Hey y’all it’s Terri from Chitika and I was fortunate enough to go attend WordCamp Boston 2010 this past weekend and I have some great tips to share with you.
First off – WordCamp was awesome. If any of you are WordPress publishers, thinking about doing more with WordPress or even just a web publisher you ought to attend the next one close to you! You can find out more about the WordCamp events at central.wordcamp.org. If you missed WordCamp Boston all the sessions will be on SlideShare and SpeakerRate soon, and do make sure to watch the Ignite videos.
Here are the top five tips I gathered at WordCamp that I thought would be great to share with you Chitika Publishers (and blog readers)
5 Online Publishing Tips
Post Often and Consistently
If you have a free week don’t post 10 articles or blogs during that week if you typically post only twice a week. Pick a schedule and stick to it to create a habit. If you have time to write more – write something relevant to your website that might not be time sensitive and schedule it to post in the future or save it as a completed draft to post when you are to busy to write for your schedule.
Check your Spelling & Grammar
Most of us are not English teachers – but make your 6th grade English teacher proud by proofreading. I will usually construct a post and run it through the Word or Open Office grammar and spell check then I’ll read it aloud to make sure it makes as much sense aloud as it does on screen. If you struggle with things like word choice and grammar you should definitely read the Elements of Style by William Strunk and E. B. White. There’s a free online version but I highly recommend a copy for your desk to read through at least once – pick one up on Amazon!
Vary Your Posts & Style
Don’t just post text time after time – your regular readers and RSS subscribers would usually love to see different styles of posts. Video posts, audio posts, lists, stories, interviews and add some stock photos to some of your posts too! Your content feels even more fresh when you jazz it up (on top of posting regularly, see also #1).
Full Disclosure is Optional but Recommended
If you are posting reviews for products or services that you may receive affiliate payments from or referral revenue it’s polite to add some text to the page disclosing this information. It’s optional but make sure to check with your legal department or regional government about what kind of disclosure laws are in place to protect bloggers and their readers. For US Publishers: How do bloggers follow the Endorsement Guides?
Want more tips? Post a comment and we’ll make sure to address some more web publishing tips in the future!
New! We have created a video tutorial showing you how easy it is to get started using Chitika Premium ads on your WordPress blog using our plugin. These instructions will walk you through step by step for WordPress versions 2.7 or higher.
Our Chitika | Premium WordPress plugin has made it easy for so many of you to add Chitika | Premium to your blogs, but it is limited in customizations.
Not anymore! As of version 1.3 we’ve made it easy to customize more about the placement appearance of your ads.
You already know you can change the size, colors and placement (above and below) but with just a snippet of code added to your style.css file in your theme you can really make the display your own.
Add Space
Is your ad too close to the post?
Just add the following lines to your style.css file:
.chitika-adspace { margin: 10px 0;}
It will add some visual space, or white space, above and below the ad.
Center your Ad
Don’t like the way your ad looks aligned to the left? Why not center it?
Add this line to your style.css
.chitika-adspace { text-align:center; }
Your Ad Can Fly Right
Do you want your ad to appear to the right of your post?
There’s a couple steps to accomplish this:
First you’ll have to choose your placement to be above or both
Then choose an ad size with a smaller width For this placement style we recommend the 250×250 Square or 180 x 300 ad size
Once you’ve done that, just add the following line to your style.css file:
We also think this option looks cool with a 120 x 600 skyscraper ad (above positioning only) – it’s almost like adding a dedicated sidebar to display ads only to your search traffic!
CSS Classes For You CSS Pros
For those of you who are familiar with style sheets or coding style sheets the plugin now adds the following classes to the divs containing the ads:
chitika-adspace (all ads)
above (above only)
below (below only)
aboveboth (above when both are displayed)
belowboth (below when both are displayed)
Have you done anything like this with your ads?
Tell us about your customizations in the comments below!
Another update to your favorite Chitika | Premium WordPress plugin went out earlier today. The new upgrade to version 1.3 is available for download now from the WordPress Plugin Directory:
Three new features in this upgrade are:
Advanced channel tracking
Limit Chitika | Premium to display only on permalinks (so they do not clutter up your homepage or category archive)
Chitika | Premium username reminder
Advanced Channel Tracking
In addition to using a customizable channel name you can now also have the Chitika | Premium WordPress plugin add ‘above’, ‘below’, ‘above – both’ and ‘below – both’ to your channel names simply by checking a box.
Why would I want to do that? Now you can change your setting in the plugin and always know in your reports where the plugin placed the ads. You can track your ads performance this way. For Example: if you choose to display Premium ads above and below your posts, your reports can show you which placement was more successful ‘channel name above – both’ or ‘channel name below – both’ letting you decide if you want to continue to display your ads using that configuration or if you’d like to change them up to find your best placement CTR.
Only Display Ads on Permalink Pages
Chitika | Premium ads are set to display whenever you full post is displayed. If your homepage or archive pages display more than one full post the Chitika | Premium plugin will display Chitika ads for each post. Some of our users prefer to only show on a permalink page because that’s where most of their search traffic lands and this helps keep their CTR more accurate.
Did You Remember to Enter your Username?
When you first install the Chitika | Premium WordPress plugin a demo username is used in place of your Chitika account username. You’ll need to change that in order to receive credit for your clicks. The built in reminder will let you know if you forget to enter your username. We want you to receive your credit (where credit is due!)
We have just updated our Chitika | Premium plugin for WordPress to version 1.2, and it is available for download now from the WordPress Plugin Directory:
This version includes the following updates:
Fixed bug that caused the Chitika | Premium ads not to display
New option for ad position: Above content, Below content, or both above and below (new)
Better explanation of the “Preview tool” section
Get the new version of the plugin now by clicking here.
Have questions or feedback about the plugin? Please leave us a comment below!
***UPDATE: Version 1.3 now available with various fixes/improvements.See full list here.
Always check our WordPress page for up to date information.
We know you are busy getting ready for the holidays (as are we), so we thought it would be a good idea to offer you a tool to help you save some time, so you can tend to more important things (like, eating lots of left-over turkey!):
Here is your new WordPress Plugin for Chitika | Premium so you can get Premium ads on your website easy and fast!
What is Chitika Premium?
* CPC Search Targeted ad Unit (see how it works here)
* High-targeted relevant ad that converts into high eCPM.
* Use on the same page as Google Adsense. Learn More.
***UPDATE: Version 1.3 now available with various fixes/improvements.See full list here.
Always check our WordPress page for up to date information.
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