Taking a look at top clicked keywords is lots of fun, trying to figure out what exactly made one term turn popular over night sometimes feels like playing detective. So, with no further ado, here are some of Kontera’s top clicked keywords over the last week.

In Sports, “boxing” and “Oscar De La Hoya” get a lot of attention following the latter’s recent loss to Manny Pacquiao. Other popular keywords in this category are “college football” and “cricket.” With regards to “cricket” it’s interesting to note that it now correlates with a top clicked term from the News category, “Mumbai.”  This happens as England’s Cricket Team is preparing to return to India for the Test Series, and its players have announced they’ll donate half their match fees to the victims of the Mumbai terror attack.

In the Entertainment category several celebrities are getting a lot of click-love. “Michael Caine” recently revealed the real ending of The Italian Job on the eve of the film’s 40th anniversary. Guess that playing Alfred in The Dark Knight, adds more interest in light of the upcoming Academy Awards. “Jennifer Aniston” now promotes her soon to be released new film, and her personal life always draws a lot of attention.

The implications of the economic situation are also reflected, as Keywords relating to the “Employment” category are getting more clicks than before. On a happier note, Christmas spirit is already here, with most top clicked Keywords in the Holidays & Special Occasions category directly related to the most wonderful time of the year (we’ll tell you more about this in a special Christmas report).

Where will you be spending your Christmas vacation?
Well, if Travel category keywords are any indication, many of us are thinking about a “ski vacation…”

The “Top Clicked Keywords” post series is aimed at providing you additional information about the top performing keywords in our network.  For previous posts visit our Top Clicked Keywords Category.

Knowledge is power;)  This is what makes tools like Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools so useful and so popular. The general idea is that the more you know about your site’s user-behavior and visitor interests, the higher your chances of meeting the needs of those visitors.  In this sense, the information you are able to accumulate will serve your monetization efforts and contribute to your overall success.

Gaining a better understanding of your site’s metrics is a key factor in making the most out of Kontera’s PPC advertising. Kontera publishers already benefit from several useful reporting options such as the URL and Keyword reports. Today we’re excited to introduce the latest addition to the Kontera Publisher Center – the Reporting Channels.

What Are Channels and How Can I Use them?

The Channels feature offers a deeper level of analysis than that provided by overall reports. This new feature enables you to create individual reporting for a combination of pages or sections of your website and track and compare performance to that of other sections. By creating and employing Channels you’ll get comprehensive reporting for each section of your website and gain a better understanding of where your clicks are coming from.

How Do I Create Channels?

A few simple steps to follow:

1. Contact us via the “Help Tab” in the Kontera Publisher Center and request to enable “Channels.” You’ll be notified via email that the feature has been activated on your account.
2. Login to your account and select the “ContentLink Setup” tab. Follow the “Create Tag” link and then click on the “Create Channel” Button.



A new field will open. Fill in the Channel name and click on the “Submit Channel” button.



3. The system will now create your modified tag to include an additional line of code specifying its channel ID.



4. Copy and paste this new tag on all the pages you’d like associated with this particular channel.
   Be sure to replace your current Kontera tag with the modified tag on all the channel’s pages.

That’s it! Your Channels have been set.

To view all the channels you’ve created, select the “ContentLink Setup” tab and follow the “Channel” Link.

Now after all this, you’re probably interested in viewing your Channels reports…Simply select the “Reports” tab and click on the “Channel Detailed Report” link.

We hope you’ll find the Channels features useful and look forward to receiving your feedback.

Become a Kontera Publisher

Read Garry Conn’s post about the new Kontera Channels

Kontera’s WP plugin for version 2.6 has been updated and is ready for your download.  Updates for WP 2.7 will soon begin as well

Read about the plugin’s features and capabilities here.
Here’s how you set it up:

1. Unzip the plugin file to your local hard drive.
2. Copy the Kontera folder to your blog’s WordPress content/plugins directory.
3. On your WordPress administration pages, navigate to Plugins
4. Click Activate next to the Kontera ContentLink plugin entry.
5. Navigate to the Options page and choose the newly created submenu Kontera Settings.

In the top field, enter your publisher ID number. This is your personal ID which appears on your ContentLink tag:

Make your selections- try the different capabilities the Kontera-WordPress plugin offers and see what works best for your blog.

Download Kontera- WordPress Plugin for WP 2.6

To be a successful marketer, one must know how to move with the trend, change with the current fashion. A quick look at the most clicked keywords of any week reveals all sorts of interesting facts on what’s popular these days and where public attention is turned.

As promised, we are delivering the next in a keyword report series:

Not surprisingly, matters of finance and politics are now winning more clicks than at any other time in the past year (though we cannot show the actual number of clicks, we can definitely show rank).
On another note, Beyonce just turned into an ultra popular keyword and a quick look in Google reveals (to those of us who aren’t so MTV savvy) that her new singles are freshly released.  And of course, “Halloween” is climbing its way to the top, no tricks

As we well know, some keywords never get old.  For example, in apparel beauty, keyword “hairstyle” always remains at the top.  “Free downloads”, of course, always wins a place at top of computing category.

The “Top Clicked Keywords” post series is aimed at providing you additional information about the top performing keywords in our network.  For previous posts visit our Top Clicked Keywords Category.

In a previous post we’ve defined Link Density as “the concentration of ContentLink ads within a publisher’s content; the higher a site’s link density, the more ContentLinks are presented per page.”

Now we’d like to answer the question: What determines a site’s link density?

Generally, it has to do with the amount of text a site has.  ContentLinks, being in-text ads, are a perfect fit for text rich sites.  So the more textual content you have on your site, the more ContentLinks will appear.  Another factor has to do with the topic of a site.  Let’s face it, not all site topics were created equal.  Popularity of topics is interchangeable and may also vary throughout the year, as does the advertisers’ demand of a particular keyword.

To define link density through a more mathematical approach we’ll say the following:  a link density of 10 would mean a maximum of 10 keywords out of 100 words will be highlighted on a page.

Link density can be changed by Kontera’s optimization team.  To change the link density on your site, login to kontera’s Publisher Center and click on the help tab to contact support with your request.

Building a site or a blog is no simple task but maintaining it is no child’s play either… Like in any other professional undertaking, this occupation requires you to learn a whole new language, a set of new definitions.  Unlike any other professional undertaking, the online world is the fastest growing fastest changing industry existing today.  And so to be in touch with it, one has to keep up with the lexicon.  If you’re a website owner/online marketer, you definitely know what I mean.

Taking this into account, we thought it would benefit our partners if we presented a short glossary of basic terms revolving around Kontera and online advertising in general.  We hope to make some aspects of Kontera more accessible through these definitions.

Kontera Online Advertising:

• Pay Per Click Advertising- an advertising model in which Kontera pays publishers according to a pre-determined amount each time a user clicks on an ad; the amount is determined by the advertiser and is known as CPC.

• Contextual Advertising- an advertising model in which advertisements on a site are targeted to users based on the site’s content.  Kontera’s contextual advertising is highly specific as it recognizes the meaning of a particular sentence and matches it to the highest paying ad of the same topic.

• In-Text Advertising- a form of contextual advertising in which ads are served within the content of a site through highlighted keywords.  Kontera’s algorithms analyze content and extract keywords in order to match them to ads.  The ads appear as the user hovers over a highlighted keyword with his mouse.

Revenue Model:

• Revenue Share- the percentage of a click’s revenue which is received by the publisher.

Kontera Metrics:

• Impressions- the number of times a website is loaded by internet users; this is calculated by totaling all loads of all pages within the specified site.

• Net Impressions- the number of times a website is loaded by internet users, calculating only those pages on which at least one ContentLink was present.

• CTR- (Click-Through Rate) the average rate at which a site’s users click on an ad; this is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by net impressions to yield a percentage.

• CPC- (Cost Per Click) the dollar amount that an advertiser offers for a click on a particular ad. CPC isn’t a fixed rate and varies from one advertising campaign to the next according to advertiser’s specifications.

• eCPM- (Effective Cost Per Thousand)- the revenue for each 1,000 net impressions that a publisher’s site generates; a key tool in estimating revenue projections based on impressions.

Kontera Optimization Terms:

• Optimization- the process in which a Kontera team analyzes a site to identify its ideal ContentLink settings for reaching optimal performance and revenue potential. Click to learn some optimization tips.

• Link Density- the concentration of ContentLink ads within a publisher’s content; the higher a site’s link density, the more ContentLinks are presented per page. (e.g., a link density of 10 would mean a maximum of 10 keywords out of 100 words will be highlighted on a page).  Link density is a scale that Kontera’s optimization team can easily control.  Contact support@kontera.com for more details.

• Zone Tags- publisher-initiated Javascript code that specifies which areas of a site Kontera’s algorithm should analyze to generate ContentLinks; not to be used with Filter Tags.

• Filter Tags- publisher-initiated Javascript code that specifies in which areas of a site Kontera’s algorithm should not generate ContentLinks; not to be used with Zone Tags.

• Metrics Fluctuations – Many factors may influence one or more of your metrics and be reflected in your site’s overall performance. Fluctuations may result from changes in your site’s settings, ContentLink attributes, your site’s traffic sources and visitor trends, available relevant campaigns and advertisers’ specifications and more. It’s therefore very important to remember that when you analyze performance you should keep track of all the values above as well as take a look at your site’s stats as reflected in Google Analytics or any other tracking application you may be using.

We hope this helped in gaining a better understanding of Kontera’s advertising and how to analyze your site’s metrics. Stay tuned for an upcoming post on better understanding Kontera through the use of Google analytics.

Do gigantic spreadsheets of stats creep you out? They do me. Kontera analysts on the other hand, love them.

Stats are useful for many reasons; my own favorite use is for the purpose of getting insightful information about Kontera partners. Today, we’ve asked our analysts to gather the information that would answer an essential question: what do Kontera’s top earners have in common?

Here’s what we came up with:

1. Over 55% U.S. Traffic – Online advertisers tend to allocate the majority of their resources to the U.S. market granting it the highest ad spending per internet user. This inclination explains why publishers who experience an increase in their U.S. traffic, will also benefit from increased revenues.
   
2. High percentage of Search Engine Traffic – Search engine traffic is characterized by being more targeted.   If much of the traffic that comes to your site arrives through search engines, chances are that you get focused, targeted users to come through the door.  These users visit a website with an intention to find specific information and are therefore more likely to click on the ContentLink ads you serve.
3. Returning Visitors – Another thing Kontera’s top earners have in common is a high percentage of returning visitors.  You may say, “big news flash! Returning visitors are valuable for my site, duh! didn’t know that…”  Well, there is a news flash regarding ContentLink ads and the visitors on your site.  Returning visitors are already familiar with the Kontera layout, the ads and the information served on your site.  Having experienced the advantages ContentLinks provide, these visitors tend to generate CTR which is higher than that of new visitors.
4. Cross-browser website compatibility –  There’s a variety of browser options available today and the market is always on the move.  With Google ‘s release of Chrome beta, there’s no telling where or how fast things are going… Why limit yourself to one browser?  Your site’s visitors use many.  If you want to maximize your site’s earning potential make sure your site is well supported in all browser and browser versions.

   

5. Content Rich Sites –The more textual content on your pages the better. Kontera top earners all have implemented the Kontera tag on pages that have ample textual content for our algorithm to analyze. However you should note that it’s not only the length of your content that comes into play, but also its quality (Are your pages keyword rich?Is your content fresh and original? Is it SE optimized?).

This is what we found so far through our stats.  Any questions? Suggestions? We’d love to see your comments.

Everyone knows that top clicked Keywords and the current search trends usually go hand in hand. It’s always interesting to see which words get all the attention in a given week. That’s why we’ve decided to publish a series of posts about Kontera’s most clickable keywords.

Of course, the most generic keywords like computer, car, mobile phone, news -are always under the limelight- this is nothing new. But every now and then, we run into some surprises.

Take the Sports niche for example: the word “Basketball” always attracts a massive amount of clicks. However, during the last week it seems like the Beijing Olympic Games and Phelps’ astounding performance have turned the spotlight from the court to the pool. The word “Swimming” has surpassed “Basketball”, but even Phelps can’t beat “Football.”

Check out the table below for some of last week’s top performers. We’ve collected the most interesting categories and maybe you’ll find some tips here…Stay tuned for the next posts in this series.

The “Top Clicked Keywords” post series is aimed at providing you additional information about the top performing keywords in our network.  For previous posts visit our Top Clicked Keywords Category.

Over the past few months we’ve been busy developing and updating different tools to enhance and simplify the use of ContentLink™ ads.

With our new Publisher Center, KnowledgeBase, ContentLink plug-ins and additional customization options, we figured it was high time to tie all these tools together and to remind you of all the great options available to you.

So here are a few useful tips to help you make the most out of your Kontera PPC ads:

• Plugins for quick ContentLink implementation- we’ve simplified the Kontera integration and customization even more. If you’re using Blogger, we have a widget that will distribute our ad code to all your pages in one-click! For WordPress, Joomla or Drupal users, our easy to install plug-ins simplify ContentLink’s integration and customization and provide you with maximum control over the ads’ placement on your site or blog.
• Optimization Tips- many factors influence ContentLinks’ performance on your site or blog – their color, number, density, location on a page and more. Check out the ‘Optimization’ category in the Kontera KnowledgeBase and find out how to customize ContentLinks to best suit your site’s design and content.
• Advanced Reporting- Use the Keyword Report , available through the Publisher Center.  Identify your top performing Keywords, add them to more pages on your site and increase your revenues. Use the URL report in a similar manner, identify your top performing pages and then try to implement their attributes on more of your site’s pages.

And one last useful tip; did you know your SEO efforts can go hand in hand with ContentLink optimization? Find out how

We’d love to hear your feedback on any one of these tools so feel free to leave your comment.

A few weeks back, we told you about the new Kontera-WordPress plugin. We were thrilled to get so many great responses and feedback from you. We promise to keep providing you with more great tools to simplify and enhance the use of ContentLink ads on your blogs.

If you haven’t already tried our new WordPress plugin, there’s no time like the present. We’ve put together a short tutorial to make integration a snap:

Download Plugin for WordPress 2.5
Download Plugin for WordPress 2.0