I just posted my latest auction masterpiece on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280209339225 I find this method fun and reasonably cheap, especially if I think I can recoup the fees. Since eBay has strict rules regarding hyperlinks I use the "insert" function to add a blog graphic with a link. Also use my Me page to pimp my site. I auctioned off the Iranian government several years ago and picked up new readers and a few bucks in the process.
I don't want to use SEO on my blog--my long time readers stick with the site because of my personal writing style, not because it's loaded with keywords. Here's what I've made on auctions after fees: Monday (yes, I sold the day): $20 Male Enhancement Tool (two cardboard tubes and a roll of duct tape): $10 My Ethics in a Jar: $40 The Pigeon's Ultimate Weight Loss Guide (two pages that said, "eat less" and "exercise"): 25 copies at $5 each. The Iranian Government: $50 Thus $245 and thousands of page views for my blog. Nothing like getting paid to advertise!
And you'd also increase your natural, 100% free traffic if you'd even use the basic 'All In One SEO' pack for your blog. Your entire site uses the following meta tags: <meta name="keywords" content="news, politics, military, air force, army, pigeons, zombies, punk, ambient, iran, iraq, war, combat, analysis, international relations, geopolitics" /> <meta name="description" content="Editorial commentary and comic relief free of charge..." /> Code (markup): The description definitely needs completely re-written. I am, however, astounded your blog is a PR4, considering the amount of outgoing links you have, all in a big list, normally this flashes *paid links* to Google. They'll be hunting you down and gunning you out the sky like a real pigeon any day now.
I write to write; to craft my thoughts, opinions and observations for an enthusiastic audience. My blog is catharsis, not a business, and my pure, uncut and unfiltered content comes before making a buck and ranking on search engines. I'm not going to sacrifice the soul of my site to forcefeed SEO into my posts (hell, I don't even know what PR4 means). All my success rests on word of mouth, and I like it better that way. The outgoing links are unpaid blogrolls--Google would shut down the entire blogosphere if they raised a stink. But I don't use Adsense anyway... I used to, but the ads never came close to matching my content (probably becuase I write on a variety of topics... enough to make the crawler dizzy). I've made more in a few months with CPM ads and than I did in two years with Googly ads.