As publishers, we already know that placing in-text ads on our websites helps us earn advertising money with minimal interference to our visitors’ user experience. In fact, so many websites now have in-text ads on, that it has become standard. But then we search on… And there’s good news. A new ad unit has joined the club.

The New Tag Cloud

Meet the new and improved Tag Cloud Ad Unit. Based on the advanced contextual engine and language algorithm of in-text advertising, a new ad unit now offers a supplement on top of in-text ads. A dynamic tag cloud that features keywords and terms related to the content of the page that work similarly to in-text ads. This means that the links within the tag cloud operate as triggers for ads within bubbles that open up upon a hover and disappear harmlessly if the mouse is moved away.

This is how the tag cloud looks like:

Infolinks Tag Cloud Ad Unit

One Click Integration

Adding this new tag cloud takes a minute. Well, no. Much less actually. It takes a single click and then the tag cloud is placed automatically on the bottom of the main text areas on your website. If you’ve been following this blog Online Siesta, you already know that I write here about In Text Ads but also that I work in the industry for Infolinks. So this is the disclaimer: Infolinks is the only in-text ads network that offers the new Tag Cloud ad unit. To add the unit to your website you need to be a registered publisher with Infolinks, then – log into your account and under Integration, simply click Yes on the Tag Cloud tab. Within 5 minutes it will appear on your website and your potential earnings start to accumulate.

How Much will the Tag Cloud Ad Unit Earn?

Different websites yield different advertising revenues, this is clear. The tag cloud ad unit works the same way – the results vary between websites. However, if you provide high quality content on your website and your visitors are engaged, you can expect a relatively high click through rate on the unit, since it appears at the end on the content, exactly in place for the next click. Also, since the ad unit is on pay per click basis (PPC), you should expect a boost to your in text ads earnings.

This is how the tag cloud looks like upon a hover with an ad open:

Infolinks Tag Cloud with an Open Ad

The tag cloud is available in different color palettes so that it offers graphic flexibility for different looks. It is still new and I would be looking forward to any feedback. Good Luck!

You can see the tag cloud in action where I took the images from: My Guy Of Kind – Gift Ideas for Guys. Oh, and I’m about to add it to this website as well, so simply scroll down a little more to see it here…

I’m happy to share that the new book is out!  The Hidden Treasure in Your Website: The First Professional Guide to Monetizing Your Website with In-Text Advertising (the link goes to Amazon).

Humbly, author Tomer Treves is me, the same person behind this Online Siesta blog, so I can’t review the book objectively. But I think it’s only reasonable that I would recommend it…

Well, friends, I recommend the book – please buy one copy for yourself and 10 other copies for your family and friends

In Text Ads on Your Website Explained

Most bloggers and Web publishers need to make money from their websites but they struggle with keeping their readers happy and uninterrupted while visiting. There is a delicate balance between noisy jumpy display banners and clean focused content. In-text ads are a very good solution and alongside Google AdSense ads, they are the best monetization solution for many websites.

Yes, those double underline links that upon mouse hover open a bubble with a contextual ad within it are a great source of ad revenues for websites. But more important, they do so without interrupting with the reading flow. In fact, 90% (!) of the visitors read along without hovering, do not get exposed to the ad and enjoy the content.

The remaining 10% of the visitors do something wonderful – they express interest in the advertisement. This is like gold for advertisers because they get willing attention. This form of permission advertising yields high conversion rates and results to advertisers who are therefore willing to devote big online advertising budgets.

So the pay per click is relatively high and in text ads turn out to be an important source of earnings. This is why in-text ads are a hidden treasure. And this is why I recommend the book: it would help you earn more advertising revenues from your blog or website without covering your content with animated banners. Oh, and there’s a coupon…

$1,000 Coupon from Infolinks

The book includes a very nice coupon from Infolinks - double your first month earnings up to $1,000! Not bad as a start… Want the coupon? Click on the cover image below – it would take you directly to Amazon.

I would be happy and looking forward to receiving any feedback. Thanks!

New Google Search Algorithm

So, the Google team has rocked the boat yet again. On February 24th, 2011, Google announced a modification to their search algorithm which they referred to as “a pretty big algorithmic improvement” impacting 11.8% of the search queries. Aiming to lower the search ranking of low quality websites, Google now sends much less search traffic to websites that they find to be of low value add for users, copy content from other websites or that are simply not very useful. The change was first launched in the USA only but recently, on April 11th, 2011, it was rolled out globally to all English Google users.

The Big Google Traffic Drop

From inside information from the Infolinks in-text advertising network, which is now a giant network of over 300 million unique visitors, and from conversations with several major publishers, it is now clear to me that many big websites were hit by the Google change. In fact, they have seen a massive drop in visitors from Google searches. On the first couple of months this drop in traffic was in the USA only, as it is clearly obvious in this graph taken from Quantcast – notice the drop in the Orange area? These were US based visitors to a major articles website. Once the algorithm change is rolled out globally (and in all languages) we can expect the change to be similar in all geographic markets.

Lower Online Advertising Revenues

Some website publishers that monetize their content through online advertising and contextual ads like the combination of Google AdSense and Infolinks report a drop in revenues since this change occurred. Moreover, while a certain publisher told me he lost 32% of the US based traffic, the decline in advertising revenues was much steeper - over 50%!  The reason for the bigger drop in revenues is that those visitors who arrive through Google search from the USA are the highest earners for many websites. They tend to click more on ads and generate above average revenues. When they stopped visiting, they took the potential ad revenues with them elsewhere. But where to?

Higher Online Advertising Revenues?

But surprisingly other publishers report the opposite effect. They see an increase in Google traffic and AdSense and Infolinks ad earnings. Analyzing the situation, this should not come as a surprise at all. Assuming the volume of Google searches hasn’t changed, these visitors should land somewhere online. So one website’s loss is another website’s gain. The online advertising pie is just spread differently. At Infolinks, where next to major publishers we also work with numerous long-tail websites, we see this effect widely.

How Can I Earn More?

The natural question then is that now, after Google has rocked the boat, how can we land our websites on the positive shore?  While none of us has inside details about the algorithm change, we can still control our fate. At least partially. From Google’s announcement it is clear that they prefer websites with original content that yield real value to visitors. Obviously, no mathematical algorithm can provide this accurately, but the Google team is trying hard to do so.

If you want your website to get more visitors from Google search and earn more money from AdSense and Infolinks, think about your visitors. Forget about the technical SEO tips and tricks, abandon misleading links and methods to manipulate your visitors into clicking on ads. Abandon mechanic content with empty meaning. Be positive. Provide original content that helps readers. Hopefully, the smart people at Google will learn to recognize this content as adding value to readers. At any case, you will feel better about your work which is a very good start.

Lucky for me, I attended BlogWorld Expo Las Vegas last month and had great time with the Infolinks team. During the event I had the pleasure of speaking personally with many bloggers – mostly about monetizing blogs with In Text ads – and I thought the bottom line of these conversations was interesting enough to share here: In Text ads are much more subtle than the current Google AdSense ads. And this is a major shift in perception so I would want to explore this a little further.

Contextual Advertising: Google AdSense becomes Jumpy

When it comes to contextual advertising as a monetization method Google AdSense still rules as the top option. With Google’s vast AdWords marketplace their coverage plays a strong part in the ability to help bloggers and publishers monetize their content. However, with time, the once-subtle and quite text ads have been replaced by a growing number of display ads. And these display ads have turned mostly into animated banners. Therefore, the AdSense units display more and more jumpy ads.

The transformation from text ads to flashy banners was a response to the drop in clicks on the AdSense ads. Advertisers had to fight harder for the attention of web dwellers who disregard the ads entirely. But in this ongoing fight, it’s the actual website’s content that loses every time. The balance between content and noise has been pushed towards noise and this leads to user experience deterioration.

In Text Ads as the Quiet Alternative

Then came In Text ads. The double underline links are highlighted within existing content but they do not present any advertising to the regular reader. People are invited to read the text without interference and there’s no noise to distract their attention. In fact, now that online dwellers are used to these links, they keep reading just as they do when there are standard singe underline hyperlinks within the text. Only if a user is specifically interested in learning more about the highlighted term will he hover over with the mouse. Then, and only then, the small bubble will open up presenting a message from an advertiser. If interested, the user can click on it and proceed to the advertiser’s landing page, and if not – the cursor is moved away and the bubble disappears.

Most Readers Focus on Content

The shocking truth is that 90% of readers are not even exposed to the advertiser’s message and they get to focus on the content. This is also good for the advertiser who doesn’t have to pay for unwilling readers and doesn’t have to annoy people with the risk of negative emotions towards his message. Among the remaining 10% who do choose to hover and read the message, the openness to the advertised message is high due to the permission they granted for the bubble to open.

For the blogger or publisher the monetization works well and In Text ads generate a new source of revenues in addition to any other form of online advertising. But even more important, the blogger or publisher gets to keep the content much cleaner of advertising and push the content to noise balance back towards the content. Instead of flashy banners, readers simply see double underline links.

Bloggers Regard In Text Ads as Quiet

During my conversations with bloggers at BlogWorld Las Vegas, I clearly identified a shift in the way In Text advertising was perceived. If in the past In Text ads were sometimes frowned upon as being a little intrusive, now with Google AdSense ads being so jumpy and noisy, In Text ads suddenly appear as the sane alternative. Now, I don’t necessarily like calling In Text ads an AdSense Alternative, but rather I prefer to view them as an AdSense Supplement. But this new approach to In Text ads seems to predict an even wider adoption by bloggers, en route to becoming a standard monetization method.

Oh, and I also had time to have some fun in Las Vegas, when Infolinks took several VIP bloggers to a fun night out including a stretch Limo and a helicopter ride over the Las Vegas Strip… check out this video:

New Feature: Related Tags

The Infolinks Related Tags feature adds a unique In Text cloud within the content of a web page with carefully selected informational tags. These related tags are the most powerful keywords on the page and they perform similarly to In Text ads. When a visitor hovers over a tag, an Infolinks advertisement bubble appears and each click awards the publisher with additional revenues. Like with In Text ads, no space is required for this feature and no changes are made to the website layout. Here’s a first glimpse… (this image is taken from another website; to see it live, visit the In Text Ads Example Page)

Pilot Results: 30% Higher Revenues

Before offering Related Tags to its publishers, Infolinks ran it as a pilot on 200 websites selected to represent a general but varied population. Selection criteria included size, geographical area and site category. To ensure consistency, only websites with 6 months of stable earnings were allowed to participate. Data was collected and analyzed over a two month period. Comparisons were made between earnings before and after adding the Related Tags as well as the placement of the Related Tags on the web pages.

The results were surprising: not only did the Related Tags positively affect publisher earnings, it did so considerably. On average publishers who used the Related Tags feature increased their overall earnings by 30%.



In Text Position Matters

The position of the Related Tags clouds within the pages also had a substantial impact on earnings.  When the Related Tags were placed at the top part of the web page earnings increased by 35%, when placed in the middle a 20% increase and finally at the footer, a 15% increase.

A word from Infolinks: “By simply adding a small informational cloud to a website, online publishers can significantly improve the overall results. A small tweak can make a big difference. The Infolinks Related Tags feature has proven itself, it dramatically increased In Text advertising earnings and therefore we recommend In Text users to give it a try.”

A word from me: Well, it looks promising…!

Bloggers’ Concerns about In text Ads

By now, you already know what In Text ads are. Simply put, they are double underline links on your blog that upon a mouse hover open a bubble with an ad inside. When the mouse is moved away, the bubble disappears. Only upon a click, the reader is redirected to the advertiser’s landing page and you get paid. You should also know – by a quick Google search – that they can add on top of your Google AdSense earnings anywhere between 50% to 150%, depending on several factors. In Text ads are not merely an AdSense Alternative, they are an AdSense Supplement. If your blog is monetized well, you know this can be a lot of money. Then, what’s stopping you? From my experience, it can be one of the following reasons: (1) community objections; (2) poor past experience; or (3) emotional attachment to content. Let’s review them one by one.

Your Community will Not be Affected

“My returning readers and community are very sensitive to ads on my blog and I’m afraid they will object to in-text ads.” This is the most common concern among big bloggers and it can easily be mitigated. First, keeping the integration transparent and sharing with your readers the importance of the new ads for supporting your blog as a business should be enough. Second, from my past experience you will soon learn that only a tiny minority of readers would actually be bothered by the new links on the text; the double underline links don’t interfere with reading more than regular hyperlinks. Third, and most important, you can remove the ads for your sensitive community by either letting them opt-out through the ad network (this would place a cookie on their computer), or by setting the ads to appear only for search engine traffic or for users who are not logged-in. In Text ads are placed on numerous blogs and your readers are probably used to them, and for the few who are not, you can still offer the same content without the ads.

In Text Ads are Now Better. Much Better

“I tried in-text ads two years ago and was disappointed by low revenues and a script that slowed down my blog.” Well, Google AdSense wasn’t perfect on day one as well. Every new technology has to mature and in-text advertising has done so during the past two years. If you choose correctly among the leading in-text ads networks, you would be amazed by the improvements. Higher revenues, no slowing down, flexible control over the ads. You can easily set your ads to a minimal number of links, customize their graphic appearance, and even get 70% revenue share to guarantee significant earnings. If you tried in-text before, I recommend that you try it again to see the difference yourself.

Content and In Text Ads are Not Mixed

“I keep a strict dividing line between my content and paid-for ads.” This can be understood and it’s even important for the integrity of your content. But let’s face it, the contextual ads surrounding your content today are very tightly related to the content. Google AdSense is doing a remarkable job in making sure that the ads match the text. Why doesn’t this bother you? Because your readers know the difference between ads and content. This is also true about in-text ads, which are now served to over 500 million users every month, and online dwellers have grown to recognize them as ads. It could be that you’ve just worked so hard to produce your content, that you can’t bear the thought of external links on it. You’ve become emotionally attached to it. If this is the case, you can also set the ads to appear only on posts that are a few days old, and thus let the time difference heal your feelings.

Let’s Talk about In Text Ads on your Blog

I wrote before on how much you can earn with your blog. I tried answering objections to In Text ads. The past year has yielded amazing results with many thousands of bloggers integrating In Text ads. And yet, some big blogs haven’t joined yet. What’s stopping them? If you have additional ideas, please comment below. If you have a big blog yourself and you’re still not convinced, drop me a line through the About page – I’m looking for insightful discussions to learn more about this. If you take my invitation to talk about this, I’m willing to guarantee you a no-risk trial with thousands of dollars guaranteed in return. If you have a big blog, with 2 million page-views monthly, that number of $50,000 for your first year is a done deal. What do you say, can we talk about it?

WordCamp Chicago Speech

Good morning. I feel right at home here at WordCamp Chicago. My brother and his family live nearby, so I get to Chicago often. I have been using WordPress for my own blog OnlineSiesta.com, which celebrates its first anniversary this week. In fact, I fell in love with WordPress, and when my father asked me for help in setting up his own website about regenerative medicine, we did it with WordPress as well. It took my father less than a couple of hours to get the idea and his WordPress site now flourishes.

I’m here with a small team of two from Infolinks to celebrate the launch of our new WordPress Plugin. As part of this launch we will offer all of this weekend’s participants a small gift plus a special bonus worth $40, so please be sure to visit the booth outside to get yours. You can easily find us – simply follow the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

In one sentence, the Infolinks WordPress Plugin places In Text Ads on your website –– those double underline links that upon a mouse hover open a small bubble with an ad inside. Now, I know, nobody likes ads on websites, but we don’t put them there for their mere beauty… these ads cover the costs of the website and can add an additional profitable stream of revenues.

If you have Google AdSense ads or any other contextual advertising solution on your site, then you’ve already acknowledged the need to monetize your content. But these flashy banners can be noisy and also, they may not pay enough. In Text links are harmless – very much like regular links on your content, they don’t interrupt the flow of reading – and they only open ads when your visitors actively express genuine interest.

Trying In Text ads used to be free. Now, we actually pay you $40 to give them a try. Also, if you’re offering a service to WordPress users, we have an attractive affiliate program. It took me less than a minute to install the new Infolinks Plugin on my blog and on my father’s website, and within a single day I could see my earnings accumulate. I invite you all to try it as well.

So, again, we’re here for the weekend and we’ll be happy to continue the discussion about In Text advertising. Please don’t forget to stop by the Infolinks booth with the cookies to collect your gift and bonus. Have a great WordCamp weekend!

Related Links to WordCamp Chicago

WordCamp Chicago Website

Infolinks In Text Ads WordPress Plugin

Regenerative Medicine at MyNewTherapy.com

Well, after several months of writing from my experience about In Text advertising, you can finally find double underline link ads on my site as well, and not only on the In Text Ads Example page. I will be looking forward to hearing any feedback you may have.

The In Text Ads Integration: Easy!

How easy or difficult was the integration? I was amazed. It took me less than a single minute to set it up and since the website was already approved (for the Example Page), the double underline links appeared immediately. I know, I sell such ads for a living and promote them… I told many people how fast and simple the integration is. But, having experienced it here myself, it was a very nice surprise to find out that the sales pitch is real.

The New WordPress Plugin

This blog runs on WordPress and to integrate the new In Text ads I have used the new WordPress Plugin from Infolinks. While it can be downloaded from the Infolinks website, I took an easier path. From the Plugins section on the WordPress dashboard I clicked on Add New, searched from Infolinks, and clicked there on The Official Infolinks Plugin. Then, I clicked on Install Now and after a few seconds, went to Infolinks Settings under the regular Settings area (on my dashboard it’s on the bottom left part). There, I entered my Publisher ID from Infolinks and the Website ID, and… well, that was it! I reload the blog and presto – In Text ads are live… within 24 hours, I will already have access to my earnings report. I will update

How would In Text ads look like on your very own website? You can now get a quick and easy preview by visiting AdsOnYourSite.com.

All you have to do there is enter your URL and a preview of your website with In Text ads will appear.

How Much Can I Earn with In Text Ads on My Site

This nice preview tool at AdsOnYourSite also gives you a rough estimation of your potential monthly earnings from In Text ads.

Disclosure: the AdsOnYourSite website is free to use but it’s operated by Infolinks.

The AdsOnYourSite Widget

AdsOnYourSite.com also offers a free widget that can be added to your website or blog by simply copying and pasting the html code. This free widget gives your visitors the opportunity to preview their websites with In Text ads and estimate their potential earnings.

Have you ever hovered over an in text ad double underline link only to find a bubble that offers to search more information about the highlighted term? This is a Search Bubble. When clicking on a search bubble, the visitor is lead to a landing page with search results for that certain highlighted term. Clearly, this is not exactly an advertisement, because the visitor is only offered search results and not more related content from an advertiser. But you do see quite a lot of these search bubbles among other in text ads… Where are they coming from? And more importantly, who pays for them?

Paying for Search

The publishers do get paid per click even when the in text bubble only contains a search link. In most cases, the advertiser is the search engine itself. In an online world dominated by Google, smaller search engines and niche search engines are forced to buy search traffic. In other words, to promote their search services, they pay for people to use them for search.

A good example for this is Microsoft’s Bing search engine. A relatively new comer with clear intentions to win market share over from Google, Bing is paying for campaigns to promote searches, trying to get people to appreciate their services and come back for more searches. Another example can be business directories or specialized niche search engines, which pay for initial searches, hoping for returning users later on.

This way, the in text ads network places search bubbles, but in fact, these are actual ads paid for by the target search engine. Therefore, in the eyes of the publishers, these are regular ads with standard pay per click model, while for the visitors of the websites, these ads simply offer more information in the format of search results.

Paid for Search Results

In addition to the search bubbles financed by the target search engines, sometimes the search bubble leads to search results that contain paid for results. The business model here is based on the potential revenues from visitors who click on the sponsored results.

Let’s clarify this with an example. Joe is looking for information about a certain disease through Google. He gets to a website with information about this disease and one of the possible treatments is highlighted with double underline as an in text ad. Upon a mouse hover, the opening bubble offers Joe to search more information about this treatment using a health related search engine. After he clicks, he lands on the health related search engine’s results page. These results are relevant to his search and he’s happy. He clicks on one of them from a local clinic that offers that treatment and becomes a lead for that clinic, a potential customer. The health related search engine paid 20 cents for that click. The in text ads network kept 30% of it, and paid the remaining 14 cents to the original publisher, which makes them both happy. Now, the health related search engine specializes in health clinics and was able to sell that ad to a local clinic for 70 cents. Again, both the search engine and the clinic are happy. The clinic for purchasing a valid lead for a price it was willing to pay, and the search engine for earning the difference between prices, in this case – 50 cents.

Search bubbles are sometimes condemned for being a tool for traffic arbitrage – publishers who buy cheap traffic in the form of run-of-network (RON) campaigns and transform it into revenues from higher paying ads. However, as shown in the example above, when handled correctly, all participants can be very happy with it. From the original website and visitor, through the in text ads network, and all the way to the search engines and their advertisers – all involved sides managed to earn from the transaction that got the potential customer and clinic in contact. And who knows, perhaps that in text search bubble would get Joe healthier.

Shopping Comparison Bubbles

One type of in text search bubbles is purchased by shopping comparison websites. While a publisher could get paid a little more for displaying an advertisement from the final online retailer, many online shoppers prefer going through a shopping comparison website that offers reviews of the product and price offers from different online retailers together with reviews of the retailers themselves.

This preference has lead to in text ads with shopping comparison search bubbles. Upon a mouse hover over a double underline link, mostly of a highlighted name of a product, the opened bubble will offer the visitor shopping comparison for that specific product. The target landing page will present the visitor with shopping alternatives and reviews. Due to the nature of in text ads that require the active permission of the visitor, shopping comparison websites find high conversion rates from such ads that bring visitors with good chances of purchase, which explains why they are willing to pay per click. Again, all sides are happy, from the publisher who got paid for the click, through the network and shopping comparison website, and on to the online retailer at the end of the line that gets a lead that has actively chosen to get there with high potential of purchase.

Happy People

So, the next time you see an in text ad with a search box inside it, either from a general search engine or from a niche information provider like a shopping comparison website, you can smile. True, this is not exactly an ad, but when managed correctly by the in text ads network, it creates a cycle of happy people.