Over the next few months Blog Pr Wire’s Blog Tips blog will be reviewing and featuring a variety adserver plugins for WordPress.
I know we have many bloggers that use free hosting such as blogger, however if you are selling adspace, you should have by now updated to owning your own hosted platform ;) which is why we have decided to feature WordPress plugins for adserving in this series of posts.
Our first featured Adserver WordPress Plugin is OIOpublisher
Cost $47 - save $10 with this coupon code: MIST-PRWIRE
This is an ad severing technology that allows you to manage the ads for one WordPress Blog using the WordPress Plugin they provide.
You can manage all aspects of selling and running of ads onyour WordPress blog within your WordPress dashboard. They payment modules allow you to accept Paypal, Google Checkout , even Entrecard credits as a form of payment!
You can create as many zones as you need (a zone is an ad space) and even make custom sized banner placements.
This WordPress adserving technology really was created for bloggers. It isn’t as heavy or hard to manage as a traditionally ad server and it has ad options geared to bloggers such as the ability to sell and manage paid posts.
We also love the very clear documentation within the dashboard and support areas. Tutorials, Videos, a support forum, for any blogger new to adserving with basic WordPress skills this premium WordPress adserving plugin will be a snap to use.
Visit their site for a full demo version and feature descriptions.
*if you want to manage the ads of multiple sites/blogs on one dashboard this is not the right adserving solution for you.
Google Adsense is usually the Pay per click ad network that comes to mind when a blogger is considering PPC ad networks to run on their blog. But wait! There are other established and trustworthy PPC ad networks out there, so why not give them a try.
AdBrite will often accept blogs or websites that AdSense overlooks. They run ads on over 100,000 websites. It’s free to join and they will target ads on their end for you.
Here are a few more PPC Ad networks that often accept bloggers as publishers:
Ad Dynamo (contextual ads)
Reader’s question:
“How can I get free blog visitors – traffic using traffic exchanges?”
Answer:
First let me say that they key to quality organic traffic is not traffic exchanges. It is creating a quality SEO optimized UNIQUE content. (Yes that is our disclaimer.) However, should you really want to obtain free traffic to your blog using traffic exchanges you will find that most in this list of free traffic exchanges will provide you with up to 1000 free visitors for signing up.
BEFORE you use any of these auto traffic exchange services MAKE SURE you have quality antivirus software on your computer like – AVG or Norton.
The following list of traffic exchange programs can provide you with free visitors to your blog.
123autohits.com
24-7autohits.com
24-7autosurf.com more…
Google Forms is a great tool. As a blog contact form, or simply to collect data from your visitors, Google forms pulls the form contents into an excel chart (within Google Documents) and will notify you of any updates by email.
The one concern I see over and over on blogs is how to streamline the form into a blog page or blog post. Three simple steps can take your form from looking – well – not so pleasant. To looking like it is mean tot be there.
Bloggers are often looking to work with the top brand name PR reps. Are you ready to start working with the big brands?
Here are some of the things you NEED to be considered a quality media partner with professional PR Reps:
1) Quality Site Design & Layout.
- Crisp images, easy navigation (navigation bar & footer), min 550 pixel width main content section.
- Is the content you are displaying actually what is featured on your page or is your layout overwhelming the content? Do not use dark backgrounds with light text. The content/copy is what your blog is about and it has to be readable and the focus of the reader.
- No over crowding. Keep your side bar content to a minimum. Feature a few buttons and move the rest to pages.
2) Full disclosure AND transparency.
Have a disclosure policy clearly linked from your footer.
Create a CONTACT page that is clearly linked within the TOP fold of your site. Visitors should not have to scroll down to locate your conact page.
3) Understand real Internet metrics.
For every 1000 views of content a PR Rep or advertiser can expect to see 1-3 clicks. Do you have enough unique visitors to ensure their campaign will succeed? If not, what are other benefits you can provide? (see number 5)
4) Be ready for contact.
Know your traffic and visitors. Google Analytics is free and will tell you who visits your blog. This is information needed to make sure your offers and content are relevant to your visitors. This is what PR reps and advertisers want to know.
Have a PR Contact Page that provides the information PR Reps are looking for (which is similar to an advertising Media Kit). Include a form to make it easy for PR Reps to contact you.
5) Syndicate and cross promote. If you don’t have the site visitors on your blog- maybe you have them in other places. Consider posting your features and reviews on other blogs as a guest writer, on your facebook, microblogged on twitter, as an amazon review, included in articles that your distribute elsewhere… get creative. Let Pr Reps KNOW you do this.
7) Understand what SEO is. A good PR Rep will review your content before establishing a relationship. Are you practicing good SEO practices?
Use keywords your visitors would use in search engines within your reviews (this will bring you future traffic that is relevant to your blog ), this give value to your posts that PR Reps will be looking for when they consider a partnership with you.
- Ensure your reviews link back to your media partners pages.
- Use perma links and title your post and urls with keywords.
- Have unique meta tags in each post.
8) Be a publisher and a blogger.
Take the time to learn the ropes. Blogging isn’t really all that new. Parents were blogging in the 90′s, they just had to write each and every page in html. Blog platforms (content managers) are new.
Design, content, getting quality visitors; these are all well tested , well established. The Internet industry knows how people interact with web browsers. They know what works – you should too. Don’t waste hours,weeks, years, learning by trial and error. There are a lot of FREE resources out there. Dedicate time to learning the ins and outs of being a Internet publisher.
The Blog PR Wire has been sharing some great giveaway opportunities for bloggers this month and we thought we would provide some tips on promoting your blog giveaways as this weeks Blog Tip post.
1) Harness social media. Be sure to post your giveaway links on your Twitter, Facebook, and social media profiles. Two great ways to help schedule these posts are: Ping.fm and Hootsuite.com
2) Post your giveaway’s on Contest sites accepting free submissions. Here is a list of places to submit your giveaways:
Blog Give Aways (email submission)
Contest Listings (form submission)
Saving with Cents (weekly roundup linky)
Moms who love to read (book giveaways only)
Online Sweepstakes (free membership registration required)
Contest Alley Link back required
Sweepstakes advantage (requires free registration)
Cashnet Sweeps (requires free registration)
Know of others? Please comment and share the places you submit your blog giveaways.
Have you ever been faced with an overwhelming number of pending SPAM comments in your WordPress blog? The daunting task of deleting them 20 at a time when you have 40,000 of them (like one of our blogs!) can be – well shall we say – concerning.
Blog Pr Wire has found an amazing WordPress Plugin that will delete all of your comment spam. The WP-Optimize WordPress Plugin will allow you to delete all of your pending WordPress comments with one click. Finally, a WordPress comment spam plugin that works and is updated as needed.
Be sure to review your comments and approve the legitimate ones, BEFORE, using this WordPress Plugin.
“WP-Optimize is a WordPress 2.9++ database cleanup and optimization tool. It doesn’t require PhpMyAdmin to optimize your database tables. It allows you to remove post revisions, comments in the spam queue, un-approved comments within few clicks.
Additionally you can rename any username to another username too.
For example: If you want to rename default ‘admin’ username to ‘someothername’; just put ‘admin’ (without quotes) to the Old username field and the new username to the New username field, then click “PROCESS”)”
Click here to learn more about this Comment Spam management WordPress Plugin.
If you share a computer with your children, you probably understand the REAL fear of a malicious download wiping out your desktop. Even if you are the sole user of your precious computer, losing your hard work, research, images for your blog posts is a rather scary thought.
How do you keep all those important tidbits for your blog safe? Most will answer with long winded instructions on backing up your computer (including your blog backup files). Not I! My solution is called drag and drop into a desktop folder – or save the files in the folder. Easy Peasy.
For those of us with little time or money to pay someone here’s a handy FREE solution. It’s called Drop box. Not only does it back up to their remote server – it also allows you to access your files from any computer or phone.
So bloggers, my blogger tool of the week is Drop box. We can’t live without it! Register for free at Drop Box
Today’s featured blogger is Monique of Stretching Your One Income Dollar , a website that helps you save money on all kinds of essentials from food to vacationing.
Why did you start your blog? 
I had written a book titled Stretching Your One Income Dollar and wanted a website to go along with it.
What is your blog about?
Making less go further. We are a one income family and we show how it is possible to still live comfortably with one income.
We started doing product reviews and giveaways with the site as well, and really have fun with those.We love doing the reviews and our readers love entering the giveaways. It’s great promotion for businesses.
What platform is your blog hosted on?
Blogger
What are your goals for the near future?
Goals are to continue to grow in size with readers and to continue to promote more products and feature more great articles from our guest writers.
Monique is a mother of two adult girls who lives her philosophy- saving, writing, and product reviewing – with her partner Gerry. She is one of the many great writers that advertisers can reach through BlogPRPitch .
Want your face and profile here? Wander on over HERE and fill out the form
It’s the beginning of a new week, and as such we have a new featured blogger that you’re sure to enjoy. Today we pick the brains of Stacie Vaughan of simplystacie.net .
enjoy!
Why did you start your blog?
I started my blog after discovering the wonderful world of blog giveaways. I thought it would be fun to host my own so I gave away something from my home. After a few months, I was contacted by a company to do my first product review and it just grew from there!
What is your blog about?
My blog is mainly product and book reviews and lots of giveaways. I also share any resources or blogging tips I find in my travels to help other bloggers out. (ed. – the blogosphere is far more fun when we share!)
What platforms has your blog been hosted on?
WordPress
So what’s your favourite WordPress Plugin?
Comment Luv (ed- Commentluv rewards your readers by crawling their blog and posting a link to their most recent blog post. This encourages useful comments and backlinks )
Tell us a little about your blog and goals for the near future.
I plan to continue with the reviews and giveaways as I have been doing. I have a team of reviewers and they have been doing the bulk of the reviews. It takes me a lot of time to do all the admin. I have some big events planned for the next year. I love working with other bloggers on events, so I will likely continue doing that as well.
Stacie Vaughan is a Canadian mother of two girls, aged 12 and 6. When she’s not busy chasing her kids or finding sweet stuff for her readers, you’ll find her curled up with a book or traveling and hunting for a great bargain.
Click the link to check out Simply Stacie today
Stacie is among the many bloggers that advertisers can reach through BlogPRPitch .
Want your face and profile here? Wander on over HERE and fill out the wee form and we’ll check you out :)
