If Google hasn’t focused much on monetizing its video site YouTube to date… it’s now doing so with a vengeance. On Wednesday, the company announced it will start selling ad space on YouTube search-results pages.

The new advertising feature will allow anyone with a video on YouTube to promote it on a search-results page. Advertisers can bid on keywords and their videos will be displayed on the right-hand side of the YouTube search-results page with a small image and some text.

Advertisers will pay whenever a viewer clicks on the ad and can set their maximum price per click. As in Google Adwords, Google will choose the order in which ads are displayed based on how much advertisers are willing to pay, along with the relevance of the video to the keyword.

Here’s some food for thought (and something worth testing!): if you can give your YouTube video ANY title… does that mean that as long as the keyword matches the title… you’ll score highly on relevance?

So, in other words, can you change the title of your video to suit the keyword you wish to target? Or will Google index the text of the video (if applicable)?

Source: Stephanie Clifford, “YouTube to Sell Advertising on Pages of Search Results”, The New York Times, November 12, 2008

Google was the winner of the website category in the University of Michigan’s latest quarterly customer satisfaction index.

Google had the most satisfied customers, scoring 86 out of 100 (up 10 percent from its 2007 result), while its main rivals Yahoo slipped 3 percent to a score of 77 and MSN’s result was flat at
75.

Source: Erick Schonfeld, “Google Tops Website Customer Satisfaction Index”, TechCrunch, August 19, 2008

Still wondering about which niche to get into? If you have the interest, resources and a viable business model, consider starting a business in a sports related niche.

eMarketer estimates that U.S. sports sites’ revenues will reach $2.96 billion in 2012, up from $1.49 billion in 2007. eMarketer attributes much of that growth to higher ad revenues generated by websites providing sports content and using an advertising supported business model. eMarketer estimates that U.S. sports site revenues from advertising will rise from 55% in 2007 to 66% in 2012.

Whether or not you choose to focus on an ad-supported content model, ecommerce/retail model, or some combination of these or some other business model, the indications are that sports sites have no where near reached their potential.

According to eMarketer, sports fans are willing to pay for premium content and merchandise, and accept the involvement of sponsors and advertisers around sports events.

Source: eMarketer, “Sports Sites Score Big”, eMarketer, July 24, 2008