I really contemplated purchasing a custom theme. But then the money factor came in. Would $300+ be worth it on a brand new project? What if I spent $300 on a theme and then abandoned the blog because I got bored with it, or no one visited? What a waste that would be.

I figured it would be best to start out with a nice theme, and mod it myself, then purchase a custom theme down the road if the blog is a success. A custom theme for a proven blog is a great investment.

Matt made a lot of interesting points in his post at Problogger. He attracted around 60 comments from the readers, a lot of who suggested to grab a premade theme but customize it on your own. Or to spend the money you were going to spend on a theme, and spend it on a professional logo. I’m sure you can get a very nice professional logo from a Sitepoint contest for $100.

Stay tuned the next few days, hopefully I can announce the project tomorrow!