Review: Google Advertising Tools

Google Advertising Tools
Google Advertising Tools : Cashing in with AdSense, AdWords, and the Google APIs by Harold Davis is from O’Reilly (2006). The book covers a wide range of information meant to satisfy everyone from the neophyte advertiser to the web development professional. The book is divided into four major sections. Part I is Making Money with Your Web Site—a basic introduction to advertising terminology, advertising programs, and site planning.

Part II is Getting the Most of AdSense. Instructions for setting up a Google AdSense program are step-by-step and include helpful information about how Google searches work. This section explains tracking search performance. In Part III, Working with AdWords, the instructions again take you step-by-step through account setup and account types. This section contains advice on how to optimize ads, target sites, and use AdWords reports to improve your earnings.

Part IV is Using the AdWords API. This part of the book is aimed at programmers and tells about using the AdWords API with web services and PHP, as well as how to use the AdWords hierarchy and keyword estimation.

Casual bloggers, web entrepreneurs, and web developers who want to make money from a web site can all gain from this book.

As for teaching, if you are teaching a class about economics on the web, this is a valuable resource.

BigDaddy at Google

This Direct Mag article by Brian Quinton explains a bit about what Google is calling BigDaddy: BigDaddy Means Big Changes at Google which is yet another new Google indexing scheme to figure out. At Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO you will find an article called Feedback on BigDaddy data center with lots of Q & A and information on how to give feedback on BigDaddy directly to Google.

Higher Ed BlogCon 2006

Higher Ed BlogCon – Transforming Academic Communities with New Tools of the Social Web. is an all online conference. Higher Ed BlogCon will focus on the use of blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, vblogs and other digital tools in a range of areas in academe, including (thus far): Teaching, Admissions, Alumni Relations, and Communications & Marketing, Web sites and Web Development, Library & Information Resources. Guidelines and proposals for submission information can be found at the site linked to previously, and at this auxiliary site: Preparations for HigherEd BlogCon 2006 – Overview.

New Rules of PR

I recently started a new blog about writing practice, First 50 Words. I struggled rather ineptly to announce it in circles that might be interested in writing practice. I’ve had almost no luck getting participation. Perhaps it’s unclear what I want readers to do. Perhaps no one is interested in tickling their creativity just a bit with the first 50 words on a random topic. Perhaps writing practice has gone out of style. For whatever reason, my PR efforts with this blog have failed so far.

I’m also midway through reading Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. This book takes a radically different look at how economic forces work. Especially interesting are observations about the Internet and the everyone’s a publisher state of publishing today. Reading Freakonomics helps you drag your thinking out of its normal bounds in many ways and I recommend the book. The topic of incentives is key to economic behavior, according to Levitt and Dubner. I realize now that there is no incentive for anyone to contribute 50 words to my blog. Why participate? I haven’t given anyone a reason, an incentive, other than enjoying a creative jumpstart each day.

Now one of my favorite online pals who tried to help me with ideas for launching First 50 Words has provided a link to a fascinating article by David Meerman Scott, New Rules of PR. Scott’s article is long, but worth reading.

Back in the day, I was a journalism major and wrote many newspaper articles, including press releases. While those old-school rules of writing still apply, the rules for PR in the modern age have changed. Scott talks about things like using keyword rich copy, using searchable terms, including links in your article, posting your press release on your website, and other new rules. You may already know some of this; these days it’s basic instinct to include links in your writing, for example. But it’s helpful to see it all spelled out in one place and you might learn some new techniques from it. I’m certainly going to take another look at how I publicize First 50 Words.

The Testosterone Experience

Wow, those guys over at The Ajax Experience just don’t get it. They think Ajax is a men’s club.

Compare the speakers list at SXSW Interactive or the speakers list at Webstock. If any women are thinking of investing in The Ajax Experience, I hope they will contact me for a consciousness-raising session before they send any money to this hormonally-handicapped outfit.

This makes me crazy

Who is that woman with Barry White on the new Black Cherry Vanilla Coke ads? Not being able to identify a voice I know I should know drives me nuts. Hey, I got Barry White, so I’m good for 50% of it. But who is the woman? Have you looked at the cocacola.com web site? I did. Thought I might find an answer to my question, but no luck. Plus it’s all in Flash, which is cool but annoying.