Tag Archives | Advertiser

Introduction to WordPress Themes

Introduction to WordPress Themes

Without a doubt, WordPress is one of the most popular blog and website creation tools. That is, WordPress.org which is the WordPress version that is hosted on the hosting company of your choice. WordPress.com is rather limited and is hosted on WordPress own servers. It is free, but you are limited to a small number of themes and the customizations options are limited. As long as you are willing to pay for your own hosting service, ie – Go Daddy, JustHost, MonsterGator, etc., WordPress.org is the way to go.

Most of the top blogs use the WordPress platform. By looking at these blogs, you can see a great variety in their design. In fact, many of them don’t look like blogs themselves, but look like traditional websites.

The reason for this is that WordPress allows users to create their own themes, and upload them to the WordPress website. Many people do this for fun or the good of the community. However, some create what is called a premium theme which is basically a paid version. Some of the themes offer a free starter theme, but a paid version gets you more features.

One of the strengths of WordPress is also a weakness. There are almost too many themes out there. It can get frustrating finding a theme that suits your purposes, especially after reviewing hundreds of similar themes.  To eliminate some of the frustration, consider the following:

What do you want in a theme. On one hand, there are people who are just interested in their blog writing, and they want it to look nice. Commercialization or ads do not interest them. On the other hand, there are other people who are interested in their blog, but would also like to make a little money.

This generally involves AdSense, banner ads, etc. However, the placing of these ads (or the HTML code that supports them) on a blog or website is of prime importance to the advertiser, and also to the website owner. You don’t want ads to distract from your website, but complement it.

WordPress accomplishes this by having areas of your blog where you can place widgets. Widgets are basically place holders where you can place a great variety of content. It could include a link page, a poll, a photo, text, or HTML code that generates an ad.  However, depending upon the theme, widgets will be in different places and different sizes.

The WordPress database allows you to search for specific elements of themes.

For example, when you search the WordPress database, you will find hundreds of themes that say “”ad sense ready.””  Many of these themes have only a few widget areas available for ads, and some have as many as 11 different widget areas.

Generally, the more widget areas the better in a theme, because no matter what your purpose, it gives you more flexibility. 

Another factor that comes into play is that many themes are highly customizable.  Don’t be deceived by the initial appearance, look at the option page before you move on.   Many themes have great features, you just need to choose the appropriate option.  Background image, color, placement of widget sidebars, etc. are all common things that can be customized.

Finding a theme you like is a trial and error process.  However, before you begin, have an idea on what you want to accomplish.  Do you want widget space for small rectangle ads?  Or do you want widget space that will accommodate skyscraper ads, leaderboard ads, and the other popular banner ad formats? Do you want a widget space that will accommodate a particular photo dimension format?

The process of looking for a theme you like is a daunting task, but if you have a general idea of what you want, it will make the process go faster.  With the thousands of WordPress themes out there, you are bound to find one you like.

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The Best Ways to Monetize your Website

The Best Ways to Monetize your Website

Once you have built a website and you have some traffic coming in to your website then you’ll probably be looking at the ways you can make some money with your website. There are plenty of opportunities out there that will allow you to make a great income, but you’ll need to find out what works best for your website. All niches will require different types of monetization and some will be more difficult then others to monetize so make sure you consider that before making your website. If you can’t find many ways to make money off of the traffic you’ll be targeting then you might not want to choose that niche at all and move on to something more profitable.

There is a huge list of different ways to monetize your website and you should try using as many of them as possible. Some of the methods used to make money off of your website can be used on basically any website and topic where some of the methods will need a specific website to use the type of monetization. The more diversified you can make your website the better shot you have at making a long time income. This is due to the fact that sometimes some methods will not earn as much some months and you’ll need other methods bringing in income to cover the losses. Never rely on just one form on monetization on your website or else you’re just asking for trouble. We’ll now take a look at some of the ways you can monetize your website.

Adsense

Adsense is by far the most popular and most widely used platform for webmasters. You simply register an account create an ad in whichever size you need and then add it to your website. Every time someone clicks one of the ads in the box you’ll get paid. Depending on the advertiser will reflect how much you get for your click but generally health and finance are the highest paying topics. Adsense pays out monthly as long as you meet the minimums, but in the beginning don’t worry about this as you probably won’t make enough the first month.

MaxBounty

MaxBounty has both leads and sales offers for website owners, and you simply place a link or banner on your website to make money this way. You find the offer you want to add to your website then get the code for the link or banner and implement it into your website. They pay by Paypal every month which is a great way to get some extra money coming in every month.

Commission Junction

Commission Junction is one of the leading affiliate platforms on the internet where many name brand advertisers offer affiliates a chance to make money. You can sell products for almost any niche you can imagine which means this is a network you should join. Each advertiser has there own rules and commission payouts so make sure you read everything about each affiliate you sign-up for.

There are plenty of other ways to monetize your website out there, but these three will definitely keep you busy. I would recommend only joining these three at a maximum in the beginning because you want to build up your money on only a couple networks. This way you don’t need to wait for the minimum payout on a bunch on networks as it will take longer to do so. Once you reach minimum payout on the above networks then you can try out some other networks the next month to see if they convert.

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Blog Posting Networks

Blog Posting Networks

There are plenty of blog posting networks out there now and over the past couple years they have made people thousands of dollars. Blogging has become a great way for advertisers to advertise to a targeted market and many companies are taking advantage of this. Basically a blog posting network is a middle man between the blogger and the advertiser.

The network works on finding advertisers for their network marketplace and then as a blogger you can sign-up to the network and apply for jobs from the marketplace. There are some big networks out there already that offer quite a larger amount of advertising availabilities so you should be able to find some offers for your blog. Advertisers will post their needs in the marketplace and if your blog meets the requirements then you’ll be able to take on the job. Once you make the post, the network will confirm it’s been made and then in one month they will confirm that the post is still there and pay you for it. Most networks can pay you with either Paypal or a check. Before you can utilize blog posting networks you’ll need a blog with some traffic and preferably some page rank. If you have both of those then you won’t have a problem making a part-time income.

Most blog networks allow the advertiser to establish their own budgets for each blog post, so the price you get paid ranges from $3-$50 depending on how good your blog is. If you have a good blog then you can make $20-$50 per blog post that you make which is a lot of money. Some of the other blog networks out there pay a flat rate for each blog post which is alright, but I prefer working with the networks that don’t set a flat rate. You’ll make more money with the other networks, and there more ethical and not trying to take a huge cut.

Blog post networks don’t become valuable until after you’ve put a few months into blogging, but then you can reap the benefits. Many people have small personal blog networks that run solely off of these blog posting networks and make them a lot of money. If you have the time then the money can be made fairly easily, it just takes hard work and commitment. I want to take some time to give you a little bit of information about some of the popular blog posting networks out there that you should join once you have an aged blog with traffic.

PayPerPost – www.payperpost.com

This is by far the most popular blog posting network out there and the busiest. There are always hundreds of opportunities and if your blog is good enough then you’ll be able to do a lot of them. They pay new members $20 to do an introduction post onto their blog, and then you get paid by the advertisers for each post you do. They pay on a monthly basis and the easiest and quickest way to get paid is through Paypal.

PayU2Blog – www.payu2blog.com

This network is coming along and they have quite a few offers. They simply email you when they have a job that fits your blog and then they pay you on a monthly basis. Many people have found this network be good for a couple months and then the offers die down, but you can easily make a few hundred dollars in a few months doing the offers that they do have.

Smorty – www.smorty.com

Smorty is a well established pay per post network and they have been around for awhile now and I don’t think you need to worry about them going anywhere. They have a knack for attracting advertisers and therefore also have some awesome blogs in their networks arsenal. Smorty always pays it’s bloggers on time and they offer decent compensation for your work.

ReviewMe – www.reviewme.com

ReviewMe is one of the biggest marketplaces and there are tons of offers in the marketplace. They have a strong foothold in the marketplace and a long list of bloggers ready to make money. They attract some of the highest paying advertisers in the blogging industry and therefore have tons of bloggers looking for opportunities from them. If you have a good blog then you can easily make a part-time income with this network.

SponsoredReview – www.sponsoredreview.com

This is the last network that is on this list and should be all you need. This network has some high paying opportunities and although they don’t have the biggest marketplace you get paid almost twice as much here on average. I recommend this network highly if you’re serious about writing sponsored blog posts.

These five pay per post networks are plenty enough to get you into the world of blog post networks and you should be able to get going immediately pending you have a blog. If you already have a blog then you can join today and get paid within the next thirty days for your first few reviews. There is a lot of money spent in advertising dollars online so grab your piece of the pie today by writing sponsored reviews.

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