Google Adsense PIN number arrived

So, I got my Google PIN number last week for my Adsense account. Apparently they send out the PIN number in the regular mail when your account first reaches a $50 balance, and mine reached that around October 21. Of course, by October 31, I was already over $100 and still waiting for the PIN!

It came in this past week, so I went and activated the payout from Google. They're going to send me the first one in a cheque, and then after that I'm having it set up to do direct deposit into my bank account so I don't have to worry about depositing it every month. I wanted that first one in a cheque format, however, so I can do the standard "photocopy and frame" thing. Just from how my silly sites have increased in click-thru value, I can see that this small cheque will be something to giggle at in the future.

I surpassed $100 USD on November 15 this month, and am on track for about $300 this month, I think. Nice little deposit just before Christmas, I'd say!!

I'll write more entries soon about some of the things I'm doing with my websites to increase traffic, or just to monitor it and see how things are going. Keep tuned!

Search Engine Saturation, "hitting the engine"

I have about 8 blogs going right now on various topics I'm interested in. One of the blogs is a Sims 2 downloadable houses site for the new Nightlife expansion that came out in September, because my best friend loves to make and decorate houses and I can't play them fast enough when she's in creative mode.

I figured about a month ago that I'd make her houses available for download through a blog site because I couldn't find comparable downloads online for what she was making

• An Orphanage-type home set up for adopting and raising as many as 3 babies/toddlers and 4 children/teens/adults at one time
• The Senior's Centre which was set up to allow couples to "retire" to a lot with other Senior Citizens and a house caretaker to make meals, etc
• Houses under $20,000 simoleons - I have had extreme difficulties finding any online - and $20,000 is what new Sims or Sim Families start with unless you intend to use money cheats in the game!

So, I started up the blog and took some pictures of the houses from the outside (roof up), then wrote a description about the features of the house and what type of Sim family the house had in mind when being built, and gave a download link.

I noticed, however, that because my entries were very much like REAL Real Estate and all that, my Adsense Ads were things like "bathroom renovations" and things like that... very off-topic. So... I tweaked the template a little and added some keywords to my entries more often, and posted a few game cheats and posts that naturally lend to use of keywords that attracted more on-topic ads.

Just a couple of days ago, I saw through my regular Marketleap "search engine saturation" searches on my site that MSN put my site in their active database, and by looking at my free stat information and Adsense info, I'm starting to get a wee bit of traffic... more every day. They're searching for homes for their Sims, and a few end up clicking through on other Sims 2 ads as well, which is exactly what I want to see!

Yay isn't this fun :)