We are nearing the end of the year, and the fall season is when we traditionally see very strong revenues and some great campaigns across our network.

We want both our large and small publishers to benefit and win as well.

Kontera “Triple Play” — Three new ways for publishers to gain extra revenues between now and the end of the year.

1. Optimize for Revenues – Take Advantage of the biggest ad spending quarter of the year. Increase your revenues by implementing our Tips and Tricks to optimize Kontera across your sites. We provide some proven techniques that will help you maximize your earnings during the end of the year and holiday season.

   Learn More ->

2. MVP Rewards – Tell Us Your Kontera Success, Win a Kindle

   We want to hear from you! We’re always interested to learn more about the publishers in our network, their experience with Kontera In Text ads, and how Kontera is helping them. Send us a link to your post or story about your successes with Kontera and you will be entered to win one of several Amazon Kindles and gift certificates that we are giving away for the best submissions. All Our MVP winners will also be featured in Kontera’s all-star gallery series of blog posts.

   Learn More ->

3. Heavy-Hitters’ Special – If you regularly receive Kontera earnings of more than $1500 per month, then we should talk! Kontera can significantly increase your In Text Advertising earnings for the October through December timeframe. There is no better way to get additional end- of- year revenues. Simply send us an email to support@kontera.com with “Heavy Hitters Bonus” in the subject line, and our team members will follow-up to get you into this exciting program.

The biggest ad spending quarter is here! Increase your revenues by implementing our Tips and Tricks to optimize Kontera across your sites.  Follow these tips and tricks which will help you maximize your earnings during the end of the year and holiday season.

• More Page Views Yield Greater Revenues: Add Kontera tags to all pages and as many sections of your site as possible, to earn maximum revenues.
• Seasonal Relevance Wins: Having interesting content that is relevant for through October-December advertising pay dividends. Keep in mind the type of advertisers that spend during this time of year. For example, a holiday season shopping guide or thoughtful opinions on the latest automotive models will probably yield greater results than planning for next summer’s vacation. Having seasonally relevant and fresh content will increase coverage, CPC, and CTRs resulting in record busting eCPMs.
• Consider Changing Link Color: New color usually makes In Text links more prominent to your users resulting in higher CTRs and greater revenues.
• Use Zone or Filter Tags: Keep our analysis and links targeted to your content and away from outlying areas like headers, sidebars, footers, etc.
• Keep it Clean: Avoid producing content with profanity or sensitive topics as quality brands avoid this type of content and our technology screens the content.
• Revisit Maximum Link Parameters: Limiting links to 1, 2, or 3 per page can hinder CTR and prevent you from monetizing to your sites’ full potential.
• More Sites: The easiest way to make more money is to add more sites to the Kontera program.   If you have more sites then let us know and we will get you additional tags.

We are happy to announce the release of our new Wordpress plugin!
The plugin enables instant integration of Kontera ads to WordPress blogs as well as some great customization features to help change the Kontera settings to match your preferences.

The plugin allows you to:

• Add the Kontera tag to all your pages in one click.
• Determine when ads will begin appearing on new posts- you can choose to block ads for a particular number of days. Feature ads only on posts.
• Feature ads only on comments.
• Easily change your links color.
• Choose to enable or disable Kontera ads from within your post editor.

Download Kontera-WordPress Plugin for WP 2.8

The plugin integration is a snap – here’s how to 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 administrator, select “Plugins”.
   
4. Scroll down to “Inactive Plugins” and Click Activate next to the “Kontera ContentLink” plugin entry.
   
5. Now that your plugin is active, navigate to the sidebar and under the “Settings” menu, click to go to the “Kontera Settings”.
   
6. In the top field, enter your publisher ID number. This is your personal ID which appears on your Kontera tag:
   
7. That’s it! It’s time to experiment with the different options offered by the Kontera WordPress Plugin.
   
8. Remember, with this plugin, you also have the option to enable or disable Kontera ads from within the post editor.

Download Kontera-WordPress Plugin for WP 2.8

We hope you’ll find this new tool helpful and look forward to hearing about your experience with it.

* If you are using an earlier WordPress version, please visit the Publisher Resources page on our website for the appropriate plugin.

*Since WordPress is open source and offers a wide variety of themes, we cannot guarantee that the plugin will support them all. Please contact support@kontera.com if you encounter any implementation issues.

We’ve been examining our latest “top clicked keywords” list to find out which terms have been in the limelight over the past few weeks. As always, we try to present a taste of the keywords that have been most popular lately in a handful of our content categories.

We’ll begin with the conclusion… The  ‘Beauty & Apparel’ and ‘Employment’ categories are gaining popularity.  This is a comforting conclusion if you think about it.  It comes to show that even in difficult times, we still find ways to focus on what matters most: bathing suit season.

Another category that has received more attention recently is ‘Education’; click-wise it came close to the always popular ‘Entertainment’ category.  While we’re on the entertainment rant, American Idol is coming to a season’s close and not surprisingly, Adam Lambert has landed a spot on our list’s final cut.

As mentioned above, this post series highlights a set of keyword category each month. This list is open to your suggestions- we aim to present keywords from the categories you find most useful.  If there’s a category that you’d like to see included in our next keyword post, please leave a comment here or drop an email at blog@kontera.com

And now, we are glad to present this month’s list:

Kontera’s Top Keywords Post Series brings to you the most clicked terms per category each month.  For additional posts visit Top Clicked Keywords.

We’re excited to present Kontera’s March Publisher of the Month: lockergnome.com, a blogging network for people who are curious about the world around them.

lockergnome.com is a place for bloggers to learn and share everything about blogging.  Beginners as well as expert bloggers can find interesting, fun information and useful guidelines.

The amazing thing is that you can join lockergnome’s community site geeks.pirillo.com and open your very own blog within minutes. Pay a visit to see the extended network, with forums, groups and videos.

Kontera’s ContentLink ads are proudly featured on lockergnome.com.  We’re pleased to have Chris Pirillo interview on our blog to answer a few important questions.

We’re interested in learning more about Lockergnome. How did it get started, and where did the idea spark from?

Lockergnome got its start because I really didn’t want to finish my Master’s Degree. I knew that the Internet was going to become increasingly important and pervasive in people’s lives. I already shared tips and tricks with people, so I decided to do so in an “official” capacity, by using my own Website. I still share tips and tricks, but I do so in a variety of ways: through Lockergnome, through email, through Geeks, and many other avenues.

What do you typically look for in a blogger that gets featured on lockergnome.com?

Right now, we don’t even accept applications for the most part. For instance, people cannot bother to write well in their application, so why would we accept them to blog for us? I’ve said it before a million times, and I’ll say it again: you have to be able to write well to blog with us on Lockergnome! We’re looking for someone with a good voice, who is full of passion and understanding of the subject they are wanting to cover. Also, you have to be consistent. You need to be able to blog regularly.

Thousands of bloggers set on their online path daily.  What’s the most important tip you can give?

There are so many things you need to pay attention to on a daily basis. You can read everything online, and you’ll never get anything done. The chances of you publishing a blog and having it well-read are not incredibly strong. The reason I’ve opened my doors for Lockergnome is because I know I can get you more attention than you would get on your own. We have excellent marketing benefits that we’ve built over the years. We have a lot of promotional vehicles for content that is well-written. If you’re trying to separate yourself from the other noise out there, make people aware of who you are. Visit others, and leave comments for them. How else will people find you?

When you start to monetize Lockergnome, what role does in-text advertising play?

Kontera came to me in the beginning, and I hesitated. Then I started thinking, and realized that people hate seeing ads everywhere. The Kontera underlined words go over so much better than any other type of ads I’ve ever used. People respond well to them. Kontera is a large part of the monetization system. It’s not all of it, since I refuse to rely on any one type of monetization. However, Kontera works very, very well.

What sort of responses have you been getting from Lockergnome users regarding to the types of advertising you employ?

They’re asking for a larger portion of the splits! However, we do have expenses we have to pay to keep the site operational. They’re looking for more options, of course. I am always looking for new ways to implement money-making opportunities to them. The more customizations I can offer them, the better off they will be. I’m excited to see what the future will bring as far as advertising is concerned.

What wise word of monetization advice you have for bloggers?

Optimize! I realize that’s a general term. I’ve helped a lot of people make a lot of money, without receiving anything in return. I don’t really do that anymore. If you want to pay me to help you, then great! Shoot me an email. But for now, I’ll just be general, and tell you to optimize to the maximum.

We’re very excited to have a blogging expert on the Kontera Blog. Do you have any words of wisdom for us?

Don’t keep pounding on the table! Seriously, stay true to yourself.  If you have a blog that’s all about your company, that’s cool… but it gets long in the tooth. Share interesting and/or personal stories maybe about people that work for the company. If you don’t do that, all people are reading is a series of press releases. That gets pretty boring. As a matter of fact, I doubt many people will read this post, or watch this video in its entirety. If you do, please leave a comment, and use the word pancake somewhere in your comment. I’m serious! Do it! I just want to see out of curiosity how many of you get this far. This is what I mean about adding things outside the normal realm. Talk about something I can’t find anywhere else.

Where do you see Lockergnome going in the future?

As I’ve already said, I want to open it up more. I want to allow more people to participate, turning it into a network of Geeks. People will be able to take advantage of groups and forums, as well. Lockergnome will also continue to grow via the co-brands: Coupons, our Help forums, and a download area is just around the corner!

The Kontera Publisher of the Month series kicked off in January of 2009. A publisher is selected from Kontera’s network each month and provides an insider’s perspective on what it takes to manage a successful site. To learn more visit the Publisher of the Month Category.

It’s exciting for us to see the many publishers who have started out with Kontera on just one site, growing their web presence by launching new sites.   As networks grow, we get many questions about how to properly manage multiple sites within Kontera accounts.

We’d like to take the opportunity and mention that the Kontera ContentLink tag is unique per site, not per publisher. If you are already a Kontera Publisher and would like to add ContentLink ads to more of your sites, we will generate a specific, unique tag for each one of your sites. This is important for two main reasons:

1. Relevancy- by generating a unique tag for each site in your network, we are able to optimize each tag according to a site’s niche.  This means you get better, more relevant ads for each site in your network. It is especially important if you have sites on a variety of topics.
2. Tracking- each tag represents the performance of one individual site in your network.  This way you can have accurate knowledge of each site, its performance and earnings.  This helps us as we look at your network and try to determine where and how to optimize.

To take tracking another level deeper, use the Kontera Channels.  This feature enables you to create individual reporting for particular pages or sections of one specific website.  To have detailed knowledge of a site’s metrics, you can compare the performance of one page or section to that of another.

Requesting to add sites to your Kontera network is a simple process and only requires a quick e-mail request to the Support team.  The best way to do this is by logging into your account in the Publisher Center and clicking on the help tab.  If you choose to write us from your mailbox, be sure to mention your Kontera login email.

It’s time for the Top Clicked Keywords post again and the list, including some nice surprises, is out and ready to show.

If keywords are an indication of the general atmosphere at any given time, then Love is definitely in the air throughout this recent period. We say this as we note that Holidays & Special Occasions category rocked the charts with “Valentine’s Day” related keywords. As always, most people choose to “send roses” when striving to show that special someone how much they really care.

Anything or anyone that has to do with Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue was a huge click generator, these include race car driver and model, Danica Patrick, who’s featured in this issue and has generated the most clicks in the “Sports” category. The 200-lap, 500 mile-long Daytona 500 NASCAR race, came in third, so yes; swimsuits and race cars are a winning combination.

The winter season is characterized by the tendency to pack on a few extra pounds; it’s hardly surprising that when the cold season comes to a wrap the “Health” category is dominated by “weight loss”, “diet plan”, and the “Mediterranean diet”.

In the “Computing & Internet” category, Microsoft’s important release of the Windows 7 beta has generated a lot of interest but still the click-through-rates for “Windows XP” and “windows vista” are higher.

The “Top Clicked Keywords” post series is aimed at providing you additional information about the top performing keywords in our network. If you’ve been following this series than you know that we try to move between the keyword categories covered. If we’ve been missing out on your niche, or if you want a better indication of your site’s top performers, be sure to login to the Publisher Center and check your account’s keyword report. For previous posts visit Top Clicked Keywords.

By Mika Tal

Information- the more we have of it, the better? Sure, so long as we know how to use it.

This is the simple conclusion I came to in one of my ventures through Google Analytics.  With so much information around to explore, one has to know how to ask a question accurately.  Needless to say, narrowing down the mounds of information to a set of central parameters is an important step in learning how to utilize such an advanced tool to one’s benefit.

Today I’d like to suggest a few Google Analytics parameters that can aid you in optimizing the performance of your Kontera pay-per-click ads .  If you’re new to Google analytics, you may find this information especially useful. I’ve narrowed it down to 4:

• New vs. Returning visits- Returning visitors tend to generate a higher CTR for ContentLink® ads.  The reason for this is that visitors who return to your site are already familiar with the information you serve, and with the advantages of Kontera ads.  They are more trusting of ContentLinks and they tend to click the ads more often. For advice on how to get more of your site’s visitors to become returning visitors, consult this great post on entrepreneurs-journey.com

To find out your site’s ratio for New/ Returning Visitors- on your Analytics account, go to Visitors and then click New vs. Returning.

• Top Content Pages – To get the best results, it is recommended that you place your ContentLink tag on all your website’s pages.  However, if you choose to place ContentLinks on a few pages rather than all, make sure the pages you choose are ones that generate traffic.  I’m sure there’s no need to explain why traffic is important for making the most out of your ContentLink ads.

To find Top Content Pages on your Analytics account, go to Content then click Top Content.

• Top Search Engine Keywords- we have published a series of posts on how to maximize your ad earnings by optimizing your site’s content. Knowing which keywords bring the most search engine traffic to your site is important because these are likely to be the more popular keywords, often sought after by advertisers.  These keywords have better monetary potential.

Go to Traffic Sources and then click Search Engines.  Select a search engine and make sure you see the first option on the dimension field: “keyword”.  Google analytics enables you to see all keywords typed into any search engine for your selected date.

• Map Overlay – where are your users coming from?
  Kontera’s top earners are publishers whose sites  get over 55% US traffic.  The reason for this is that online advertisers invest much of their resources on traffic from the US.  While Kontera has partnerships with advertisers all over the world, the highest CPCs generated by your site originate from your US visitors.  An increase in US traffic has an immediate effect on earnings.

Use Analytics Map overlay to see exactly where on the globe your traffic is coming from.
Click Visitors then go to Map Overlay.

I hope you will find this information useful in making the most out of Kontera ContentLink ads  on your site!  If there’s anything I left out, or any additional tips you’d like to share please drop us a comment below.

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.

Kontera recently partnered with Pluck On Demand enabling its publishers access to contextually relevant, professionally-created, content and social media tools to increase publisher page views and user engagement. Kontera ContentLink will automatically populate within the Pluck on Demand content widget generating additional revenue for publishers.

What exactly is Pluck On Demand?

Pluck On Demand is a series of widgets that grow your site with contextually relevant content and social media tools.  The widgets read your site and offer links to relevant content from a library of millions of articles and videos. All content is consumed within your pages with your site’s look and feel and is pre-packaged with advertising.  This means incremental page views and revenue for your site.

How does it work?

Pluck On Demand’s free self-serve widget-based product can be added in minutes using an easy step-by-step implementation wizard.  Once in place, Pluck On Demand automatically reads content on a page and provides links to related articles and videos sourced from various high-quality content providers. The full article or video content is viewed within the publisher’s site, driving traffic and engagement.  Pluck On Demand also comes with social media features such as comments, ratings, recommendations, and user profiles, making it possible for publishers to instantly build vibrant community on their sites.
Check out the video to learn more http://ondemand.pluck.com/kontera

How do I sign-up?

Visit ondemand.pluck.com/kontera and add Pluck on Demand to your site today!