While it’s great to monetize your blog with Adsense, Project Wonderful, and Kontera, it is also a great way to maximize your blog’s income with the In-Links.

What is In-Links?

In-Links is a static HTML link advertisement.

Don’t be confused with the In-Text advertisement. The In-Text advertisement is the advertisement offered by the Kontera in which the Kontera system automatically pick a term from the loaded page and show an in-text ad through that picked term.

On the other hand, the in-links ad is simply an static link within your content. This is a link like what you are always doing when linking to someones blog or article from your own article. The only difference of it from the links you made from your content is that the in-link ads are automatically created by the InLink system after an advertiser bought a link from your blog.

So, how could I earn money from In-Links?

What you need to do is to sign-up an account from the InLinks. Just Click here and then click the “Blogger Sign Up Now” and then after that, fill in the fields with the required information.

Once you have an account already, then submit your blog. And after the blog has been approved for the InLinks, then you have nothing to do but frequently update your blog with quality content.

You have nothing to worry of looking for the advertiser for your blog because the InLinks system will be the one looking for the advertisers for you.

I was using Adbrite ads on this blog hoping that I could increase my monthly income. Since Adbrite advertisers’ number is not as good as that of Google Adsense, so I used Google Adsense as alternate ad of Adbrite and setting the targeted CPM to a considerable rate.

After two weeks of running Adbrite (with Adsense as alternate ads) I found it effective and I was really earning few dollars everyday. It really made me excited so I checked the ads that had been shown by Adbrite. However, what I discovered embarrassed me because all those ads are porn ads promoting live show.

This made me wonder. Those ad zone from Adbrite was all set to show family friendly ads. And there was even a condition telling me not to add the ad codes to the porn sites. So, why is it that Adbrite is displaying porn related ads on my blogs?

The Project Wonderful script is collecting wrong info of the ad clicked by blog’s visitors. This is not really a big problem. I just don’t have ideas on what to write.

By the way, Project wonderful is a advertising network where advertisers bid for the ad spot offered by a particular ad publishers.

Here’s what I did before discovered this bug.

I am using the Top Blog (.com.ph) ranking website when hopping from one blog to the others. The first blog that I visited is the Blog of Sir Manuel Villoria. On his “$100 Dollars A Day” post, I found a comment of Jan Alvin asking Sir Villoria a help to increase his own blog. I checked Jan Alvin’s blog by clicking the link posted.

At Jan Alvin’s blog, I found the ad of Bro. Macuha which was served by the Project Wonderful. When I clicked the ad, I found out that I was sent to the address as shown on the screenshot below (boxed with red color):

The address tells the “Project Wonderful redirect script” this number  11385969 which is the ad number of Brother Macuha’s ad and the address http%3A//www.manuelviloria.com/archives/100-dollars-a-day/ which is the referrer’s address.

The ad that I clicked was actually displayed at the Blog Tambayan of Jan Alvin, however, the address collected by the Project Wonderful as the source of the click was the post of Sir Villoria, “$100 Dollars A Day.”

Talking about the Project Wonderful, I already changed the banner displayed at the header part of this blog.

Previously, I was displaying the 436×60 ad of Adbrite. My income to this ad (adbrite) is much better compared to my income when I was still displaying the Bidvertiser’s 468×60 on this spot. The only problem of Adbrite’s 468×60 is that it displayed ads of the Dating and Adult websites. So, got no choice but to stop using Adbrite ad on this blog. I better not to earn money than to promote real adult or dating websites.

Kontera recently launched their new product called, “Kontera Hybrid“. It works the same as their original content-link ads but differs on the content of the ad shown.

To understand what I am saying, just take a look at the screenshot below. That’s the original ad served by Kontera.

What has been shown on that box is purely the ad of the advertiser. Now, take a look at the screenshot below. That’s the ad served by Kontera’s new product, “Kontera Hybrid”.

In the Kontera Hybrid ad, there are actually two ads shown: (1) Your website content – Related Content; (2) The ad of the advertiser – Advertisement.

With the Kontera Hybrid, you are actually giving 2 choices to your visitors: (1) let them stay in your website by offering them the related pages; (2) let them check the advertisers landing page. However, according to the email sent to me by the Kontera Publisher Services Manager, Kontera Hybrid offers not only the related content of your webiste but also offers related content from the web.

Additionally the Hybrid serves related content from the web, thus providing your users with highly relevant information.

But I think, it will be better if it will offer only related content of the website not of the web.

The Kontera Hybrid is really better compared to the old Kontera ad that this blog is currently using. It doesn’t only give us the opportunity to earn money but it will also give us the chance to increase the time spent by our blog’s visitors, and to increase the number of pageviews that our visitors did while staying here in our blog.

We’ll just wait for the time Kontera will open the “Kontera Hybrid” to all Kontera Publishers because currently Kontera are picking websites that will run the Kontera Hybrid.

For more info about it, please visit Kontera Hybrid page.

]]> http://www.selaplana.com/2008/03/18/kontera-hybrid/feed/ 8 http://www.selaplana.com/2008/01/30/konteras-publisher-of-the-month-video-testimonial-contest/ http://www.selaplana.com/2008/01/30/konteras-publisher-of-the-month-video-testimonial-contest/#comments Wed, 30 Jan 2008 05:10:59 +0000 Sustines Laplana http://www.selaplana.com/2008/01/30/konteras-publisher-of-the-month-video-testimonial-contest/

Kontera Official Blog featured me as the Kontera’s Publishers of the Month (January 2008). I am flattered by this. It might not be my first time to be exposed in other media or blogs, but it’s my first time to be featured by an international company blog. Below is part of the said feature-article:

We are pleased to be visited by Sustines Laplana, owner and writer of Selaplana.com. Sustines has agreed to tell us a few things about his experiences with Kontera ContentLinks

Selaplana.com is a blog that covers a variety of topics ranging from technology to entertainment . Besides being a valuable source of information, Selaplana.com has been a part of Kontera’s network for a year, making money by displaying ContentLink ads, relevant to the topics his readers are interested in reading.

The great advantage of ContentLinks is the fact that it can be customized to accommodate any individual site’s look & feel. Selaplana.com is a good example of ContenLink inegration in terms of ad density and ContentLink color.

Wow! I am very much inspired by this. Last time, I was interviewed by the Ms Sheryl Yao of the GMA7, then I was recognized by the Digital Filipino after squatting the first position of the Ratified Ranking, and now I became the Kontera’s Publishers of the Month. Who knows, after this, another international company’s blog will feature me (wala raw bayad mangarap).

Kontera Video Testimonial Contest

Last time, I announced that Kontera was launching a testimonial video contest and the winner will win $1000 worth of Kontera Advertising.

There is actually a change on the contest. The prize is not already in the form of advertising but is already in real money. Yes. The winning video will receive $500. The second place will receive $250 and the third place will receive $100.

So, how to participate this contest?

Okay. This contest is for Kontera publishers only. If you are not yet member of the Kontera publishers, I think you can join Kontera Publishers first.

Remember that in joining the Kontera Publishers, you are already entitled with free $25 bonus. So, you already win a prize even by just joining the publishers of the Kontera.

Then you can now do the other requirements. Visit the Kontera Official Blog for more details (Click Here).

Are you one of the Kontera ads publishers? Then, you have the chance to win $1000 in Kontera’s Live Testimonial contest.

The prize is actually not in cash but in free Kontera advertising. In other words, if you win this contest, you can now advertise your site at the Kontera Publishers’ websites and blogs.

Here’s how to join:

STEP 1:

What you should include:

* Length of video/animated flash: up to 3 minutes
* Tell of how and when you started using Kontera
* What sort of impact and benefit ContentLink made for your site/blog
* Your name and website/company name
* Whatever other biographical details you want to include

STEP 2:

Upload your video to YouTube
Tag it: kontera, contentlink, In-Text, contextual, advertising, ad
Send the URL to video@kontera.com

Contest Rules

1. To enter the contest you must be a current Kontera publisher or advertiser.
2. By entering this Contest, you explicitly grant Kontera the right to use and publish the biographical information that you provide in the video. This does not include any other information Kontera has (such as email, street address, telephone number).
3. Submitted videos must not include any profanity or indecent images. Kontera does not work with adult content and gaming advertisers or publishers.
4. Submitted videos must comply with Kontera Terms and Conditions and YouTube Terms and Conditions.
5. Contest begins Dec 1, 2007 and ends March 1, 2008.

For more details please visit Kontera blog.

Last month (October 2007) I received an email from my fellow Filipino blogger regarding the use of Bidvertiser as a way of monetizing a blog. I already replied her email but I want to share with you my thoughts about it. Here’s her email:

Selboy,

I noticed that your blog displays bidvertiser’s ads along with the Adsense ads. I am already banned from Adsense because I cheated it and already learned lessons from it. And today, I received the email from bidvertiser that I am accepted from their program. …

My question is, “Is bidvertiser an effective way of monetizing a blog? …

The email was actually written in Bisaya dialect, so I translated it to English so that our non-Bisaya readers will understand it.

Adsense vs Bidvertiser

Well, Adsense and bidvertiser are both effective in monetizing a blog. They are both considered as contextual advertising services. However, you should first understand how the two ad servers work so that you can apply the right thing into your blog.

For example:

Even if your blog’s niche is about technology, if you constantly blog about a wide variety of topic just like this blog of mine, then using the adsense is much better than using the bidvertiser.

Why?

Well, it’s because Adsense has the ability and capability of detecting important keywords from your blog. And these keywords are the ones used by Adsense system to decide what ads should be displayed at your blog.

On the other hand, bidvertiser depends on what category you choose at their system for your blog. What I mean is, the bidvertiser’s ads that will be displayed at your blog are fixed based on the category of your blog. If you entered your blog to the technology-category of the bidvertiser directory, then all the ads under the technology will be displayed on your blog.

What if you use the bidvertiser ads on your blog that contains wide variety of topics? So, what will happen is even if the topic of a particular post is about personality development, still the ads displayed at that particular post will those ads under the Technology. In other words, there will be pages on your blog that will contain non-relevant ads.

So, to maximize your earning when using bidvertiser as your means of monetizing your blog, you need to focus on the topic of your blog. If your blog is entered into the technology category of the bidvertiser directory, then focus on technology.

Now, what about if you want to blog about making money online?

Well, you can blog about making money online and you’ll earn much from it through the bidvertiser. But you need to build a separate blog about it and enter this new blog into the money-category at the bidvertiser directory so that all the ads that will be displayed on this blog will be the ads under the money-category. Then focus all your thoughts on that blog to the making money online topic and other related things.

Join the Adsense again

But did you know that you can still join the Adsense program of Google even if you’re already banned from it?

Try reading my post, “4 Steps in Re-registering to Adsense If You’re Banned From It.“

Are you a PayPerPost (PPP) blogger? If so, then Google hates you.

Ted Murphy revealed that Google is tracking down bloggers of the PayPerPost network and penalizing their blogs from their current PR rating to zero.

Last night Google decided to go after some of the bloggers in our network, reducing their PR from whatever they previously had to zero. Once again Google has proved that PR has little to do with blog traffic, influence or relevance and everything to defending their monopolistic stranglehold on search and online advertising.

He considered it as an anti-competition act of Google especially that PayPerPost offers “very attractive alternative to AdSense and are leading a charge to provide real monetization for everyday bloggers.”

What does this mean?

I think Google hates bloggers who use Google’s PR rating in making money online through the other means than putting advertisement like what Google serve through their Google Adsense program.

Remember that Google allows us to use ads from other contextual advertising company as long as the ads do not mimic the Google Adsense ads. These other contextual adversing services are obviously the competitors of Google Adsense and yet they allow us to publish the ads along with the Adsense ads.

However, Google penalizes blogs that participate the PayPerPost and other similar advertising scheme.

What should we do?

There’s nothing we can do regarding the Google’s move in penalizing blogs at the PayPerPost network. I also respect that because Google has the right to do what they want according to their policies in the sense that Google owns that PR rating.

In other words, if you want to remain  faithful with the Google’s PR rating then follow Google’s policies. However, if you want to earn more money through the pay per post scheme of blogging, then let’s create a new way of ranking blogs. Ted Murphy said that they are still preparing for the implementation of the new rating system which is called RealRank.

If you are still using PR as your measure for influence you will be missing out on a lot a great blogs and bloggers. While the general population has maintained their ranking some of our better bloggers have been hit by Google. You may want to consider using Tacks and Alexa instead of PR for future campaigns until we implement RealRank.

The title of this post is already clear: “Starting October 2007, I will not be writing review of products, services or website through the ReviewMe campaign.” Reviewing something is really interesting, and I really love to write reviews. But it just happened that I am not yet good in reviewing. Yes, I can write a review but it didn’t interest my advertisers.

To let you know, several review-posts I published on this blog were rejected by the ReviewMe advertisers. That’s really disappointing but what can I do. I am just an idiot who blog as if I am a smart one.

Failure can’t stop me

It’s true that I am really disappointed by what I experienced at the ReviewMe and it led me to decide to stop writing paid reviews. Take note that only paid reviews will be stopped which means, I will continue writing free review of products, services, and websites.

Yes! my future reviews will be for free. I will not be asking anything as a return of reviewing products, services, or websites. To learn how to review, and enhancing my skills in reviewing are enough and will serve as your payment as I feature your products, services, or websites at this blog.

Want to be reviewed?

I know that some of you want your products, services, or websites to be reviewed and be featured at this blog. So, now is your chance. Contact me immediately and do the following:

• Give me the URL of your blog, or website that you want to be reviewed.
• Send your product to me and let me use it for 1 month so that I can write fair review of your product. Don’t worry I will return it to you.
• Give me the URL of your websites that offer a particular services.

In you email me, tell me directly that you want me to write a review of something and give me the info as stated above. Below is the example on how to tell me to write a review:

SELaplana,

Please review my blog at http://myblog.com. Thank you so much.

Yours,

Your Name

However, if you want me to review a product, you can email me like this:

SELaplana,

Please give me your address, so that I can send you immediately the product that should be reviewed.

Thank you,

Your Name

So, I will be waiting for your email. Click here to contact me.

Our blog, “Learn Lessons with SELaplana“, is now accepting direct advertisers who want to advertise their products, services, and websites using the “125 x 125″ banner ad that will be displayed at the top most of our sidebar. The “Your Ad Here” image as shown below will be changed to the ad you provided and will be linked to your suggested URL without the “nofollow” tag.

About The Blog

Our blog contains write-ups related to technology, internet, and money; tips and tricks on how to blog, how to gain traffic for the blogs, how to gain more feed subscribers, how to make money online and how to be successful; review on products, services and blogs; and more interesting articles.

This blog has the following important stats (current as of writing this post):

• Unique visitors – 2,000 more or less
• Page Views – 4,000 more or less
• Feed Subscribers – 600 more or less
• Number of Pages indexed by Google – 6,190
• Alexa Ranking – 51,466

Advertise Now

You see, your ad will be displayed at the “above the fold” portion of our blog. The position of the ad will be on the “first come, first serve” basis, which means, the first one to pay will be the first to own the higher slot. You only need to pay us $50 per “125 x 125″ in 30 days of displaying the ad.

Now, if you are interested, please click the button below.

Note:

1. Available Ad Space = 5
2. Xoom will charge you with $5.5. So, you’ll be spending $55.5 in total.
3. Don’t forget to include your Name, URL of the banner, and the URL of the site or page that will be linked from the banner on the “Message To Seller” field.

(advert: Friendster Layouts )