11/1/08

Google Feeds the Monetizer Ad Treats

Happy belated Halloween! Hopefully you all received nice 20's, 50's and crisp 100 dollar bills in your trick or treat bags last night! The Monetizer didn't receive candy, but Google recently provided The Monetizer with a nice additional treat, another way to make money online! It took about a month or two before Google transferred over my various blog feeds from Feedburner's site. Feedburner is now integrated with the Google Adsense Feeds, where I have set up several of my feeds with Adsense and am implementing tests.



As seen in the picture above, the Adsense feed ads can be adjusted just like regular Adsense code. You're allowed to choose text/image, just text or just image ads for your blog. You can arrange color schemes of your choosing, and set how many ads are seen on your feeds (every feed, every 2nd item, every 3rd, etc). It's a nifty little setup. If you haven't transferred your feeds over yet, give it a shot, as I've already seen some profit from it. To get started you'll need to log into your Google Adsense, go up to "Manage Ads" and select the Feeds tab or link. There should be a link on the next page which you can click to "migrate feeds" from Feedburner. Google is now in control of Feedburner (as they are of most online stuff), and you simply supply your Feedburner login info to migrate all of your feeds into the new Google Adsense setup. It may take several weeks or month for the migration so get to it early!

Once you're migrated, any Feedburner feeds will have a new feed URL which will now have "googleproxy" in it's URL, rather than Feedburner. This new URL won't automatically be updated if you've manually added it to spots on your blog or blog entries. For example, if you've put a link on your blog sidebar to allow Feedburner RSS subscription, it will most likely need to be changed now to the new URL address. And you may need to update other widgets on your blog that use the feed link such as the buttons that allow people to choose their reader. (If someone has had a different experience with this, please comment below). The good news is that when you log into your Feedburner account, they will have your new RSS feed links correctly listed. So the Google + Feedburner connection seems to be paying off and going smoothly.

I referred to the great John Chow's feeds and have mimicked his Feed ad style. Currently Chow uses the basic blue URL links, a light gray border around his items, and allows both text and image ads to run above each of his feed items. Give it a try yourself, or if you have been using Adsense feeds, drop a comment to let me know of your experiences or findings.

I also want to give a nod to John Cow who presents a great way to find "golden nugget" search terms for your blog or website using Google Insights tool. Check out Cow's blog entry to find Search Keyword Gold! It's a great technique for creating blog entries that will bring in more traffic!

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