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A recent study by a company called Pheedo shows that not only is it possible to monetize your RSS feeds, but there is also a preferred method to increase return.

In this article I look at the study to show you what you need to do to monetize your feed.

Feeds allow us to syndicate content in an entirely different way than regular search engines.  Using a feed one can “push” new content to users, rather than having them search and find it on their own.  Using blogs and feeds we can also inform web services of an update rather than waiting for the engine to find and crawl the new content on its own.

Up until now these have been the main reasons for using blogs and feeds as marketing tools.

But now a new aspect of feed management is emerging.  One that allows you to not only push your content to readers, but also serve up ads and make money from your feed.

How It works

Using a service like Pheedo or some other similar service, one can set up a free account that allows you to insert ads into your feeds when they are published.

Similar to Google’s Adsense program, that inserts ads into your pages, Pheedo will insert ads which complement the content of the feeds.

From the Pheedo site:  “provides the tools and control you need to create an instant revenue stream from your weblog and feeds by leveraging our advertising partners.”

But it doesn’t stop there.  This particular service, like most, offer complete reporting solutions so you know which links are clicked on as well as which ads generate the most money.  You can also control which advertisers are (or are not) allowed to display their ads in your feeds.

Much like Google AdWords, payments are monthly and you can be paid by check or (unlike Google) PayPal.

What is required

Generally, as with any ad program, all you need to do is modify your feed templates to insert the ad code.

If you use a program like Movable Type to manage your feeds, then all you need to do is modify the template which generates the feed.

Once your account has been approved (usually takes between 24 and 48 hours) and you have modified your feed template to include ads, you should start seeing ads appear.

How to Maximize Feed Revenue

This is where it can get interesting.

Many feed services allow you to display the ads how you like.  And in some cases publishers opt for the easy way – that is displaying the ads in their posts.

And not all publishers will display an ad in every post. Sometimes it’s every 2 or 3 posts.

But a recent study indicates that ads in posts is not the most effective way to generate revenue.

In fact the study suggests that “RSS ads appearing as individual feed items generate a 7 percent click-through rate (CTR), over nine times higher than ads displayed within content posts.”

That means that while ads within posts are effective, they are more effective if they appear as their own entry in the feed.

The study also found that for those publishers who do prefer ads in posts there can still be improvements. “When publishers placed an ad in every feed post, the click-through rate came in at 1.04 percent, whereas limiting ads to every other post resulted in a 3.24 percent CTR.”

In other words, placing ads in every second post actually results in an increased click through rate than if the ads appear in every post.

What if you don’t like Pheedo?

You don’t have to use Pheedo, other services are available from RssCache and Feedburner, or you could wait until Yahoo! Search Marketing or Google AdWords for Feeds become publicly available.

And as time goes on, more and more companies like MSN and other smaller companies will be turning to monetization of feeds. 

In fact, I think feed monetization will be the advertising model for 2006.  While rich media continues to grow, I think we’ll see the most growth in feed ads.  Particularly when Google and Yahoo! Unleash their products to the rest of the web.

So if you’re wondering what to do next to monetize your site may I suggest you start researching feed ads?  I know I’ll be implementing feed ads shortly in my blogs.

Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for Textlinkbrokers.com