I am a big fan of Feedburner, all my feeds are channeled through the Feedburner site and that is the RSS address I submit to all directories and search engines. I have been hopefully waiting for the launch of FeedBurner site ads as an alternative source of income. Of course, Feedburner was then taken over by Google in the Autumn so I suppose it was inevitable that the ads served through Feedburner would be Adsense contextual ads. The new system is live over at Feedburner now, and makes it quite simple to start displaying Adsense for newbie bloggers. You can only run a300×250 or 468×60 size ads, and they will be set for text or image ads. I do not think this is the best option, I limit the ads to text only as my first choice. I was hoping that ads in RSS feeds would also be available but it seems like we have to wait a little longer for those.

Signs It’s Time To Redesign Your Website

Designing your first website is a stressful undertaking. It requires you to dig deep into your business in order to write the copy for your site. You need to work with a designer and go through the process of creating a site that looks unique and works well. Plus you’ll end up investing a lot of time, energy and money. And finally, after all that, you’re finished and it’s time for the site to go live. What a relief! Read more »

This time I will be less critical of Google and YouTube’s amateur video stars, I expect they just wanted to get some credit for designing their fab new Adsense Video Units. If you are a US Adsense publisher then you are lucky and you will be able to test the new video units on your websites or blogs and test their effectiveness in increasing your Adsense earnings. Meanwhile the rest of us just watch with baited breath. This video is much more focused on helping you make the best use of these new ad units, and guides you through the process of merging your Adsense publisher account with your YouTube account, designing the ad units and embedding the videos on your web pages.

Today I was reading Google’s own Inside Adsense Blog and I noticed a post about the new Adsense Video units, which offer Adsense publishers a way to get video content for your website of blog and earn extra Adsense income at the same time. I watched the instruction video, where a bunch of Google and YouTube geeks explained how they have worked hard to make the new video ads user friendly, then I logged in to my Adsense account but I could not see the link to video ads. Then I noticed at the bottom of the Google blog post, “Video units will be live in AdSense accounts later today (10/9). Currently this feature is open only to publishers located in the United States with English-language websites.”So the rest of us around the world cannot yet use this new earning stream to help boost our Adsense income. Shame - I will be interested to see how US publishers are finding the new ad units, and whether they produce valuable clickthroughs. Google has produced a number of videos - on YouTube, of course - to talk you through the setup procedure, and I have included my favourite, which features the geeky boys. It is not really helpful for Adsense publishers but I think you will find it amusing. Check out the face fuzz on some of those guys!

One of Google’s proudest recent introductions is the launch of Google Gadget Ads, Listed as customized “mini-sites” that run as ads. Google intends them to be interactive, and engaging, keeping them on the site and providing good advertiser returns. This view runs counter to most thinking among successful Adsense publishers, who advise that you should allow only Adsense text ads to appear on your web pages, for a higher clickthrough rate. Read more »

I decided to test a couple of image ads on some of my blogs just over two weeks ago. Google is pushing this option quite hard and I think some of the banner ads are quite striking. But I found that they were not attracting a higher clickthrough rate, and were really making the pages look a bit too busy, so I am reverting to image ads.

I am testing out Google’s Image ads format on a couple of my sites. The wisdom on Adsense was generally to blend the ad units, however Google is now seeking spots for image display ads and video formats. I am trying the images in a niche where I was plagued with low paying MFA (made for Adsense) ads, it will be interesting to see if there is an improvement.

Here is the guidance on placing images next to Adsense Ads, straight from Google:
Can I place small images next to my Google ads?
We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads. If your visitors believe that the images and the ads are directly associated, or that the advertiser is offering the exact item found in the neighboring image, they may click the ad expecting to find something that isn’t actually being offered. That’s not a good experience for users or advertisers.

Publishers should also be careful to avoid similar implementations that people could find misleading. For instance, if your site contains a directory of Flash games, you should not format the ads to mimic the game descriptions.

What if I place a space or a line between my images and my ads? Would that work?
No. If the ads and the images appear to be associated, inserting a small space or a line between the images and ads will not make the implementation compliant.