Some of my websites are strictly for money making, others for fun, and some are just projects. I’ve made a lot of my free samples blogs into money makers.

Lately I’ve had quite a bit of success with Google Adsense, getting payments almost every month now. This month I am expecting to receive $200 in payments. One site has had nice increase in earnings, simply due to the WordPress theme.

ProSense WordPress Theme

Dosh Dosh put together a great list of 18 adsense ready WordPress themes. At the top of the list (and rightfully so) is Prosense. Dosh Dosh co-designed this theme and it has been great for me.

The theme comes preloaded with Adsense codes, all you need to do is simply change a few numbers to make it ready for you. It’s full of a lot of great features and Adsense is integrated perfectly.

Prosense comes in three different colors. The header is also easy to change and make custom (some themes can be tricky).

The only downside of this theme for me has been using images with it. When you see the images on the main page, it looks good, but with the heavy Adsense on post pages, the images can break up the page.

Earnings Increase

Running the Prosense theme on Its All Free Online has already doubled my earnings. Last month IAFO made $17 on Adsense. Being only halfway through October I’ve already been able to double that ($35) with 100 less visitors, and about 400 less impressions. If traffic and clicks hold the same, I can expect to quadruple my earnings.

So with almost the same amount of traffic, my earnings has doubled due to the Prosense WordPress theme.

Do you use an Adsense ready wordpress theme?

Download Prosense Here

The best and simpliest contest of the net, only for you…

$20 Cash Weekly

Win $20 Cash every week by joining Garanew’s contest. A simple post on your blog and you are in!

$25 from Europe Stamps

Put a link to  Europe Stamps on your blog/site and get points when people click it. The more points you gain, the higher chance to win $25!
Ends on October 15th.

Cash from Web-Freak

First Blog Contest at Web-Freak.com with 2 cash prizes ($50 and $25) plus a banner advertising. To enter gain your points with a blog post, a subscription and some stumbling or digging.
Ends on October 15th.

If you’re looking for blog contests, if you want to promote your own competition, don’t forget to visit About Blog Contests!

Websites and blogs can take advantage by following trends. The past few weeks people have been interested in the presidential campaign. Seemingly the most fascinating thing in that campaign has been Sarah Palin. She has been one of the top web searches the past few weeks. People want to find out about her.

Following the Trends

Now it may be a little late to start an entire blog dedicated to Sarah Palin. Of course it would be short term (unless she becomes VP). However if you were following the trends you may have found a way to include her name into a post of yours already (like this one). With so many different searches you may be bound to get some of the traffic. There are several ways to try to work her in. My favorite is a video of Sarah Palin’s Miss Alaska Pageant Video.

This is also a great method to do with upcoming movies, technology releases like computers, cell phones and music players. Of course once they are finally released you will see competition and most likely less traffic.

Be Creative

So should you blog about Sarah Palin and what’s hot? Yes and no. Be creative in working in hot topics into your post. It all really depends on your niche. Titles like Why Sarah Palin Wouldn’t Be Good At Making Money Online or Would Barack Obama Be A Good Webmaster or Is John McCain Too Old For The Internet could be funny, on topic, as well as able to do well on social media. These titles alone could intrigue people enough to read, especially as we get closer to the voting day, everyone seems to want info!

Are you blogging about what’s hot?

Rumors are circulating that SU has been sold and updated their algorithms. This basically means how they value the “power” of your stumbles. Some users think that only “spammers” should care about this but of course I disagree. The whole point of SU is to share what you like, so wouldn’t you want as many people to see it as you can?

The LinkBackProject wrote about their beliefs of the new StumbleUpon algorithms. There are several new theories which basically says not to submit your own websites as well and not to “power stumble” and more.

This will supposedly inflict a penalty on your user, but which can be changed if you follow certain guidelines.

This claim by the Link Back Project has brought out loads of Stumbleupon users to either agree or disagree. Make sure to check out their comments as well as Stumbleupon feedback on the page. There is 9 pages of reviews on the stumbleupon page!

It’s Been Sold?

This is another ‘rumor’ going around. I would expect that they would announce this eventually if this rumor were true. I’ve heard that people think eBay has purchased SU and that would definitely be interesting.

If you start seeing “Stumble this Auction” I think it’s safe to say they purchased it!

What do you think?

What about free cool stuff? Enjoy the new contest roundup…

An iPod Nano

Win an iPod Nano from Enkay Blog. Three options to enter: subscribe to his RSS feeds by mail, download his free blogging ebook and write a post about it.
Ends on October 15th.

Amazon Gift cards

Three Amazon Gift Cards ($75, $15, and $10) for you at Free From Broke. There are many ways to gain your points, see original post for details.
Ends on October 15th.

$50 Cash

An easy $50 from Houston Tattoo Removal Blog. You only have to write a post about this giveaway linking to the tattoo removal main page and to the contest post. Then contact the blog by mail with your entry.
Ends on October 8th.

If you’re looking for blog contests, if you want to promote your own competition, don’t forget to visit About Blog Contests!

As Entrecard is trying to move forward with their rule change, that I call a step backwards, they’ve got a new plan in the works. Entrecard has partnered with OIOPublisher and not you can sell your adspace for entrecard credits as well as cash.

OIOPublisher with Entrecard

When you install the new OIOPublisher you can select the option to accept Entrecard credits as a form of advertising. You can charge whatever you want for your advertising, reviews, links, etc.

I didn’t think I would use this method, but I have thought that I might for text links and things like that.

Buy OIOPublisher

With this new entrecard promotion you can save a bit of money if you haven’t purchased it yet. At checkout enter coupon code entrecard to save $17. This will make the price only $30 instead of $47.

Are you planning on using entrecard with your OIOPublisher?

Lately Entrecard has been buzzing. Graham Langdon put EC up for sale, then within 24 hours took it off sale. It turned into more of an ego and website boost as many other entrepreneurs contacted Graham for support. Now he’s decided in a huge overhaul, that effects all members. In my opinion, not in a good way.

Entrecards New ‘Rules’

In means to help the “economy” or really for Graham to start making money himself instead of the members. The main rule that benefits him is no more selling of Entrecard credits. To ensure this rule their are credit transfer limits of 1,000 credits per month. And on that limit, you will be basically charged for sending ECs (tax).

I have about 5,000 credits sitting in my account, that is basically dead weight now. The new rules mean no more big Entrecard contests and will definitely limit what I give out as gifts when people are new to EC.

I was surprised to find many comments on the Entrecard blog favoring these moves. EC’s have become basically like blogger money. When I want to sponsor a contest, or spread around my ECs I wouldn’t hesitate, but now, I can’t.

This also basically nullifies every entrecard contest that is currently running, which couldn’t make those bloggers very happy.

Look at the Freebie Reporter who has over 70,000 entrecard credits available to win. With over 100 entries it looks like, all that is wasted.

I’m not sure how much of this will benefit the entrecard economy or the blogging community. It mostly, just seems to me, that Graham Langdon has realized in the longrun that he will be able to make more money this way, not necessarily at a benefit for Entrecard members.

Please share what you think. Do you support these new rules?