Google AdSense for Dummies

This book is a great help manual for learning and using AdSense. Google AdSense, the get rich scheme of this decade... I found it very helpful in my sorry attempt to make a few bucks from a blog and website. I’ve been intrigued for the last two or three years, that people can make money by having a popular website. I have a blog and played around a little with Google AdSense and wanted to find out more about it and understand how it works, especially since Google continues to grow profits while Yahoo struggles.

The book is all about Google AdSense, the do’s and don’ts; how to set it up and suggestions to optimize content, and search capabilities. Other topics in the book include how to use AdSense for RSS feeds, and mobile devices, all about the AdSense referral program, how to administer and manage AdSense and helpful tools associated with AdSense.

It’s a typical ‘For Dummies’ book, so you have the yellow and black look and feel with the funny cartoons and hints etc. I’ve used a couple of other books on technical topics from this series and they were helpful so I am used to the format and style of the series.

The author Jerri Ledford is a freelance writer on business and technology subjects over the last 15 years. She’s been published in notable publications, such as, Network World, Intelligent Enterprise, and Information Security Magazine. She also develops and teaches technology training courses for both consumer and business users, including topics on security. She has a blog on ComputerWorld.com and author of books such as, SEO – Search Engine Optimization Bible. She is very qualified to write this book.

If you want a step by step process of setting up and understanding Google AdSense, this book will be valuable. Simplicity, structure and scalability help this book to be a good reference manual as one dives deeper into understanding and working with Google AdSense. I really liked the hints, helps on creating ads, and even AdSense for video capabilities. The recommended tools such as Google Analytics also helps to really get a handle on your website and incorporate Google AdSense.

One of the only problems with the book, even though it was published in 2008 is its a little outdated already. There is a whole chapter dedicated to Google AdSense referral program which is no longer in existence now. So, while the book is very helpful and explains a lot, it is incomplete due to the fast changing and adjustments of the AdSense product itself.

I think this is a good book for basic and introductory learning with Google AdSense. Since I consider myself a newbie to Google AdSense this book helped me to start off at a slow pace in understanding how it works, and how to apply it to my websites and blogs. I’ve made $3.54 in my Google AdSense account since I started my account a couple of years ago. I’m expecting that number to jump now that I’ve gained some useful insight with this book. In addition, there are few links listed that were very helpful for AdSense and related topics that I found very helpful and interesting from the book.

AdSense Sandbox
AdSense Preview tool
AdSense Calculator
AdSense Notifier
Adsense Heat Maps
Another heat map
AdSense Accelerator
AdWords Traffic Estimator and Bid Tool
Keyword Tools
Keyword-Ranking Tools
AdSense Blog