Google Advertising Tools

432 Pages·2009·12.36 MB·English

Google Advertising Tools

SECOND EDITION
Google Advertising Tools
Harold Davis with David Iwanow
Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo
Google Advertising Tools, Second Edition
by Harold Davis with David Iwanow
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Editor: Julie Steele Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery
Production Editor: Sarah Schneider Interior Designer: David Futato
Production Services: Appingo, Inc. Illustrator: Robert Romano
Printing History:
November 2009: Second Edition.
January 2006: First Edition.
O’Reilly and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Google Advertising
Tools, Second Edition, the image of a capuchin monkey, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Re-
illy Media, Inc.
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While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors assume
no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information con-
tained herein.
ISBN: 978-0-596-15579-7
[M]
1258128042
Table of Contents
Preface .................................................................... xiii
Part I. Making Money with a Website
1. Creating Successful Websites ............................................. 3
The Taxonomy of Success 4
Entertainment 5
Useful Free Services and Software 6
Magazines and Newspapers 8
The Blogosphere 9
Practical Information: Content Sites and Niches 10
E-Commerce Sites 11
Tools for Measuring Popularity 12
Using the Google Toolbar 12
Let the Google Search Engine Be Your Guide 13
Finding Popularity with Alexa 15
How Much Content Is Enough? 17
Presenting Content 18
Page and Site Design 18
Page Size 19
Images, Video, and Podcasting 20
Keeping Content Fresh 20
Positioning Ads 21
Content Architecture 23
Separating Content from Design 23
Server-Side Includes 25
PHP Includes 27
Optimal Include Layout 28
Where Does Content Come From? 29
The Power of Community 29
Action Items 31
v
2. Creating Effective Marketing Plans ....................................... 33
Telling a Story 33
The Elevator Pitch 36
Basics of Marketing 36
Creating a Plan 38
Creating a Checklist 40
Naming Your Site 40
Introducing SEM 41
Comparing SEO with SEM 42
Crafting the Blended Campaign 43
Action Items 43
3. Driving Traffic to a Website .............................................. 45
Submitting Your Sites to Search Engines 46
Important Search Engines for Submission 47
Submission Tools 47
Working with Google 49
Taking Advantage of Site Mapping 54
Working with Directories 57
Understanding Taxonomies 58
Getting Open Directory Project Listings 58
Getting Yahoo! Directory Listings 62
Becoming Popular by Generating Inbound Links 63
The Best Inbound Links 65
Finding Sites to Make a Link Request 65
Making the Link Request 66
The Power of the Press Release 68
Unleashing Your Inner Blogger 71
Using Syndication Feeds to Your Benefit 73
Creating Feeds 74
Telling the World About Your Feed 75
Submitting Feeds 76
Creating Email Lists and Surmounting the Spam Problem 77
Action Items 78
4. Nuts and Bolts of SEO ................................................... 81
SEO’s Evolution 82
The SEO Advantage 83
What SEO Can (and Cannot) Do 83
Free Tools 85
Google Webmaster Tools 86
Commercial SEO Analysis Software 88
More About How Your Site Appears to a Bot 89
vi | Table of Contents
Images 89
Links 90
File Formats 90
Viewing Your Site with an All-Text Browser 91
Excluding the Bot 92
The robots.txt File 94
Meta Robot Tags 95
Meta Information 96
Design for SEO 99
Site Design Principles 100
Words and Keyword Density 100
Site Design Principles 105
Using PageRank 105
Linking 109
Inbound links 110
Outbound Links 111
Cross Links 111
Avoiding Overly Aggressive SEO 112
Google’s Prohibitions 112
Why Not to Be Overly Aggressive 115
Action Items 115
5. Making Money with Affiliate Programs ................................... 117
Kinds of Ad Programs 118
Understanding Affiliate Programs 119
Mechanics of the Process 120
Creatives 123
Areas of Concern 126
Working with an Affiliate Program 130
Benefits of Affiliate Aggregators 130
Finding an Affiliate Aggregator 131
Ad Hoc Affiliation 145
The Amazon.com Associate Program 148
Action Items 153
6. Making Money by Hosting Advertising ................................... 155
Understanding Cost Per Click (CPC) 156
Contextual Relevance 158
How Good Is the Context? 160
Serving Ads 161
Dollars and Cents 163
CPC Vendors Compared 165
Placing Ad Units on Your Site 166
Table of Contents | vii
Signing Up 166
Choosing the Kinds of Ads 167
Selecting Ad Formats 168
Adding Code to Your Pages 173
Display and Banner Ads 176
Action Items 177
7. Understanding the Google Behemoth .................................... 179
The Parts of Google 180
Blogger 183
Book Search 183
Directory 183
Gmail 183
GOOG-411 184
Google Health 184
Maps 184
Product Search 185
Scholar 185
YouTube 185
Content Versus Search 186
Anatomy of a Search Query 187
Google Syntax and Operators 189
The Rules of Simple Search 189
Effective Searching 190
Advanced Search 191
The Search Results Page 191
The Automated Ad Broker: AdWords 193
Action Items 195
Part II. Cashing in with AdSense
8. Working with AdSense ................................................. 199
Applying for an AdSense Account 199
Setting Account Options 203
Payment Preferences 203
Ad Display Preference 205
Account Access 205
Reviewing Payment History 206
Filing Tax Information 206
AdSense Programs 207
AdSense for Content Ad Settings 211
Ad Type 212
viii | Table of Contents
Ad Format and Colors 213
Ad Channels 218
Getting the Code 218
Managing Ads 224
Custom Ad Colors 225
Using Channels 227
Applying Competitive Filters 229
Site Authentication, Ad Review, and Allowed Sites 230
AdSense for Search Settings 230
AdSense for Feeds 235
AdSense for Domains 239
Video Units 243
Linking Google AdSense to Google Analytics 246
Action Items 247
9. Making Sense of AdSense .............................................. 249
Fundamentals of Navigation 249
Understanding the Metrics 253
Running Reports 254
Saving a Report as a Template 255
Choosing a Date Range 256
Page, Unit, or Ad Impressions 257
Aggregate Versus Channel Data 257
Statistics 259
Downloading a CSV File 260
Other Program Performance 261
Search Performance 261
How Are Your Parked Domains Doing? 262
Optimization Tips 263
Site Diagnostics 264
Your Earnings 265
Tools Beyond AdSense for Tracking 266
Listening to Web Logs 267
Web Analytic Software 273
Action Items 274
Part III. Working with AdWords
10. Using AdWords ....................................................... 277
Signing Up for an Account 277
Creating Your Account 277
Creating Your First Campaign 280
Table of Contents | ix