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It may never happen to you but it can be devastating when it does. Through no fault of your own, you have to lay-over in a strange city. You might think you can walk to the hotel board and simply reserve a cheap room near the airport for $50-$75, catch tomorrow's flight and all is well.

Excepting that all the airport hotels are sold out. Or they are asking $225.00 for one of the few available rooms. This happens and much more often than you might think, especially lately. I know - I work for an airport hotel!

You could of course sleep on the floor near the check in counter. You could drive home and return the next day unless home is four to five hours away. Neither are particularly appealing options. But neither is spending over $250 for one night when you wanted to spend that money in Hawaii.

You may feel you have no options in finding a cheaper room. But here are just a few to ponder before you curl up next to Gate 18.

Go to Traveler's Aid and if still staffed, they know hotels to call that may take you because of their prior relationship.

If nothing is available this way, see if they have a phone directory (or find your own at a pay phone) and look up smaller hotels near the airport that are NOT on the hotel board. They will NOT have a shuttle but are perhaps not sold out yet and will charge much more reasonable rates.

If still nothing develops, ask the Aid's staff what hotels are outside the immediate airport area. Since they live in the area, they are familiar with nearby options. Find a hotel 5-10 miles from the airport and call them. A $35 cab ride combined with a $75.00 room is still better than $225.00 plus tax!

There are several other options to consider but these few may just find you a room when no one else can.

David C. Reynolds is a longtime veteran of the Hotel business who has seen a drastic change in the hotel environment once the Internet became a fixture. He offers common sense, money saving advice about how to find rooms, booking hotels as cheap as possible, travel and ground transportation tips, understanding reviews and occasional destination 'specials'. His blog can be viewed at http://www.bookhotelscheaper.com

If it was really easy, the latest version of my AdSense Secrets book would run to a lot less than 200 pages of strategies and ideas!

Ive just been thinking about one of the techniques that Ive seen people use, and Im wondering how it could be done better. The idea is that when a user reaches a Web page, the first thing hes going to look at are the images. Hell ignore the images on banner ads because theyre so familiar, but any other kind of picture will attract the eye right away.

Only after hes finished soaking up the pics will a user start to read the content.

So if you put a picture next to your ad units, youll draw the user right to your ads.

Thats the theory and I think it works... provided the picture is right.

The problem is that whatever image you use is never going to relate directly to the ad. Unless youre prepared to change the image every time Google changes the ad, theres always going to some sort of disconnect.

That means youve got two choices: you can either go for an image thats got little to do with the sort of ads youre going to get but which looks attractive anyway; or you can go for an image that links with the theme of your site so that theres always some sort of connection to the ads youre getting, even if the image doesnt exactly illustrate them.

For example, you could have a nicely designed floral border at the top of your page and draw one of the leaves down to where the ads are. The users eye would follow the line of the flowers to the ads. Or if you had a site about surfing for example, you could put a picture of a surfboard or a wave next to the ad. Most of your ads would be about surfing so they could be seen as an illustrating the ads.

Which one of these methods would work better? I think it depends on the site and the sorts of ads it gets. Putting a picture of a product next to ads about products could work very well, I think. A more general image might be better for sites that get more general ads though.

Joel Comm is The Internet Revenue Expert. Online for over 20 years, Joel teaches people how to make money in the digital age. The recognized authority on Google AdSense, Joel teaches how to multiply your AdSense income at The AdSense Code. To ask Joel Comm a question about making money online, visit http://www.AskJoelComm.com Joel invites you to download a free copy of The Internet Money Tree at http://www.internetmoneytree.net