Bisson Blog|Exploring the dark and seedy realms of the Intra-web!

Google have just announced the launch of a new type of Adsense which is set to revolutionise the way advert content is displayed on the internet.  Google partners YouTube have brought out a customisable streaming video player which allows you to select categories of your choice which will be automatically targeted to your site content.  You can also select content from individual partners of YouTube.

This seems like a great idea to me.  I think as a user, I would be much more likely to click on a video link if it visually catches my interest rather than the dreaded Adsense adverts that sit and stare back at you from most content sites these days.  The player is very customisable and allows you to edit the colour theme to fit in with the layout and feel of your site.  The only downside of the player is the actual size that it renders.  The smallest video size is 400 x 415 (see below) which still takes up a fair whack of space and seems somewhat over-bearing as an ad unit on a web page.  I think a small thumbnail size video unit would be much easier to integrate and would make me much more likely to use it on my own sites.

You will need a YouTube account to set yourself up for this but you can do this through the Adsense setup.  The player above is set to use video content from all categories but you can be more selective if you so wish and enter specific keywords which are used by the ad unit to serve up relevant video content.  I for one will definitely be trying this out on a couple of my sites to see if any revenue can be made and will be interested to compare the performance of traditional Adsense units with the Video Units.

So will text ads be replaced by visual media adverts on the web?  In some ways they already have been with most sites sporting huge animated gifs or flash banners advertising the latest car or weight loss scam.  Now with Google Adsense Video Units, anyone can add video adverts to their web pages in a relatively easy manner.  Hopefully YouTube will bring out a mini player in the next few months, fingers crossed.

I have recently set up an Amazon Associates store selling Fitness Equipment and Health Products.  This was done with ease using a very clever PHP based package called Associate-O-Matic.  Simply register for a cheap hosting package that supports PHP (BlueHost are excellent!), install the PHP scripts via FTP to your sever space and follow the simple instructions and before you know it you have a fully linked up Amazon store!

The Amazon Associates program works by tracking clicks from your store to products on the Amazon site, any conversions (products sold) that are made through this link will give the associate 4% of the price of the product.  This percentage rises to 6% after 7 items have been sold through your store. 

This got me into thinking about other ways I could generate beer money through affiliation, this lead me on to the thought of using Google Adsense on the site.  Now, I know what you’re thinking, why on earth would I want to serve up endless links to competitor sites potentially driving traffic away from my site and losing sales?  This was my initial though also.  I then started to think that if people have come to my site either through an adword or other advertisement it is because they may be interested in buying one of the products on the site.  If they then decide not to purchase anything, what is the harm in making money from one of my competitors in the process?  Arrr I hear you ask, but what happens if they see a more competitive price listed on the Adsense advert and opt to go for that one instead of purchasing your product?  Well, good point and yes that could pose a problem to me especially if my products are not competitively priced, but with the amount of price comparison engines and such on the net this days, most e-customers will shop around for the best price before settling on anything anyhow.

For my site (www.theFitnessEmpire.com), I am trusting the excellent people at Amazon to keep prices competitive for Fitness Equipment/Health Products and keep constantly up to date with online price sensitivity.

Anyway, if you see me driving a Lamborghini Gallardo SE in the next year you’ll know that The Fitness Empire is far from crumbling!

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