Search Engine Optimization For Webmasters

Chitika eMinimalls is a new program for webmasters that allows site owners to monetize their websites on a pay-per-click basis. Released in BETA form (that means it's still in testing) in 2005, the program has created considerable buzz because it uses interactive creatives for a wide range of products available for purchase online, and it has considerable potential for earning significant amounts of money. Webmasters are paid for clicks, rather than for purchases.

While a number of webmasters have earned considerable amounts, particularly early on in the program, there are some important points to consider before jumping in, and investing time and energy re-configuring websites to support Chitika.

Here are some pro's and con's to consider, as of the date of this writing (Late Nov, 2005), but subject to change as Chitika's program evolves.

1) Chitika can be configured to display ads for products the webmaster chooses, OR, it can be used contextually, so that it tries to display ads that fit with your content. Initially, Chitika was completely contextual, but, due to the terms of service of its competitor, Google Adsense, emphasis was placed on webmaster choices of keywords and products, rather than automatically choosing product ads. Chitika did this to allow webmasters to run both adsense and Chitika ads on the same pages.

2) The creatives are innovative, interactive, and suffer less from "ad blindness" than other creatives, due to their relative novelty to web visitors. This should translate into higher click throughs (but that's not necessarily the case anymore - see below).

3) Early reports have indicated that the amount received per click for Chitika is HIGHER than for similar ads in Google Adsense.

4) Creatives (ads) can be modified via their code generator so you can choose the colors of the ads to fit your site. So, you can choose to blend them in, or use contrasting colors so they stand out.

1) In November, Chitika made some changes to their creatives to reduce "curiosity clicks" (low value clicks from the advertiser's perspective). They did this by making the clickable areas much smaller and more restricted. The result has been that click through rates have dropped significantly for many publishers.

2) When Chitika started, it was a contextually based program. From the webmaster's point of view, that meant that one could place the SAME code on each page, and Chitika would display (theoretically at least) ads relevant to each specific page. Contextual ads are a breeze for webmasters to implement, since the code need not be tweaked, or altered for each page.

When Chitika moved away from contextual ads, there were two consequences. First, while Chitika non-contextual ads could be used on the same pages as Google Adsense, it became necessary to target each ad to each page or product, an exceedingly time consuming task for the webmaster. The ads, as they stand now, as non-contextuals, need to be manually targeted. Since there's no easy way of knowing what will work or not work for any specific site or page, it also means that there is constant manual tweaking necessary.

Further, while contextual based ads are still theoretically available, to use them, one must contact Chitika support to get the code. And, unfortunately, in these early beta test stages, their responsiveness to requests is slow, or sometimes even non-existent.

3) Chitika reporting is not real time, and, at least, for the moment, is somewhat restricted in the information it offers. To find out earnings for a Tuesday, the webmaster must wait until at least the Wednesday. That makes tweaking the ads difficult and slow. Further Chitika does not provide final revenue information until the end of each month, when they audit the raw totals to remove revenue from clicks that are from countries outside their scope, repeat clicks and so on. When Chitika runs the audit, you will lose some percentage of your revenue.

The bottom line is that webmasters don't know their actual earnings for a month until (again, theoretically), the end of the NEXT month.

4) Support and information about the program from Chitika, itself, is generally poor. It is, after all, a beta test program, so that's understandable. While Chitika does not permit altering of its ad codes, it has a number of undocumented options that have been discovered by webmasters and posted on the web. Technically, this code hacking (e.g. changing fonts, altering ad displays in other ways) is a violation of their terms of service, although unofficially it seems Chitika has no problem with them. Still the lack of information about what can be done, or is forbidden, and the lack of "official" information from them is a problem.

No doubt Chitika is going to evolve and change as it emerges from beta testing. There is incredible potential for their system. But it's potential. Our recommendation is that you join the program, learn how it works, and wait to see how it evolves before you invest considerable time and energy into deploying on a full scale basis. Test it, and be patient as they develop, and see where the program ends up.

Since Chitika will work very well on some sites, and very poorly on others, testing is mandatory. But be aware that, as it stands now, the program really does require a good deal of manual tweaking of code, compared to Google Adsense, or the Yahoo Publisher Network. These latter programs require very little maintenance compared to Chitika, and setup time is much less. In an industry where time is money, this is a critical concern.

Hopefully, Chitika will improve its support and communication with web publishers, work to re-modify creatives to increase click-through rates, and make it easier to use contextual ads again. Of course contextual ads, while easy to use, are dependent on the ability of the software algorithms to select and serve relevant ads. Whether Chitika can do that remains to be seen.

So, Chitika is worth exploring and testing. However, right now, you may find that spending hours and hours setting it up on your websites is not worthwhile. Remember that if you invest the time to do so, you may need to invest additional time removing (or altering) Chitika ads if you discover they simply don't work on your site.

Again, be patient with Chitika, and think long-term. Remember that the program is in testing, and it will certainly continue to change. Those changes (as with already enacted changes) may help you make the program work, OR, they may result in the program being completely ineffective on your websites.

(c) 2005, Robert Bacal, Bacal & Associates. You are welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end) all links are made live, and this copyright notice and indication of authorship are included.

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Robert Bacal is a published author with McGraw-Hill and written several best-selling Idiot's Guides. His newest website - Product Buying Advice For The Befuddled and Smart Consumer (buyingadvice411.com) helps consumers make intelligent choices about their purchases of large ticket and electronic equipment, from mattresses to televisions, mp3 players, and exercise equipment.

Buyingadvice411 also implements Chitika, if you are interested in viewing from the browser's point of view.

The New Google Adsense Referral System (Increases Revenue For Webmasters)

Google has recently announced a Referral Program for its targeted ad delivery system - Google Adsense. Webmasters can now earn an extra $100 for each new referral they deliver to Google Adsense, one condition, that referral must earn at least $100 from the Adsense Program.

Webmasters can also receive $1 for each download of the Firefox browser with the Google Toolbar. Generally, very good news for webmasters and content creators working the Adsense program. Bad news for Gates and IE - the Firefox browser has gradually taken away users from IE. Onestat.com reports usage worldwide of Firefox has increased by nearly 3 percent since April 2005, with global usage share now at 11.5 percent for Firefox.

Perhaps, the fall out from the ongoing battle for control of the Web's search market will be of some benefit to webmasters. Google has now increased or given webmasters another revenue stream within the Adsense program. Granted this is only a one time payment and not a two tier system where webmasters would continue to earn a small percentage of their referrals' earnings. This may be a missed opportunity by Google to really explode the Adsense system.

For now, the Google Referral program is a good start in the right direction. Many webmasters and marketers are having an early Christmas with the announcement of this referral program.

Google Adsense is a simple and effective way for ordinary webmasters to monetize their sites. Webmasters place the Adsense code on their sites and Google delivers targeted ads based on the keywords of the sites. The main key to generating a large monthly income from Adsense lies mainly in the choice of keywords a webmaster decides to display on his/her webpages.

All keywords are not created equal. Some are worth more to advertisers and thus Google pays more to webmasters for certain keywords than others. The trick for webmasters is to deliver large amounts of traffic to the top-paying keywords. What are these top paying keywords you ask?

One simple way to find the top paying keywords is to use a site like overture.com to find out what advertisers are willing to pay for certain keywords. Just use common sense -- higher priced items will have usually pay the most. Web hosting vs a toothbrush. Once they have chosen their keywords, webmasters must create content rich pages or sites related to these keywords or phrases.

You then have to place your Google Adsense code in the most beneficial positions on your pages. Check with Google for Optimization Tips for some of the best paying placements here: https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html

Google Adsense is not a perfect system, placing these ads on your sites could draw away potential customers or buyers and result in lost sales for your site. Besides just placing the 'Ads by Gooooooogle' on a well designed webpage detracts from the professional quality of your pages. Why Google introduced this for its ads defies reason. A simple 'Ads by Google' would suffice.

Many webmasters believe placing Adsense ads on their pages cheapens their sites. Other believe it is delivering valuable links and service to their visitors. No matter what your opinion may be, Google Adsense is definitely a simple and easy way to monetize your site.

The addition of the Referral program will only add to the popularity of Adsense with webmasters. Increased revenue is never a bad thing. However, Google should have opened their pocketbooks just a little wider and given content creators a bigger portion of the Internet's ever growing ad revenue.

Google should have given the referral program some residual kick, with webmasters earning a small fraction of each referral's future earnings. What a missed opportunity for Google to really play Santa and give webmasters what they deserve.

Webmasters must now lobby Google, and any other ad delivery programs and companies for a bigger share in the revenue generated by their referrals. Fair is fair! Perhaps, the competition from other ad delivery systems will force Google to be a little more generous. In the meanwhile, it would probably be beneficial for many webmasters to use and promote Adsense, at least until a better offer comes along.

To learn more about the different Services and Programs offered by Google click here: Google Adsense & Google Adwords

Ebooks for Webmasters

Internet has opened a whole new world for web developers and web designers who are looking to get their websites developed that are finally launched on the huge world of World Wide Web. Keeping that factor webmasters are the people who have to face a lot of problems mainly due to the entrance of new software, programming languages and viruses that are a real threat for the webmasters.

Besides that issues like building the traffic to their website, a successful ezine, selling the products successfully and many other issues come side by side where newbie’s and potential webmasters both need to get the content. There was a time when becoming webmaster and handling a website was a major issue as the webmaster has to have the knowledge of all the major web issues, have to get the targeted traffic for the website and much more. But now with the increase in the internet and the number of websites, more and more people are becoming webmasters without much knowledge of the issues. That is why webmasters are now looking for information where they can get knowledge of how to handle the issues and how to make their websites standout of the rest.

Internet is a whole new paradigm and there are a lot of resources available for the webmasters, E-books are one of them. There are a lot of websites where you can download e-books for free while there are some good books for which you have to pay. There are a lot of potential websites where free e-books are available for the webmasters besides hosts of templates, Webmasters Tools items from Software and More are available. By using these e-books and Internet Business Tools, Auction Tools, and Technologies items webmasters can know the new things and what is new in the market.

E-books have been a great resource as far as the webmasters are concerned. As internet is filled with content but it still is missing with good and quality content. A bit similar is the case with E-books for webmasters as well. There are so many how to … and 21 Tips … book series guide all aiming at helping the webmasters at a great deal but it is fact that most of them have been written poorly by the novice who wanted their published material to be online with their names but not with some good content. So, while picking an E-book and starting to work over that, you must read out the intro and some references and if sounds good to you then you should go ahead with that.

Some E-books for webmasters have been aimed towards selling a particular product to the webmasters. Some web based tools, some Forums, some software or designs, hence the material on that e-book is aimed more towards the software while the catchy line of that E-book may refer to as ‘A complete Web mastering Guide’ or Learn Web Mastering. These E-books thus help the webmasters drawing traffic to their websites, by giving away these free E-books, not only they provide links but also information that can help the customers and visitors get back to them again and again. E-books thus are a necessary resource for the webmasters and they can be efficiently used in drawing traffic to your website by promoting web site promotion, submission, positioning, and design and marketing e-books by noted Web experts.

Most of the e-books that are much common on internet are on basic web mastering issues and on topics like Affiliate marketing programs for webmasters to earn money, Internet marketing solutions, Creating Viral Web Site Traffic, web site designing, submission, positioning, marketing and profitability, Website developing, hosting, search engine optimization methods. All these topics are very much essential for the webmasters to have knowledge of and hence these e-books do help them in guiding what they require.

Yasir Nisar is a 25 years old poet, writer, freelance journalist, script writer, director, software engineer and web master of many websites. He has been writing when he was in his early teens and till then he has written thousands of articles, tens of poems, have handled edited many magazines, directed as well scripted many shows and music videos. He has been handling and managing his own software house where he specializes in web marketing, web development, web promotion and technical writing. He can be reached at yani@yasirnisar.com and his web address is http://www.yasirnisar.com

Traffic for Webmasters

“If you build it, they will come”; is an age old phenomenon for webmasters that they develop the website and visitors themselves would visit that. This may be true for only a handful of websites but the most important and crucial topic for any webmaster today is to how to get targeted traffic to his website.

How good is a website without traffic, only webmasters know that very well and this is no doubt the biggest question of the new Internet age. The new webmasters have to face a lot of problems in order to attract the targeted traffic to their website. But by following few most used methods they can attract visitors of their particular niche group in a very safe manner. These methods are used and recommended all over the world and have been best to use.

Search engine Optimization is the most important issue while targeting the website to the traffic, because it is because of this optimization process that most of the visitors would be able to locate you not alone visit your website on a frequent basis. One of the major problems that the webmasters face is not to optimize their websites to the targeted market that they are catering to and hence the website is not known to many. It is utmost important for you today to have your website optimized with meta tags and keywords otherwise you will not get any place on the search engines for the particular keywords and niche market as you are looking to cater to.

With the new age algorithms and techniques been used by most search engines in order to provide some good content to the surfers, search engines now give utmost ranking to the website that have fresh content in abundance. So, webmasters need to add fresh content on a regular basis as this is the method of increasing traffic that is most ignored. Many people don’t realize that each of the inner pages of any website functions like a mini-website, in that they are doorways through which the site will be found in search engines and through which people will enter. If you add more pages with optimized content you will increase the chances of being found in search engines for a wide variety of search terms, and this will result in an increase in traffic.

Linking to your website is also a very important issue because of two reasons while at the first place it places you high in the search rankings for particular keywords while on the other hand, the other sites around the Internet link to your site will increase traffic to you directly and indirectly. So, this has direct as well as indirect response over your website traffic, due to the direct linking you will get direct hits from the visitors while on the other hand from the linking to these websites you will get a higher search engine ranking in search engines which measure link popularity as an index of a website’s value. One of the best ways in doing so is by doing reciprocal linking to different websites.

This is someway a very vague idea but has been very much beneficial for driving traffic. One of the best ways is to share your content with other websites giving a link back to your site. At one place it serves the purpose for the other website that it gets the fresh content, on the other hand your link to your website will drive traffic and customers to your website as they know that where the content is. This is an excellent way of selling your product to every nick and corner without spending budget on locating the possible customers for them. The websites link you back and you get the targeted traffic to your website.

So, if you are planning to make some radical steps in driving traffic for your website this is best way that you can do so. This way you will surely drive some long term traffic to your website.

Yasir Nisar is an experiened web marketer, content/technical writer, developer and author of three books on Affiliate Marketing, SEO and Internet Marketing. He loves photography and can be reached at http://www.yasirnisar.com

Online Content Networks - No article that explains search engine tactics would be complete without highlighting the importance of good content in ranking high on the search engines. While content relevancy is accepted as a fact, inexperienced and sometimes even the experienced web designers get trapped in the technicalities of JavaScript, flash files and tables while designing a site for the client.

Blog Systems - Even if you are new to the internet and internet marketing you have surely heard or read about the blogging craze that is happening on the internet. People blog for many reasons ranging from personal journal entries, political impetus, information aggregation, customer research and last but not least for money. Many people today are making a healthy income by using blogging as a means to develop income.

Rss Feeds - With RSS technology, it is possible to get the latest postings from your favorite websites. But clicking on the RSS or XML button in a homepage is not enough to give you the service you need. An RSS feed or code displayed in the pop-up screen if not on the main page is composed of symbols and words that would only make sense to advanced RSS users and computer programmers and software enthusiasts.

Essential Blogging Tools - So, you finally decided to take the blog leap. You've heard all about the marketing and search benefits so you stepped up to the plate and signed up for a TypePad, MovableType or WordPress blog software package and now you're a blogger.

Fitness Blogging - Every morning that I awake the internet is one of the things that I give God thanks for. Never has it been so easy to start your own business and you can even market it for free with the right techniques. Anyone from my farmer Grandmother to the beggar on the street can have their own online business. The easiest way to start one's own internet business is to sign up as an affiliate and sell a company's services or wares for a commission.

Content Management Systems - The technical hassles of creating a website have always been a problem for many affiliate marketers. Whether it's HTML, FTP, CSS, PHP, or any other confusing acronym, some affiliate marketers feel that it's a constant battle.

Renting Blog Space - At present we hear more often that adsense is used as an effective tool to display contextually relevant advertisements of a company or product on the website. If a visitor clicks on the advertisement to check it out the advertisement poster earns a percentage of revenue. Many webmasters are increasingly used the Google Adsense model as it is very effective and popular.

Debt Consolidation Blogging - As blogging continues to grow in power and influence, the power and importance of debt consolidation blogging continues to grow as well. It is important for those in need of debt consolidation and financial advice to carefully consider their needs, and to find a debt consolidation blogging site or sites that best meets their own needs.

Free Blogging Service - As blogging continues to grow in power and influence, the power and importance of debt consolidation blogging continues to grow as well. It is important for those in need of debt consolidation and financial advice to carefully consider their needs, and to find a debt consolidation blogging site or sites that best meets their own needs.

Virtual Smart Agent is causing a stir by increasing sales conversions by 40%
Virtual Smart Agent is improving conversions and has been taking the internet by storm over the last 5 or 6 days. This very effective marketing aid has already been proven to improve web site conversions by an amazing 40%. In some tests Dave Guindon the creator of the software had an astonishing 80% conversion. How [...]

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Chitika Eminimalls - Look Before You Leap - The Pros and Cons For Webmasters

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The New Google Adsense Referral System (Increases Revenue For Webmasters)

Ebooks for Webmasters

Traffic for Webmasters