Imonomy Review: Free Pictures And In-image Advertising

With in-image advertising on the rise, how does a website publisher decide what route is best traveled? This latest online trend has turned the internet into a buyers market, and I’ve been hearing an earful about different companies that are all offering similar services. For those of you who are still unfamiliar with the term, here’s a quick breakdown and the reasons why many publishers have started moving away from conventional advertising to this new, interactive monetization model.

In-image advertising has been around for years, but only recently publishers have started taking notice. Unlike standard size banner ads that run on the side bars of websites, in-image advertising enables the image on the web page to become the backdrop for the advertising campaign. The proven-results from this interactive form of advertising have been sweeping the online community, so recently I did some investigating to decide who the leaders are in in-image advertising. While I found a few good tools along the way, my investigation led me to a pretty creative discovery.

Imonomy’s Interactive Solution

Imonomy first made it onto the scene last year with a unique service for publishers. The company started by developing one-of-a-kind technology that automatically reads and recognizes text from a web page, and inserts the most suitable, high-quality photo onto the page from the company’s database of copyright free images. The unparalleled technology made waves throughout onliners “in-the-know”, and the company’s co-founders took their winner idea and ran with it. Today, imonomy has evolved from being just another place to find free-images, while this function is still heavily in play, to offering a wide array of dynamic solutions for publishers all bundled into one easy-to-use, free JavaScript code.

How it Works

a. The Automatic Free Image Component

Imonomy developed a Visual Semantic Engine, whose high-powered technology is able to read and understand text from a web page and automatically insert a photo from imonomy’s database of over ten million copyright-free images. Not only does this smart engine pull the most suitable high-quality image from imonomy’s database, it also finds optimal placement for the image on the web page. Many publishers shy away when they hear the words “automatic placement of images”, but this feature does it’s job in style. imonomy’s image creates a graphic balance between the text and the user, and allows publishers a chance to connect with their audience on a more visual level.

b. The Content Enhancing Component

Imonomy doesn’t just cater to online publishers who need images for their web pages. In our current digital age, images have become so over popularized that most websites publish more photos than text. With that in hand, imonomy’s second function enables publishers to enhance their content by working with the image on the page. imonomy comes equipped with an interactive widget that appears as the user navigates throughout the website. When a user hovers his mouse over an image on the web page, imonomy’s interactive widget will appear and display a selection of related posts from within the website. The same interactive widget will also slide in from the side as users scroll down the page. This creative feature provides the user with a heightened experience where related articles become easily accessible, and served in a fun-to-use style. The publisher benefits by allowing his users to get more connected to more of his content, while automatically having internal links created, which is invaluable for SEO.

c. The In-Image Advertising Component

As the icing on the cake, imonomy allows its publishers to generate new revenue with in-image advertising. How? Well, that same interactive widget that appears dynamically as users hover their mouse over an image, or scroll down the page also offers users content-related ads in between the selection of related posts from within the website.

Because imonomy’s technology is capable of reading and recognizing the text from web pages, the ads being displayed will all focus on relating to the content, giving the user more incentive to click, which means the publisher sees more dollars in the piggy bank. imonomy focuses on offering a form of in-image advertising that is non-intrusive, so the user never feels threatened or uncomfortable with what is being displayed on the page. imonomy’s roots were planted in enhancing the aesthetic appeal of a website with images, and as such their in-image advertising component focuses on creating a new revenue stream without devaluing the look of the website.

How To Get Started

Imonomy has made it very simple for anyone interested in the service to give it a try. On the homepage of the imonomy website there is a “Get Started” button, which leads publishers through a short registration and setup process. After choosing which imonomy features you would like to have added to your website, imonomy generates a personalized JavaScript code, which the publisher must then implement onto his website.

Imonomy works with most major web platforms, and the company’s support team is available around the clock to answer questions or hop on Skype for a quick tutorial. The steps to integration may vary just a touch depending on what platform you are running your website on, but generally speaking the process is quite quick.

Here are the steps for publishers using WordPress, Blogger, or

a. WordPress: After grabbing the code from imonomy’s website, install the “Custom Header and Footers” plugin on your blog. Once you have installed the plugin, add imonomy’s JavaScript code in the “head” section provided by the plugin.

b. Blogger: Once you have your new imonomy code head over to your Blogger Dashboard and click the “Add Gadget” button, from there scroll down the list until you see “HTML/JS” and add your imonomy code. Save the changes you have made, and refresh your website in order to get started.

c. HTML/JS: If you are running on a classic, or self-hosted platform, all you need to do is paste the imonomy code above the tag in the HTML template.

Imonomy runs on many other platforms, so for those of you who aren’t running on one of the three previously mentioned platforms check out the integration tutorial sent to me by imonomy’s Support Team.

Tried, Tested, and True: imonomy’s Pros & Cons

After testing out the product, I have come up with a breakdown of some important pros and cons to consider:

PROS

• Imonomy is a free tool that will allow you to start easily generating new revenue.
• Imonomy’s images all come equipped with Alt attributions, titles, and descriptions which are all vital for SEO.

CONS

While getting started with imonomy via their website is quick and easy, the code you will receive won’t be customized for your website. imonomy does offer a wide array of customizations to their system including color changes to their widget, and other dynamic features that will allow imonomy to better suit your website. However, in order to have these changes made to your code, you must contact imonomy, and have them manually set the changes. Getting the necessary changes made normally doesn’t take too long, and the end result is well worth the effort, but it would be nice to be able to automatically add these customizations via the imonomy website.

Final Thoughts & Feedback

Overall, I don’t have too many bad things to say about imonomy. Let’s face it, a free service that adds images to your pages, enhances the user experience on your website, and increases revenues with in-image advertising certainly is not a bad deal. I will say one thing on the topic of earning money, which is that patience is key. imonomy comes onto your website as a brand new service for your users to get to know and enjoy. However, like with most new things, there is always an adjustment period, and most publishers need to sit back and let time do its part with this one. After a week or two of having imonomy run on your pages, your users will start to become more familiar, and more comfortable using the service to their advantage. and once that starts happening, you will still reaping the benefits.

I have been using imonomy for a while now, and I am quite pleased with the results. Now, it’s your turn to share your thoughts. Have you tried imonomy yet?