Debt Prison

This month I’ll make my last payment to Discover Card. It’s been five years since I began trying to repay all of my defaulted credit card debt. It’s been a long journey that has finally come to an end. I created DebtPrison.net to provide honest information to consumers and it seems to have helped many people. Last year this blog provided information for 200,000 visitors. Though I like to see folks pay off their debts… it’s always bothered me to see collection agencies lie to debtors about their rights. I hope this website has provided some clarity to the public.

**Disclaimer – Debtprison.net does not administer legal or financial advice. The contents of this website are my opinions on collection agencies and how to deal with them. Nothing on this website should be interpreted as legal advice or council. No opinions on this website should be used to replace the advice of your financial advisor or your legal council.

Whether it’s a car or a motorcycle, co-signing on a loan for a friend or family member is a bad idea.  First of all… you are helping someone throw money down the drain via interest charges.  Now before you bring up the ‘helping to build anothers credit’ fallacy… I’d quickly point out that a lifetime of credit use is a lifetime of throwing dollars out the window (for lack of a better metaphor).  Also, when we cosign, the price of the item is almost always grossly inflated and often brand spanking new.  Never buy new… let someone else loose thousands in minutes as they drive the purchase from the inflated price arena (also known as a Dealership).

See also, How to buy a used vehicle

Why help someone ruin your credit?

When you cosign for a friend you are telling the bank “If they don’t make the payments I will”.  Bear this in mind because this happens quite often.  As a co-signer you are responsible for the loan and if this debt isn’t satisfied according to the agreement, your credit report will suffer.  The following two examples are from Debt Prison readers who were faced with issues regarding co-signers.  The first cosigned for a boy friend… to later have him default and dragged into court.  The other is from a young man who is defaulting on a debt in which a friend’s father graciously posed as the co-signer.

Hi Debt Prison,

I apologize in advance…this is a lengthy question. I just want to provide as much info as I can. I have been documenting all my communications to be prepared as a friend told me to do this.

I cosigned a loan for an ex-boyfriend on 11/26/2002. (Yes – I have painfully learned my lesson to never cosign again!) I was 20 years old at the time, attending college, and very naïve and unaware of what the consequences of my contract obligation would be. The ex was also pretty oblivious when we did this. We were stupid college kids. I signed it because my ex-BF promised he would make his payments on time. The loan was also quite upside down at the time but I did not realize this until after the fact years later when there was a problem…I signed away just trusting the ex would pay the payments and did not think twice. It is an 84 month loan for a used 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee. He traded in two lease cars for this loan. The amount financed on this date was 27.7k and 37.2 for the total sale price.

Anyway, of course, he started not making payments in 2004 and 2005 and not telling me this. I found out when the bank sent me a letter that payments were 60 days late. At the time we lived together and I was notified. I paid these immediately after being notified and scolded him not to do this again as it was leaving negative marks on my credit report. He was paying for a few years until recently the credit union actually called me in May 2008 asking for March and April’s payments. At this time, I am out of college and working but living paycheck to paycheck as many Americans now are. I can only afford to pay for my “own” financial obligations and cannot pay on his car anymore. (I only did this 3 times or so the payment was so high and I have been eternally broke since college paying my own way through).

We have been broken up now for 4 or 5 years now and have not lived together since. I did call him and ask why he had not paid for March or April and not told me. He told me that he gave the keys to the car to the bank in late April and intended not to pay anymore. I called the bank to verify this and they told me that they had not received the vehicle. At first I tried to negotiate a settlement but they said they could not do a settlement without the car because they need to sell the car then have it go to the recovery department. I told the bank they could repossess the car (which I didn’t know they needed my permission to just say so! I found this out by fluke). I did not know much of his whereabouts just his mailing address that they already had and his cell phone number. I called the bank a week later and it had been repossessed. I gave her my address so she could send me the letter of notice to sell the repo. It went to his address but not mine so I called to clarify that we had not lived together for 5 years and to mail any future correspondence to my current address.

A week letter I receive a letter with new amount owed after selling the repo. As of May 2008 the remaining balance was 15.7k and they say the sale of the vehicle resulted in proceeds totaling $2k for a remaining deficient balance of $9441.86. My credit report is showing this as a charge-off as bad debt in May 2008. Still being unable to pay I let the bank know that I could not pay it. By luck, the ex called to let me know that he received a summons to go to court about this and that my name was also on the letter and that I should go too. I asked him to send me a copy of the letter so I could have more detail but he never did. Therefore, frightened that I would miss a court date I called the bank to ask them to send me the info.

I was pretty upset because what if the ex never called me and assumed I also received the letter? They were not keeping me in the loop and finding out from the ex is not the most reliable info. They would have thought I did not show up to court on purpose when in fact I never knew I needed to. When I called, at this point, they said it was now with a collection agency and I needed to call them. I called the agency and it was like pulling teeth to figure out whether I needed to show in court or not. I asked them to send a copy of the letter. They admitted they sent the letter only to his address and not mine. I gave them my info. I received the notification that they are representing the credit union to collect the debt from me and that I can dispute the amount in 30 days.

The letter was dated Oct 29, 2008 so I still have time to respond if need be. But I don’t think I need to dispute the debt it is real. Should I send a response letter that I have received their communication but cannot pay? Or is this detrimental and maybe I should just not respond? Guess I just need to wait and see if I really do need to go to court? They told me that I was not being summoned at all just him and my name was just on the letter he received since I am the cosigner. Turns out he never showed up in court either. Not sure what his plans are. I don’t know what I can really do here. Do I just sit and wait to be summoned? They said they will try to collect from him first but this whole situation is just stressing me out. I don’t want to have to file bankruptcy over this or go to court for that matter.

Thoughts? Comments? Thanks for even taking the time to read this. Any words of wisdom are truly, truly appreciated.

Debt Prison response…

Wow Cosigner,

I had to break your comment up into sections to more easily read it. So let’s see if I’ve got it. Old debt on a jeep, repo, left over debt from sale of jeep and previous balance on the loan…
You are cosigner.

As a cosigner you are obligated to see that this debt is satisfied or your credit report will suffer. Thats why we have co-signers… to help others ruin our credit…. Just kidding…

In this case your credit is on the line. You’ve been doing an excellent job of trying to stay in the loop. You should. I would go to court as though my ex bf didn’t exist. I would talk to the judge about the circumstances… the one’s that you’ve briefed me on above.. Then try and cooperate with the court. But place as much pressure on ex bf to satisfy the debt as possible. In fact the court should place the blame on the ex and try and work with him mostly… let’s hope.. however, you are responsible for this debt.. as much as him.

The court will understand that you are in the middle of this situation without having caused it… so they’ll likely look kindly on you… the problem is your credit report. I honestly don’t know how this will play out on your credit file. Perhaps you will come back and let me know later on (thanks in advance!!) But to get to my overall point.. go to court and participate as much as required. Remember it’s your credit on the line…

Hi Debt Prison,

I was 19 when I got my loan with a co signer my friends dad, it was a 20000$ dollar commercial loan we did not put anything down but I made payments as much as I could then I wasn’t able to make payments due to financial reasons and my friends dad is tired of having to make payments and so I was wondering if I am not able to make the monthly payments what should I do..cause monthly payment is 700 $ month and I only make 750 a month from which I have to pay rent and food and bills so leaves me with like 200 a month which I save but a not able to pay it off ….what should I do?

Debt Prison response… 

Hey Bobby,

In this case the creditor comes after your friends father. That’s the price he has to pay for co-signing – and that’s what co-signers are for, to give the creditor someone else to chase after for a payment. This is what I would do; I would pay my friends dad what I could each month, and keep a tally of what I owe him. Then as the years go by I would repay the man until I had paid back all that I owed him plus more.

Your other options are:

Sell something to generate cash

Earn more money each month

Discuss this article and share ideas at Debt Prison Forums.

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* Completely Insane Motorcycle Financing

I buy all of my work clothes and many of my ‘going out’ clothes at clothing salvage stores.  This is because some clothing salvage stores carry new merchandise which is almost always in perfect condition.  My wife and I went shopping recently at ‘Dirt Cheap’ in Lumberton, MS and found shirts for $1.00 and jeans for $7.00.  And I’m talking brand name clothing here…. not some junk manufactured for the dollar store.  I was about to check out with two pairs of Levi’s in my hand when a cashier announced over the intercom that the registers were closed due to a computer failure.  Alas, I would have to return another day.

Around Hattiesburg there is a company called Hudson’s Salvage Center.  They operate a handful of Hudson’s and Dirt Cheap stores around the southern Mississippi area.  Since they’ve been in this business for a couple of decades they’ve turned salvage retail into a huge business.  They buy salvage items from around the country for say 10%… and then resell for 60% and often less.  For example, an Academy Sports store in Galveston, TX (wiped out by Hurricane Ike) sold Hudsons truckloads of merchandise from their warehouse. The merchandise was damaged from the Hurricane.  Though much of it was still unspoiled, the insurance company pays 100% for the claim.  The ‘damaged’ merchandise is then sold in bulk to companies like Hudsons.  Hudsons will then filter through the merchandise, tag it for resell, and then place it on the retail floor.

In most towns you can find salvage centers like these as well as wholesale and liquidation stores.  There are also many stores which sell used merchandise. Nearly everywhere I’ve been you can find a Salvation Army Store or even a Goodwill.  These stores often sell used merchandise that was donated to the store.  Though these clothes may not be new, many of them appear to be.  And they can work out great if you need clothing for working outdoors (like me) or performing chores around the house.

I’ve just finished the third repair on my clothes dryer in the last seven years.  I bought this dryer used in 1995.  It was probably about ten years old at that time, so it’s around twenty three years old now.  I try to save money everywhere I can so when the dryer broke again I decided to pull out my maintenance hat once more.  It’s not the best looking appliance in the house but it still works good. 

A dryer is not a complicated piece of machinery.  There’s only a few important parts that normally break over the years.  So far on my dryer the parts that I’ve personally replaced are the heating element, broken door switch, and the belt that spins the basket.

About seven years ago the heating element went out.  The dryer would still come on and the basket would spin but the clothes didn’t heat up.  So, for the first time in my life I decided to find a heating element and replace it.  It wasn’t too hard to find (it’s the shiny long thing on the right).  I believe the heating element was around $35 at that time and took me about thirty mintues to replace.  Now the picture below is what the backside of the dyer looks like when the access panel is removed.

Before I started working on the dryer I took a shop vac and vacuumed out the inch thick lint layer which was resting peacefully along the bottom.  It’s amazing what you can find inside a dryer.  There was money in there, jewelry, and even a pair of thongs from the dark ages…

My old room mate slammed the door on the dryer about four years ago, breaking the tiny plastic latch which holds the door shut.  The dryer would only come on if the door was kept closed.  Well it seemed to me that a door latch would work just as well, besides I had one handy.

About a month ago the belt on the dryer broke.  The dryer would still come on and would still warm up but the basket couldn’t spin.  This was the hardest repair to do because you had to take the front off the dryer.  Then the basket had to be supported while the new belt was installed.  The belt had to be carefully placed into position on the pulley and motor assembly.

Once finished this repair took about an hour and a half in all.  Now if I had bought a new dryer everytime something broke I would have spent at least $250 in the last seven years.  The belt only cost me $17 and now there’s another repair at which I’m a first class professional maintenance man.

Discuss this article, share ideas, and meet new people at Debt Prison Forums.

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* How to Cheaply Buy a Used Car

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* Unearthed – Why Funerals Are so Expensive

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* Completely Insane Motorcycle Financing

Sometimes I feel like my life is going nowhere financially.  It’s hard to think about being in Debt Prison and not end up with a sad feeling in the pit of your stomach.  Usually I just don’t think about it.  Rather than be depressed I just focus on my work, focus on my budget, and just keep barreling forward.  The days turn into months and the months into years.  It will be over soon enough….I keep telling myself.  The best way to keep debt from beating you down is to turn it into a positive life experience.  I know that I have to suffer for the stupid mistakes I’ve made.  That’s called consequences.  By accepting the penalties that a lifestyle of reckless spending has produced, I know that I’ll be a much better person if I pay my dues. 

**Disclaimer – Debtprison.net does not administer legal or financial advice. The contents of this website are my opinions on collection agencies and how to deal with them. Nothing on this website should be interpreted as legal advice or council. No opinions on this website should be used to replace the advice of your financial advisor or your legal council.

Try and embrace this struggle as an accomplishment

Now I realize that a pile of bills may not look like an accomplishment.  But keep this in mind.  If you continue to struggle and pay off your debts in full, you will never be the same.  Your life will have changed and you will be a better person at the end of this ordeal.  You must understand that once this burden is behind you, that other part of you that was so irresponsible with money – will be dead and buried.  That is truly a wonderful thing.  Is it not?  We must bear in mind that this struggle will end one day, and when it does our lives are going to be magnificent. 

It’s sort of like going to college.  I got up early each day and drove to campus.  I attended each class, sat in the front row, and took lots of notes.  After class I would go to work and attempt to put in around thirty hours each week.  Nights I would often study.  The months turned into years.  Then one day I came home from work, took a look on the porch, and there sat a large envelope from USPS.  I opened the envelope to find my Bachelor of Science degree.  This was an emotional experience for me because my senior year was a real struggle.  I needed at least a C in General Physiology and didn’t know if I’d achieved it.  After all, they let you walk before the grades come out.  When I saw that degree, a knot came up in my throat and a tear to my eye.  I raised my fists and shook them at the sky.  I plan on doing the same thing when all my debt is gone.  The difference between a debt education and a college education, is that you pay for the debt education up front.  The education comes later.  But both of these change us, for each of these has its own rewards.  Let us focus on the rewards…

How I make it day to day

The truth is that I don’t go shopping anymore for clothing.  If I have to buy some jeans for work I stop off at the salvage store and dig around.  I rarely go out to eat and refuse to spend money on just about everything.  This can be quite a depressing environment to live in daily.  I avoid this depression by keeping my mind busy.  I simply just keep my mind off of my debt.  Just like right now.  I’m writing a blog post (which is extremely therapeutic) to help me release my thoughts, energy, and emotion.  I work forty to fifty hours a week on a job where I set the pace.  And since my pace is a ‘busy’ one, my mind stays occupied all day long.  Writing has become my most intimate hobby.  In front of this laptop is now my preferred sanctuary – aside from work of course. 

 It also helps that all my debt is up to date.  So there are no random computers and collectors calling my phone all throughout the day.  That makes a big difference.  The only time that I become aware of my debt is on Sundays when I open Microsoft Money and input my receipts to reconcile.  This new lifestyle of no spending has now become part of my nature.  Just as a college education morphs you into a broader thinker, a frugal mindset is naturally the product of avoiding the negative repercussions of senseless spending. 

I’ve learned to focus on what I do have.  I have so much to be thankful for.  Don’t we all?  Two days ago I was working in a very rural area about ten miles east of Quitman, MS.  I had parked my company truck in a small church parking lot and unloaded my four-wheeler to do some inspection for the local utility.  Coming from down the street I heard the sound of a small electric motor.  It was an elderly black man who was nearly immobile, the sound was coming from his electric powered wheel chair.  He had heard my truck stop at the church so he came up to check things out.  “I’m just being nosey” he said.  He was wearing a glove with a fork velcroed to it so that he could eat.  This man couldn’t walk or stand and could barely move his arms.  We had a nice visit for about twenty minutes, just talking about the weather, work, and women.  Later, as I passed him on the street, I wondered how quickly he would be willing to trade places with me – even with all this horrible debt.  It’s times like these when I know to pick myself up.  “Hold your head up” I tell myself, “You have a great life.”  And that’s what all of us enslaved to debt must do, keep our heads up. 

Fight depression with action

Earlier I spoke of keeping my mind busy by working all day and writing in the evenings.  When I used to manage large numbers of people there would be times when I would become very agitated and stressed because of the conduct of my employees or customers.  What I learned was that in order to combat my own stress and depression, I needed to tackle problems head on by taking action.  If there was an employee that was causing problems, I learned to immediately call that person aside and take corrective action.  As soon as the conversation was over I felt like a new person.  It was as though a weight had been lifted.  

It’s the same way with our debts.  Instead of focusing your energy on your debts, focus your energy on what you can do right now to erase this problem from your life.  Taking action gives you a purpose.  Rather than focusing on a problem, you are now focusing on the solution.  It’s like giving yourself a mission to accomplish.  It’s been said that an idle mind is the devils workshop.  We don’t want our minds to be idle – not while there are debts to be paid.  For example, you may decide that you need to earn more money by getting a new job.  So instead of feeling sorry for yourself, you sit down at the computer and scroll through job listings on monster.com listed in your city.  That seems like more fun doesn’t it?  When I first decided to take ‘Long Debt Road’ I had just quit my job.  Paying back my debts in full wasn’t the only decision I made that weekend.  I was unhappy.  The job I had was driving me crazy and I think that somehow drove me to spend money – even money that I had to borrow.  I decided that part of my debt recovery would involve getting a new job immediately. 

The first part of my adult life I spent in fear.  What if I go to a party and get embarrassed in front of people I don’t know?  What if I lose my job, what would happen?  I decided to stop living in fear.  Tomorrow if my boss called and said “Hey Barry, we just don’t need you anymore!”  It wouldn’t faze me because I’ve learned to welcome these challenges.  Often challenges such as these, force you to look inside yourself and take chances.  By doing so you learn to have trust in yourself and your talents.  But most importantly you learn that fear never makes our lives better.  Let us take action and welcome the new day.

If possible avoid taking medication

More than ever Americans are turning to drugs to ‘cope’ with the stresses of life and debt management.  Medicating your way into tranquility may feel nice, but there are always more consequences.  Talking about this reminds me of something Bill Maher said on his HBO show.  He was talking about people taking drugs for stress and said (paraphrasing) “Have you ever seen a squirrel trying to eat.  He’s eating and jumping around, looking quickly everywhere, expecting any second for something to come along and bite him in the ass!  But that’s life folks, it’s stressful!”  This is true.  There’s just a certain amount of stress that goes along with being alive and existing on planet earth.  The reason I believe turning to medicine is a last resort is because of side effects.  For every drug that induces a reaction – there will be an equal and opposite reaction.  This opposite reaction will be displayed differently in different people, but it will be there nonetheless.  Personally, the side effects often create a circumstance worse than my previous condition.  For that reason I’ve tried very hard at tailoring my lifestyle in such a way that stress and depression are minimized. 

I hope these ideas will help some of you out there that are struggling with your debts.  I know it’s hard.  But anyone in life that produces great things does so after a lot of hard work and struggle.  Albert Einstein said that his scientific genius was “98% perspiration and 2% inspiration.”  We should expect nothing less.  Great accomplishments require remarkable drive from our talents and energy.  But let us learn from our mistakes.  Let’s focus on the actions necessary to pound our debts into the dirt.  Then we can walk the earth again as free men and women shaking our fists at the sky and saying “Go forth and be debt free!” 

Discuss this article, share ideas, and meet new people at Debt Prison Forums.

Related Articles

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I’ve used Wordpress for about 6 months now and thought I would share my experience with SEO, duplicate content, google adsense, google analytics, and partial vs. full feeds.  Six months ago I was not what you would call web savvy. In fact, many bloggers would probably still claim as much about my blog.  I had no earthly idea what Wordpress even was until I activated it on my domain.  It was there the whole time, just waiting for someone to turn it on.  Well finally I decided to start writing and thought maybe this Wordpress thingy would help.  That was hundreds of blog hours ago.  Although my main focus has always been content, I’ve worked steadily at improving my SEO and reader friendly navigation.  Please allow me to share with you my personal opinions (these ideas are only valid today).  Remember, I have a full time job – outdoors – and my degree in Biology hasn’t endowed me with miracles when it comes to websites.  It’s all OHT, or on the hobby training. 

*Note: Before editing your template files you need to make a copy of the php file and paste it into notepad, not microsoft word.  Just right click inside the template, click on select all, then right click and copy.  Now just paste into notepad and save them (include the date in the name like ’singlepost04.23.2008.txt’.  This way you can always refer back to the original file.  Or you can delete the entire template in progress - and paste the old one back in.

Partial VS Full Feeds 

Let’s start with partial vs. full feeds.  Use the full feeds option.  This allows people using google reader and other feed readers to read a blog post without ever coming to your website.  I know, I know – this seems a little scary but just relax.  First of all, let’s bear in mind that the goal of blogging is to influence other people’s lives with your content – not show them how pretty your site is or look at all the amazing google ads you’ve got on there.  Don’t take my word for it, I’m a small timer – read this from the big timers.  Also, I wouldn’t worry about others ripping off your content.  It’s not that big of a deal, even if they do it just means that someone thinks it’s good enough to reprint somewhere else.  In which case….congratulations.

Duplicate Content 

I’m not sure how much of a problem duplicate content is when google crawls a wordpress blog, but I’ve done a few things which will limit the chances.  First of all, on the main index page I only display an ‘excerpt’ of each article – about 50 words.  This is just enough to give a reader a taste for the actual article and decide if they want to read it.  By providing the ‘excerpt’ the entire post is not displayed and therefore not indexed.  I accomplished this by going to Presentation, Theme Editor, Main Index Template, and changed the following line:

After the line that says ‘div class= entry’ you should see one that says ‘php the post’.  Just change the word post to the word ‘excerpt’. Secondly I edited my category page to only display the titles.  Inside my category.php file I removed the following text:

‘php the content’

 My memory is a little fuzzy on this but I believe that’s what it said before I changed it. This doesn’t allow any of the blog post to be displayed on the category page.  My goal in changing the Main Index Template and the Category Template was to enable readers to scan quickly for titles that interested them.  However, this isn’t even really that important since the majority of my traffic comes from search engines.  But once again it does help to limit duplicate content.

Solving Duplicate Content using robots.txt 

At the top right hand corner of this page you’ll see the ‘Email this Post’ link.  This will enable a pop up window so you can email this article.  I’ve read that this ‘email the post plugin’ generates an entire set of new links related to the pop up.  I will deal with this using the robots.txt file in a moment. There’s also duplicate content if you use the ‘archives’ function.  I removed the archives section from my sidebar because it seems pointless to me.  If a reader has ended up at your site and they want to find info, it seems to me that the main index page, categories links, and google search box is more than adequate.  But just in case the google bot finds it’s way to the ‘archives’ somehow, there is a way to disable it using the robots.txt file as well.

Finally, the RSS feeds can also generate duplicate content.  I’ve decided not to block google bot from finding my feeds because I read that if someone posts your content on another site, google is smart enough to determine which site has the original content by following feeds and comparing it to content on the site.  I’m not sure about this but the guy sounded like he knew what he was talking about so hey…….what’s a guy to do.  Lastly is the trackback content, apparently this needs to be blocked as well so I’m blocking it – at least I think so, according to a couple of various sources I’ve gotten the format correct. So, with the robots.txt file I want to block the ‘email this post’ content, archives content, and the trackback content.  The following text comes courtesy from theguru.

User-Agent: *
Disallow: */trackback*
Disallow: /wp-*
Disallow: /20*
User-Agent: MediaPartners-Google
Allow: /

I’m not sure how relevant the format is, but time will tell.  The wp-* is where the email pop up content is stored. Next the trackbacks are blocked.  Since the archives pages are normally something like /2007/04/ the 20* is supposed to block any url with 2007 or 2008 after the slash.  In the example used by theguru, he uses /20* to block archive pages.  But since I use the ‘id number’ in my permalink structure, articles 200 – 209 wouldn’t get indexed, so I left that out of my robots.txt file.

Google Analytics

I use google analytics to show where my traffic is coming from, but also to show how many hits per url, specific keyword searches, and all sorts of other useful information.  Many of the attributes of analytics I have yet to use.  This has been a learning process for me and I only have time for so much ‘learning’ each week.  The two main functions of analytics that impress me are the ability to show where traffic is coming from, and the ability to show specifically what a person types into a search engine that leads them to your site.  This is useful information.  For example, when someone links to me and thus brings me traffic, I email them and thank them for the link.  This often builds into a nice web referral system for both of us. 

The reason I like to review what readers typed into a search engine is because it gives me ideas for new articles.  If I see a trend of similar searches that come to my site, but I know my content is lacking – I will write an article that satisfies these readers.  This is a great way to build search engine traffic.

Wordpress and SEO

Most importantly I use ‘pretty permalinks’ and downloaded the ‘All-in-one-SEO-Pack’ for Wordpress.  I used to have ugly permalinks – you know the debtprison.net/wordpress/?=42/.  I had to change over to the ‘custom permalink structure’, and I decided to use this one: /%post_id%/%postname%/.  This way I still get the ‘id’ number plus the name is included in the URL.  Having the id number comes in handy when you are setting up a ‘related links’ section or trying to quickly determine where the link you want is located in a list of url’s.  To keep from breaking all my previous links I installed the redirect plugin, which enables readers to find the ‘pretty permalinks’ even if they clicked on one of those ugly ones. 

The all in one seo pack enabled me to easily add specific keywords to the header of individual articles.  It also allows you to set up your titles so that when google displays them in search results it looks like this ‘Wordpress SEO and Google Adsense / Debt Prison.  This was a huge breakthrough for me.  Before I installed this all in one – all of my links were displayed by google as ‘Debt Prison / Blog Archive / Wordpress SEO and Google Adsense’.  Hell, no one could even see the title of the article.  Since I’ve made these two changes my search engine traffic has doubled.  This post has had 25 unique visitors from search engines within 24 hours of publishing, and my page rank is ‘low’ according to google webmaster tools.

Encourage readers to use the comment section at the end of a post.  Here’s why.  As google bot crawls your posts it will include the comments in the post index.  Using google analytics I often go to google and type in the exact phrase that the search engine user did, that brought them to my site.  I do this to see where my site was ranked for certain phrases.  Often the text that google search displays about my site is something from the comments.  This is a way for us to add valuable content and discussion to a post by letting our readers perform the work.  Often when I read a post about implementing a plugin or using ads, I read the comments.  So many times the comment section of a post will have content more valuable than the actual post.  So encorage readers to add their comments.  I would like for you to add comments to the bottom of this post.  Tell me what you like or dislike about the changes I’ve made and give me some of your best ideas for Wordpress.  Thanks!

I try and respond to comments very quickly.  My average response time is probably two hours and I think this helps alot when it comes to reader retention.  First of all, I think readers are pleasantly surprised when a website administrator responds to their comments.  Even more so if the response is fast.  But this also encourages more readers to leave comments because they feel confident that you will give them your opinion – and quickly.  So more comments leads to more comments.

Having made the above important changes to my blog set up, something should be said about content.  Once you get your blog in good shape for search engines, you should focus all of your attention on providing valuable, unique content.  By writing useful information that is both value rich and unique, you increase your chances of other websites linking to yours.  This is how you dramatically increase your search engine traffic.  The number of ‘highly ranked’ websites that point to yours, is the difference in 500 hits per day and 50,000.  It’s just that important.  So once you get the title layout, tags, keywords, and all that jazz squared away…..focus on content. 

Before publishing a post, copy and paste it from the view screen into microsoft word.  Use word to check for spelling and grammatical errors.  Having misspelled words is extremely negative.  Think of this from a readers perspective.  You are either too dumb or in too much of hurry to write correctly.  This perception obviously bleeds over into the content.  Readers are likely to decide that perhaps your content is also dumb or hastily thrown together.  In which case they are more apt to leave your site and search out more thoughtful material.

Google Adsense

There’s a lot of good articles out there about google adsense and wordpress.  First of all, about one hour ago I read a comment from a reader that said something like “When I see ads on a blog I immediately leave, because I know the content is no good.”  Well……I’ve heard all of that before and – I think it’s about the stupidest thing that’s ever came out of anyone’s mouth.  I’ve seen people complain on digg.com because someone posted an article from their blog……..and their blog had ads on it and they were like “You’re just using digg to make money from ads” and immediately someone posted “Yeah just like digg is doing – placing ads on their site to make money……moron!!!”  To all of these folks I just have to say “Get over yourself already…….”  If you have a problem with advertising then no problem, just leave!  I suppose these same people don’t watch CNN, or Fox News, or MSNBC, or any other news program because every ten minutes or so they have one of those damn commercials.  Ahhhhhh, just more silly self righteous attitudes from silly people.  Ignore them.  I’ll stop using ads when they stop paying.  Besides, providing your readers with additional opportunities to obtain useful information from their visit to your blog is a good thing.

Google’s best profit ad is the large rectangle, with a white background and no border.  If your article is short, place ads near the beginning.  If the article is long, place ads near the end.  I have all but one of my ads built into the php so I don’t have to add them to each individual post.  Only at the end of the post do I change the type of ad.  It just depends on the look and feel of the post. 

Until recently I only had three ads on a page.  A small image ad banner at the top of the article.  And then a small banner text ad in the beginning, and at the end.  Two weeks ago I added the wide skyscraper to the sidebar on the left.  I replaced the image banner ad at the top with a ‘links’ ad.  *NOTE, I’ve already removed the text link ad from the top of my posts.  I didn’t like the way it looked when viewed with Firefox instead of Explorer.  I’m going to place a text ad in the middle somewhere. This ad looks a lot like a menu bar and I made the text blue to match the other links on my pages. I also added the medium rectangle text ad to the beginning of each post.  I’ve definitely seen improvements in my revenue.  When I first started blogging I said that I didn’t want to be one of those web pages with a bunch of ads surrounding the article.  Now I have a bunch of ads surrounding my articles, at least at the beginning.  Personally, I think it makes my articles look a lot more professional because of all the relevant links on the page. 

Google has a policy about blocking any more than three ads on one page.  But there is a way to get more than three ads on a page.  I discovered this when I placed the link menu at the top of my articles.  I was able to have a links ad at the top, a square at the beginning, a text/image link banner at the end, and the wide skyscraper on the left.  Inside the single post template I put the links ad above the title of the post.  I’m not sure why exactly this works but it does.

Yes, I’m one of those evil bloggers who wants to blog and get paid.  But seriously, bear in mind that the content is free.  I call these proximity dollar links.  I brought the links within my readers’ proximity and they clicked on them.  Everybody wins, even those self righteous elitists who’ve already left…..

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