September means quite a few things to me this year. My wife’s birthday is in just a few weeks. I’ve been living in Japan for a full month, now. And I was lucky enough to win my first contest … ever.
Darin wanted to substantially increase his comments before September 1 on his great Search Engine Marketing site. To speed the process a bit, he decided to offer cash to the person who wrote the x00th comment. In my case, I was commenter 700, which was good for a cash prize of $70.
Thanks for hosting the contest, Darin! I know precicely what to do with this money, too. Because my Reiko will be celebrating a nice round numbered birthday, I’ve been searching high and low for the perfect gift. I knew exactly what I wanted to get her but, considering how I’ve been unemployed for the last six weeks (which will soon be rectified), I’ve been a little short on cash. With this little boost, I’ll be sure to get Reiko a gift that she can enjoy for many years to come 
If you haven’t been to Darin’s site, he provides some great tips on SEO and SEM. His three SEO tips are incredibly well written and should be read by anyone that wants to get more traffic through Google, Yahoo and other search engines. After applying some of his suggestions to this site, I noticed a traffic increase of 20% within a month and it continues to grow still.
Thank you, Darin, for hosting the contest. The prize money will be well spent 
Now … time to head over to amazon.co.jp ….