Monthly Archives: September 2009

Great News – Nintendo Wii Comes Down In Price

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This truly is great news for anyone who wants to buy a Nintendo Wii games system.

On 27th September, Nintendo made an announcement dropping the price for the Wii console from the original $249.99 to only $199.99 as from 1st October.

This means that for those of you who are struggling to afford one, now the Nintendo Wii is hopefully within the price range that you can afford.

I know it’s still not within mine, unless I get a job soon, but this is good news for anyone who would like a Nintendo Wii who has a birthday coming up (and what greater birthday present could you ask for!), and it’s also ideal for the perfect Christmas present as well.

One thing I am certain of is that there is going to be a mad rush to buy the Nintendo Wii for Christmas, and while I am sure that Nintendo has geared up their production for this, I wouldn’t want to find out that they are all sold out.

If you are seriously thinking of buying a Nintendo Wii, the link above gives you more information and reviews.

Earning $100 A Day On Google Adsense

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This is my goal, to earn $100 a day on Google Adsense, since I am currently out of work, having problems getting benefits, and in any case benefits alone will not provide enough for us to live on.

I have been using Adsense for over a year now, and the month by month experience does teach you a lot, however my current earnings are at best $100 a month, and that frankly isn’t good enough, it won’t support me, however $100 a day would at least help to cover much of my expenses.

I am sorry if you thought that this article was going to be the Golden Egg, the secret to wealth and fortune, BUT don’t leave yet, since my aim here is to share my knowledge with you as I learn more and try different techniques to increase my earnings.

So what is the secret to earning a lot of money with Google Adsense?

Well, ultimately it’s getting enough people to click on links on your web site / blog, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.

To get clicks you need traffic.   Yes T-R-A-F-F-I-C.    The clicks won’t come unless you have visitors.    Now these visitors must also be interested in what you have to offer, and it has to look interesting from the start and load fast, otherwise they will leave a page even quicker than they arrived,  and that does you absolutely no good at all.

“Oh great” you might say, all I need is to just get enough decent traffic, enough clicks from my visitors, and I am all set.

WRONG!

It’s still not that easy…

Clicks are not all worth the same, and I wish I knew the secret as to which ones are worth more than others.  The truth is, that while you might get a click that is worth $2, you might also get 20 clicks that are only worth $0.01 each.    I have had quite a few days where I only had a handful of clicks, and I made more than those days where I had 40 or 50 clicks which totalled less than $1.

So the question is, “How do I try to get better value clicks?”

It’s all based on keywords.

Different topics are worth different amounts, and advertisers pay a higher price to get their adverts in front of you for certain topics.

Take Credit Cards for example, or Mortgages.   These are two examples of higher paying keywords.

Well, now we know the theory of what you need to do, (a) get the right traffic to your site, (b) make the page design and advert look/placement attractive to maximise clicks, and (c) gear the page to higher paying keywords.

If you can get 100 clicks a day that is a good start, but at 1cent each, that’s only $1 total!  If they pay an average of $1 each, there is your $100.

That’s the lesson for today.  I am working on taking this to the next stage by focusing on traffic.   You can have a brilliant design that is perfectly optimised, but without traffic it’s worth nothing.   Equally traffic without clicks doesn’t pay, but traffic does get you noticed and affects your search engine rankings.

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Eight Weeks, No Job, No Benefits

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Well after six weeks of extreme frustration of waiting for my job seekers allowance (unemployment benefit in the UK) and in particular the last three weeks when my case was supposed to be sped up, the news isn’t good…

Thursday I heard that at least I passed the Habitual Residency Test, meaning they agree I am a valid resident of the UK,  however I had a call this morning to say that because I hadn’t paid in any contributions while I was in the USA, I don’t qualify for any contribution based benefits.   Damn!   I might however qualify for income based benefits, based on Debbie’s income, but I am sure that’s not going to go in our favour either.   Her earnings are not great, but they are borderline when it comes to receiving benefits.

I have an appointment tomorrow morning, where I have to fill out another set of forms and no doubt do another lot of waiting to see if I qualify.  It’s not good…

Unlike many of these people who are claiming for anything and everything, I just want a JOB!  I need money to survive as well as to cover my commitments.

Yet again, my life turns out to be more than a little complicated…

Wish me luck for the interview tomorrow…

Of course when it comes to job hunting, so far I haven’t seen a single job that I am well suited for, despite my years of experience in IT.  So not a single interview or solid bite so far over the last eight weeks.  After so many years in a successful career, it brings you down when you feel that nobody wants you.  I just keep hoping that any day the perfect opportunity will come along, with the right location, hours of work, and also the right benefits…

The Funny Bunny Cloud

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The cloud that looks like an Easter BunnyThe cloud that looks like an Easter Bunny

Every once in a while, do you ever see clouds in the sky that remind you of something?

Monday started off gloomy, then really taking us by surprise, the afternoon ended up with perfect blue skies.  We decided to have a BBQ in the back garden, and having eaten, we were sitting in the sun, when I noticed that several clouds had formed, including this one.    It’s a shame that by the time I ran inside to get the camera, it had transformed somewhat from it’s perfect shape, but to both of us it looks like a rabbit sitting down, with a mischievous look on it’s face, and it’s ears sticking up wildly.    Usually photos of clouds don’t come out too well, but I thought this did.    Try clicking on the pictures for the full sized image.   Let us know what you think it looks like.

Shortly after this more clouds appeared, including the most amazing wispy shapes, and about an hour after this we saw what looked like a pirate skull in the sky, but we were out for a walk in the local country park at the time and didn’t have the camera with us unfortunately.   Opportunities like this don’t come along that often.

Five Weeks Back In The UK And No Work

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Well it’s been five weeks ago today since I left the sunshine of hot and sticky South Florida and returned to the UK to be with Debbie.

It’s true that we have had some nice days where the sun has shone, there have been blue skies, and it’s been a pleasant 70 degrees, but there have also been quite a few days where the temperature has barely climbed above 65 degrees all day.   Sunday was grey and gloomy all day, from the time we got up until the time we went to bed.  You can’t really say until the time it got dark, because it never really got light!   Monday started off the same, but it turned out nice in the afternoon, and we were able to have a BBQ and sit outside in the sunshine.   Tuesday was mixed and also breezy.  We went to Calshot, which is across the other side of Southampton water, and had a good walk along the beach (well pebbles).   But today has been another one of those grey gloomy days, most of the afternoon it’s been spitting with rain, and the last two hours it’s been blowing a gale and pouring down.

The schools go back at the end of this week, and Debbie heads back to work tomorrow after six weeks off.  We wonder where summer went to, but although we haven’t had the money to go anywhere and spent anything, we have had some wonderful local walks and done some good exploring of the local countryside.  That’s something we both enjoy a lot, and I have a lot of posting to catch up on, with plenty of photographs to add as well.

As soon as I came back here I signed on at the job centre to claim unemployment benefit, but so far I haven’t received anything.  With so many people out of work over here, the offices are backed up, and with my having just come back from the USA it hasn’t made things easier either.  I hope to hear back with a positive result within a week, as my money is almost gone, what bit I had left over here, and Debbie only earns enough to barely cover the bills and food.

Of course I have registered with all the internet job search sites, but they all pretty much return the same jobs, and nothing has really matched my skill set yet.   I would like to add a commendation for the one recruiter who I found through Linked-In, and who took the time to call me while I was still in Florida, as well as to check up on me at least once a week here, providing tips on potential job openings in companies where he didn’t have a contact, as well as working hard to find a place for me within his clients.    If you are looking for an IT job in the south of England, particularly if you are working with IBM Midrange systems, I highly recommend Adam Langley-Smith of Required-IT to handle your job search.

Meantime, I am trying to decide what to do, trying to figure out how I can earn enough money online to keep us afloat, and there are so many ideas, but the hard part is to know what to do and in which direction to turn.   I thought of looking at ghostwriting (writing articles for other people – they get published without your name on them), but I would really love to be able to write under my own name.   I would love to write a book, but I can’t think where to begin, I need a plot, and the worst thing is that this could take a year or more before I got published, and then the book might never be successful anyhow.

I keep trying to be realistic, since my IT skills are in need of some re-tuning, but still I am hoping that something will come along.

Tomorrow will I hope bring some good ideas, since Debbie goes back to work, and I have more time to myself, time to devote to writing, promoting, and to trying to earn a penny or two.    I would really love to have some good money coming in soon, as we had planned to spend Christmas in Florida so I can see my two daughters, but if I don’t get a job, that isn’t going to happen.   There is always the Lottery of course, or the million to one chance of a benefactor leaving a donation in the Tip jar on the blog, but I don’t realistically expect either of those to happen.  Just have to get lucky and get a good paying job.

So farewell summer, welcome to my new working life, trying to make it by writing and blogging.   Wish me luck…

Adam Langley-Smith