Posts Tagged ‘Blogging’
The World Wide Web is home to countless social networking sites, corporate and personal websites, and the like. Blogs are flourishing in the virtual world and this is made possible through the many blog platforms including WordPress, TypePad, Blogsmith and many more. Most people express themselves and show their interests through blogging. However, not all of these blogs are visited by web surfers every day. Some get thousands of visitors on a daily while others remain idle. Below are some tips on how you could make your current or even upcoming blog more enticing.
1. Focus on what you are really interested in
It’s great to have a variety of topics in a personal blog but if you are starting a blog about a particular subject matter, you should definitely stick to it. And that theme should be something that you are passionate about. You may also include other issues but do make sure that it is still related to the main topic of the blog. Are you into movies? You can talk about the upcoming flicks and include reviews of the movies that you already watched. At the same time, you may also include gossips related to celebrities in upcoming movies.
2. Get rid of anonymity and tell your readers who you are
They would be more interested to read your blog if you would tell them your name. A little background of yourself would also entice them to visit your blog from time to time. Your readers would become more curious about the things that fascinate you especially if they have the same interests as well, and they do want to associate a face with the blog that they reading.
3. Do not stick to a certain number of words on every post. Be spontaneous!
Whenever you write on your blog, just let your thoughts flow. Do not limit yourself with a paragraph or two. If you think that the words are not yet enough to discuss about your topic then keep on writing, but know exactly when to stop. Blogs that have the same number of words in every post won’t look natural . Instead, it would appear that writers have been hired to do the posting.
4. Make sure that you put the right keywords in your content
As long as you have the right keywords and tags, there is a big chance that the search engines will promote your blog. This would result in more traffic and could even generate income if you are using your blog to earn money at the same time. However, bear in mind that stuffing a post with so many keywords would make your blog look unnatural. Most search engines would not only think of your blog as a spam but you will also have the quality of your content compromised at the same time.
5. Don’t procrastinate!
There are bloggers and well, there are slower bloggers. Once you have your domain and blog set up and running, you need to adopt a positive mindset towards it and update your blog regularly. If you find it difficult to manage your time, you can use Todoist.com to help you create a better schedule, one that can fit your blogging activities with the rest of your tasks.
Even if you’ve got no time to blog, find time to update at least once a week, telling readers how busy you are and how they should stick around for better content once you’re free of your busy timetable.
We all know how blogging can be quite lucrative especially for those who have the time and passion to write about topics they feel strongly about. These days, it is a known fact that blogging is not the only way to earn money online, especially when it comes to generating passive income from online advertising networks such as Kontera. Kontera, like we’ve explained before, is a contextual advertising network entity with a nice pay-per-click system that helps bloggers profit from their blog, or preferably a network of blogs. The more blogs you own, the more you earn. This equation is very simple and the program can be ultimately rewarding for those who persevere with their tasks.
However, blogging is NOT the only way to earn money from Kontera. There are numerous other ways to so, including:
• Sign up with Hubpages.com to earn from their revenue-sharing program
• Submit articles to article directories such as SearchWarp.com and profit from the Kontera revenue-sharing system
• Share content in web portals such as IndiaStudyChannel.com to earn commission from Kontera
• Be a Kontera affiliate!
Earning Money from Kontera via Hubpages
Step 1: Sign up for a Kontera account
First, sign up for a Hubpages account. Get yourself a Kontera account next. This is done at the Kontera signup page but instead of entering www.Hubpages.com in the “Website URL” field, you will first need to copy your Hubpages profile URL. Example for this is http://hubpages.com/profile/yourusername. You should also select the category you write most about in Hubpages in the “Category” field. Next you will be asked about your monthly page views. It would be sensible for newbies to select “Under 500,000”. If you are a Hubpages veteran you can choose a different option if your Hubs yield higher traffic.
Step 2: Fill in your contact details and review the Service Agreement
This can be done very quickly, so do a quick look-over of the Service Agreement before clicking on “Continue”. You will receive a confirmation email from Kontera in a very short while.
Step 3: Account approved; configure your Hubpages Affiliate Settings page
If all goes well, your Kontera account will be approved in no time. Once it does, go to the “ContentLink™ Setup” tab and copy your PublisherID code. Paste this in your Hubpages Affiliate Settings page under the appropriate field and ta-da, there you go! You can now begin to earn money from Kontera writing Hubs you love!
We will talk about how to earn money being a Kontera affiliate next but for now, enjoy discovering the many possibilities of grabbing some juicy Kontera commission!
What is Kontera? Simply said, Kontera is a pay-per-click system that will generate money for you, a blog owner and publisher, just by letting the system embed ads into your content. If you think this is another Google Adsense wannabe, you’ve never been more mistaken. In comparison, Google Adsense displays ad units in the blog or website – near the header, between paragraphs of content and the side bars – almost anywhere, actually. Kontera, on the other hand, transforms certain keywords within your content into clickable links. That way, you can be assured that you will never mistake a Kontera ad link for a Google Adsense ad unit!
Once upon a time, publishers would be penalized if Google found that their blogs or websites contained ads from rival ad systems. After a torrent of questions was raised, Google heard the grouses of disgruntled publishers and changed their mind. Kontera text ads are now allowed to be on the same pages that contained Google Adsense ad units. And because they do not look alike, and are easily distinguishable between each other, Google deemed that it was okay for both ads to co-exist in harmony. Publishers rejoiced and wasted no time incorporating ads from both networks, enjoying the multiple income sources they are able to tap into.
You may have stumbled upon some double-underlined words while reading blogs each day. Chances are these clickable words exist thanks to Kontera, whose in-text advertising system is committed to deliver relevant and targeted ads to the audience.
What do we mean by relevant and targeted ads? For example, if your blog post is about your favorite desserts, you may see certain words such as
• “Chocolate”
• “Cream”
• “Pastry”
• “Fondue”
These words or phrases will be highlighted and made into double-underlined links. Readers who see these links are compelled to click on the link and they will be redirected to the advertiser’s page where readers can buy items or find out more about baking supplies or cook books. Other examples are:
• Blog posts reviewing the latest cars will display ads about car dealers, etc.
• Writing about the latest iPhone apps will allow Kontera to show ads from application developers or mobile gadget companies
• Reviewing the latest Blu-ray movies you’ve watched will show ads from movie rental websites
Each click gives you a certain amount of commission. So you can see, all you need to do to gain extra income via Kontera is to just blog and write about the topics you want (providing they comply with Kontera’s requirements), and Kontera will take care of the rest! The possibilities are endless!
If you are curious enough to ask how does Kontera work, rest assured that the answers can be quite simple even for a layman to understand. Once you have signed up, wait for several days to see your account being approved by Kontera. You need to follow some detailed instructions, insert some lines of codes within your pages, and their highly intelligent contextualization system will pluck the right words to highlight and embed ads related to your content. Readers click on your links and you’ll get paid! That’s about it – a process as automated as can be.
First, sign up with Kontera and get your own Publisher Account approved. With decent amount of traffic, you’ll see your online income slowly but steadily rising!
This guide will cover up the basic code used to place an ad after the first, second or any other post in WordPress.
This method is extremely useful if you wish the create some diversity among your ad positions. On regular WordPress blogs, the most common places today are on top, inside the post and below it. Useful if you are trying to avoid banner blindness on your blog.
By the way, this works on any file template you have. Be it the homepage or the subpages (categories or any other page template) as long as there is a post loop. Below you can see an image of how it looks like on the homepage with excerpts and thumbnails in the posts. I used the code there to place an ad unit after the third post (excerpts or full posts, it won’t make any difference in coding).
(click to enlarge – press escape if you can’t close it)
To get an ad shown after an specific amount of posts you first have to go to your index.php file (which is your homepage). Here you need to search for:
<?php endwhile; ?>
Now place this code directly above it:
<?php if ($count == 0) : ?>
Copy and paste your ADSENSE CODE here
<?php endif; $count++; ?>
Note the $count == 0, this is where you can adjust the position of where the ad will be seen. Check out the image below to see which number will omit the post at it’s position. (click to enlarge)
So with $count == 0 then the ad will pop up under the first post.
With $count == 1 it will pop up under the second post.
$count == 2 will show it under the third post.
Etc….
Easy isn’t it? If you have any questions regarding this, do not hesitate to ask them.
Cheers,
Mark
Some days ago I wrote a post on how a blog post template helps you save time writing content. Hendrik wrote an interesting comment how this also effects having your mind on what you are writing, and how easy it is to wander off and do something else.
Did you ever experience that day when you sat down in front of your computer and actually nothing came to mind? Or when you set time aside to blog while you are actually wasting that time doing other stuff rather than blogging? Well, to be honest, your not the only one. I think I can safely say that almost every blogger has experienced this at least once. I actually had this when Hendrik and I merged our Blogs together. My blog pattern was kind off messed up, and so I had to came up with different ideas. As I looked back over my day and the things that I’d done it struck me that there are a lot of tasks that bloggers do that are important – but that can at times become distracting from… well… writing posts… the core task of any blogger.
10 Important but Potentially Distracting Blogging Tasks
Following are 10 potentially distracting tasks for bloggers (note, I’m not saying that any of these are not important or worthwhile, just that they can actually become a distraction if we allow ourselves to become sidetracked by them).
- Social Messaging – Twitter, Stumble, Msn, Skype, IM, Mybloglog…. (add your favorite blogging/social service here). Each can suck up your time if you don’t get focused and put some limit around them.
- Social Bookmarking – many bloggers become somewhat obsessed with writing posts for and then gathering votes on social media sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Yahoo Buzz etc.
- Social Networking - building profiles and interacting upon Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace etc – all useful in building a brand and profile as a blogger, but potentially a distraction.
- Blog Design – blog design is important at creating a first impression but when you find yourself tweaking it, reworking it (especially widgets/plugins), planning your next one more than actually writing content for your blog you might be in trouble.
- SEO – like blog design there always seems to be something you could do a little better when it comes to optimizing a blog for search engines. It can be worth your time to do some of this, but one of the most effective ways of doing SEO is to write content that hits the spot with readers.
- Reading other Blogs in Your Niche – yet another great use of time, but many bloggers spend so much time on other people’s blogs connecting, leaving comments and even writing about them that they fail to write anything unique on their own.
- Networking with other bloggers – another great way to build brand and traffic to your own blog is to connect with other bloggers in your niche – however there are millions of blogs ‘out there’ and it can be an endless task.
- Monetization – finding and testing ad networks and affiliate programs can take a lot of time. Then optimizing them for your blog and tracking the results and extending your earning potential by finding private sponsorships and ad sales can really eat up even more of your time.
- Analyzing Stats – one of the biggest potential time suckers, that many bloggers, such as me, become distracted with at different times, is analyzing your stats (see this post on Google analytics from either Hendrik or Mark). Sure, you can learn a great deal from looking at who is coming to your blog, from where they come and what they do when they arrive. or
- Personal Life – It can always happen some day… Your friend or someone close to you gets a car accident and loses a leg, or worse (this may sound cruel but don’t forget this can happen to anyone on a given day. Visiting him/her takes hours and there goes your time to blog anything that day.
Let me tell you this – there’s nothing wrong with any of these activities…. BUT….
While these are all great activities the danger is in those times when they sidetrack us from other core aspects of our blogging.
In my own blogging I try to guard against becoming distracted by:
- Having goals (both long term but also daily goals).
- Being aware how I’m spending time (periodically throughout each day I stop and ask myself if I’m on track.
- Setting time aside for the most important part.
What distracts you most from blogging? How do you keep yourself on the track?
Our AdSense App
Contact Us
 |
Hendrik
|
| Phone: | +1-818-322-0251 +49-40-7880-0986 |
| Lang.: | German, English |
| Twitter: | @Hendricius |
| Skype: | Hendricius |
 |
Mark
|
| Phone: | +1-310-734-8977 +31-6-3404-5081 |
| Lang.: | Dutch, English |
| Twitter: | @DuoBlogger |
| Skype: | MarkDuoblogger |
Recent Comments