It’s still three weeks until the NFL season officially kicks off, but already fervent anticipation has overtaken the Kontera network. Since the first preseason game on August 8^th, the popularity of football related keywords on Kontera has skyrocketed, a trend that can only continue as the regular season draws closer.

Many of the NFL keywords generating ad clicks so far have been related to Fantasy Football, such as NFL Fantasy, Fantasy Football, and NFL draft 2010. Also extremely effective has been the video game Madden NFL and the term Monday Night Football, referring to the number one rated cable franchise.

Among players and coaches, the names triggering the most ad clicks, corresponds pretty directly to the headlines of on ESPN. Brett Favre, with his Hamleteque indecision over whether or not to retire has been the most clicked keyword player, followed by suspended Ben Roethlisberger, holdout Darrelle Revis, nose tackle Albert Haynesworth, and Peyton Manning.

Mike Shanahan of the retooled Washington Redskins generated the most In-Text ad clicks among coaches, followed by the divisive Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots, and Dallas coach Wade Phillips.

Looking at the numbers,  there’s no question that football is more popular than ever this year, with Footbal related content is a sure touchdown for our publishers!

As the NFL will be taking up the next five months of our collective lives, NFL phrases are projected to remain among the Kontera network’s top performing keywords, benefitting relevant publishers and delivering insatiable football fans even more of their favorite sport.

In the past, we discussed several optimization tips for websites running Kontera In-Text ads – from link color and its affect on CTR, controlling the way ads appear on your pages, opening ads in a new window, adding sites, and more.

Another popular tool you could use to maximize Kontera results on your website sits comfortably right in your Publisher Center. Yes, we’re talking about the Keyword Report and URL Report found under the “Reports” tab in your Admin console. When was the last time you used them?

With these two reports you can gain more granular visibility and better insight into how your content is performing with Kontera In-Text ads.

• The Keyword Report displays the top keyword phrases that our In-Text Engine selected to highlight on your pages – and the percentage of clicks that these keywords received.
• The URL Report shows which pages from within your site are generating the most clicks.

By examining these two reports, you can figure out which topics of interest and keywords are working best for you on the Kontera network. Best of all, this high-performing content is around topics that:

1. You already enjoy writing about
2. Your readers already enjoy reading, and interacting with the In-Text ads displayed within this content.

You can use this insight to decide which topics to expand on in the future – balancing content guidelines and end-users preferences with site monetization.

The Key is Balance. So Don’t Forget:

1. Our algorithm is always evolving- “learning” your content, and highlighting new keyword phrases to match your users’ intent with the current ad inventory and advertisers preferences. So don’t get too “stuck up” on a certain topic or overuse a certain keyword. We wouldn’t want to bore your readers…
2. And Keep Writing, Writing, Writing… In a time when the internet can deliver every bell and whistle imaginable, there’s still nothing more important than providing quality content.  That’s the only way to attract new visitors and retain them.

Search engines put a high premium on sites that can consistently deliver new content, making it essential for Publishers who want to be successful to constantly update their sites. Additionally, Kontera In-Text technology requires Content-rich sites for us to analyze and display ads on. So the more pages you have with quality text, the more places you’ll have Kontera ads on – so that your revenue grows as you become a more prolific writer!

In the week surrounding the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, it looks like Kontera publishers were getting green from going green!

We’ve been compiling the data, and were pleasantly surprised to find just how many of the network’s top keywords around April 22 were related to environmentally friendly topics.

Apart from Earth Day, environment, and environmental; high performing keywords included such eco-sensitive topics as energy, global warming, and fuel alternatives. Many visitors on the Kontera network were also keeping up to date with the state of the Earth’s atmosphere, recent scientific findings, environmental studies and statistics.

It seems our publishers are looking for ways to conserve the environment and save on pollution and energy costs on all areas of modern life: from gas-efficiency in automotive and transportation, to eco-friendly clothing in Apparel & Beauty, Earth-friendly detergent in the Home&Garden category, and eco-conscious companies in Business.

And to paraphrase Dr. Seuss’ character the Lorax – there was a lot of speaking for the trees! Keywords such as trees, rainforest and the closer-to-home garden and plant showed particularly deep roots, generating user interests and clicks. Even glacier was an elite keyword, an impressive feat without one of those Ice Age movies in theaters!

While Earth Day may come once a year, on the Kontera network it clearly shows that environmental issues are, to pardon the pun, an evergreen, with geo-friendly keywords trending upward – hopefully indicative of a better planet for us all!

Whether you watched it or not, the 2010 Oscars came and left and needless to say, they did so in style.  We wanted to take a minute to share the top clicked keywords relating to entertainment on the Kontera network – with our very own red carpet spin.

Fashion-forward phrases like gowns, haircuts, red carpets, glamor, and celebrity styles were hot on the network, as publishers were busy critiquing and posting about how the celebs were clothed and made up in preparation for the big event.

Some favorite actresses like Scarlett Johansson and Mischa Barton generated the most amount of interest on our network, and movie keywords such as anime and comedy have been extremely popular film genres among users.  Movie wise; oldies still prevail as Speed and Titanic are still amongst the favorites (and Sandra Bullock even went home with a statue!), alongside the more recent critically acclaimed “The Hurt Locker” and Cameron’s Avatar hype.

Lastly, in preparation for the Academy Awards, publishers were writing and readers were catching up on 3D movies (specifically UP by Disney-Pixar which took the Oscar for best animated film), home theatre systems, decorating tips, and quick and easy appetizers in preparation for their Oscar viewing get togethers. Be sure to stay tuned to our Top Clicked Keywords Posts to keep up with what’s hot and clickable on our network.

You’ve eaten too much…and we know this based on our networks top clicked keywords for the holiday season.

It’s no secret that the holidays were in full force, with words like recipe, meal plan, menu, filling our dinner tables, bellies, and manifesting themselves right on our computer monitors.  With Rachel Ray, surpassing all other big names, it seems we even like our celebs to be all about the food.

Fitness, running , and workout plans are on the top of the list to try to cancel out the excessive eating.  And as we all know, drinking water and watching your nutrition intake will help jump start your diet.

In addition to eating and exercising, we can clearly see that people were traveling in style this holiday season with our travel segment of keywords getting quite a bit of attention.  Looks like chartered yachts, planes, trains, and trails were popular means to arrive at your dream destination–anything from the beach, national parks, campgrounds, hotels, hiking, and luxury cruises.

We will keep you posted on 2010′s top keywords, but with everyone back to their full productivity, be sure to focus on blackberry, iphone, and applications as these are winner keywords from what we’ve seen so far this month.