Shopping sites like Shopping.com, Yahoo! Shopping, BizRate, and NextTag already dominate Google’s organic search results and paid listings.

Ask.com just announced their contextual ad network.

Amazon.com just had a solid quarter, and is selling ads directly via ClickRiver.

Why are ads on Wikipedia unthinkable? Because Jimmy Wales is gathering authority and content, waiting for his search project to launch. Don’t be surprised if the Wikipedia contains ads soon after Wikisaria’s ad program launches.

How many ad networks will online marketers be willing to sign up for?

If you think the web is full of spam now, wait until you see what it looks like when all the large brands put ads in the content, and when shady publishers have a dozen different distributed ad networks to chose from.

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eBay offers a Marketplace research service that costs $2 to $25 a month.

Amazon shows which products are the best for last year, current top selling products, movers and shakers, and hot new releases.

In addition to giving away this free conversion information, Amazon lets you see what customers think of the product via review, allows you to bid on keywords related to products via ClickRiver. If you sell your stuff on Amazon.com, you can buy a better together listing with a popular product.

If you are in the info-product market Clickbank’s Marketplace is a goldmine.

Once you find interesting products you can refine your keyword research using general keyword tools, then further refine that data by using a tool like KeyCompete to see what keywords competitors are bidding on.

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Lots of people have asked me why my book is not on Amazon.com, but it is largely because I wrote my book more as a direct revenue stream than as an upsell for consulting services. I have seen nationwide top selling books given away by the thousands at conferences only to open them up and see that they were thinly disguised sales material. But if you hire a publicist, get a bit of buzz, and give enough way you are a great author.

As soon as you get an ISBN some of the major book retailers will start discounting its price even if they do not cary it. At least now I can start getting exposure on those sites without having to commoditize my book price, and the lack of printing costs and higher price point means that Amazon will always be able to make more by selling me ads than from selling physical books.

Many of the Clickriver ads are still quite a bit off target, which means there must be quite an arbitrage opportunity there. Where’s Shoemoney when you need him? But irrelevant ads are ok on Amazon.com because their ad network is new, Amazon.com is such a trusted brand, and they are the model ecommerce website.

Part of the reason there will always be a need for SEOs (or equivalent) is because language shifts and new ad networks and new ways of advertising keep appearing. Did you know you can buy interstitial ads from AdBrite that are targeted to the keyword, category, AND demopgraphic level? And there are lots of other ways to target specific people cheaply (AdSense content targeting, social media manipulation, linking at their websites, etc. etc. etc. ).

Google’s stock price is so high because they have virtually no physical products and thus have fat profit margins. Other traditional publishers and ecommerce sites like Amazon.com will eventually syndicate more ads and sell more ads directly in fairly automated formats. Major newspapers are doing partnerships with Google, Yahoo!, and are even talking about making their own nationwide ad network. Each changing publishing format or new ad network is an opportunity. If it is overpriced sell it. If it is underpriced buy it. And if you have a big stake in a few of the ad networks you can even use your market knowledge to trade stocks and options. It would be cool to have a big enough ad buy and content distribution network by the end of the year to get a pretty good picture of the direction of the market as a whole and specific stocks from my own advertiser and publisher accounts.

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Aaron Wall is the author of SEO Book, an ebook offering the latest
search engine optimization tips and strategies. From SEOBook.com Aaron
gives away free advice and search engine optimization tools. He is a
regular conference speaker, partner in Clientside SEM, and runs the
Threadwatch community.

Clickriver Ads provides the opportunity to advertise services and products that complement the selection on Amazon.com, via sponsored links that display on search result pages and product detail pages. With this advertising program, you can engage online shoppers during the entire shopping experience – as they shop, browse and search on Amazon.com.

We welcome service providers of all types to apply to join the Clickriver beta – in travel, finance and investment, training and education, entertainment, insurance, healthcare and physical fitness, IT assistance and consulting, photo printing and more. We also welcome retailers, who want to advertise products that complement those sold on Amazon.com, to apply.

The technology is being powered by Amazon’s A9.com unit and the ads will still appear alongside other 3rd party sponsored ads. If you’re one of the lucky ones to be accepted to join the beta, let us know what you think of it.

Via John Battelle.

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Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.