Customer Reviews

Google AdSense Secrets: 4th Edition

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Google AdSense Secrets / B001D45BLK

Reading this book was an experience. Imagine going to a gun training class with an incredibly knowledgeable instructor who continually keeps encouraging his students to shoot themselves in the foot. On the one hand, you're learning the basics of how to handle a dangerous weapon; on the other hand, the basics are being packaged with spectacularly bad advice. Are you entitled to complain at the end of the lesson? You did, after all, learn something -- and you don't *have* to shoot yourself in the foot.

The basics of using your Google AdSense account to your advantage are here, it's true. There's a lot of obvious stuff (make your ads blend into your site so they're not a major eyesore), but there's also a lot of good advice (keep a journal so you can see what works) and a lot of nuts-and-bolts material. Since that was what I *wanted*, it's a little uncomfortable for me to complain about the other material.

However, there's advice here that will keep me and other people like me FAR away from your site. There's an advertising golden rule: Only use what works on you. If you'd leave a blog for employing these tactics, you can bet that most other people would too. It's disingenuous saying (at the end of the book) not to make garbage sites after previously encouraging people to, say, grab a bunch of material from Project Gutenberg to stuff your blog with fast content. The screen-captures of Joel's "high earning" sites are absolutely COVERED in ads, as is his "ad placement" template. And encouraging people to set up their blogs so that people accidentally click ads thinking they're clicking on actual content is a great way to lose readers fast -- you might get a click, but you'll lose a reader. And there's better ways to make money than to abuse your readers and encourage them to leave.

But the author makes $500 a week on his blogs! Or at least he keeps reminding us. But there comes a point where it feels like at least some of that is coming from AdSense seekers -- I can't help but notice he has at least five AdSense books on Amazon for sale, and a lot of his "go to this website for an example" and "use this tool here" are, not surprisingly, sites he owns. That's fine and good, but probably not a formula that most readers will be able to adopt.

This isn't a bad book, but it reads like a cross between an infomercial and a book that's grown organically without good editing and cohesion. There's a lot of repetition across the chapters, the peppy get-rich-quick tone isn't conducive to people just looking to make sense of the Google interface, there are no chapter checklists (meaning you'll have to dig through the prose again when you decide to implement changes), and several of the chapters feel contradictory -- like the "don't make garbage blogs" advice several chapters after the "pillage Project Gutenberg for free content to post" advice.

Still, complaining about this book is probably the equivalent of saying that the food is bad, and the portions are too small. If you want to make sense out of the Google interface and what it all means, this book will have some good information for you. It's just that the signal-to-noise ratio is not as good as I might like.

~ Ana Mardoll

When I decided to work freelance and focus on making money from my blogs, I started searching for the right book that would teach me the basics of adsense. Searching for the said topic here at amazon leads me to purchase this book.

I had been an adsense member for 3 years then and had been receiving my adsense earnings every two to three months. But then I realized that I need to improve my earnings since this will be my main source of income. This book teaches me just what it promise to achieve. When I actually implemented the instructions and guide illustrated in this book, my earnings increased and I am now receiving my adsense earnings monthly.

Google Adsense secrets is packed with information and covers a lot of topics that concerns a technopreneur like me. It also includes some other money making opportunities that can be used alongside with adsense to further increase your online income.

This book is recommended for adsense newbies and for site owners looking for ways to increase their online income through adsense.

I read the original version of Joel's book, so I thought that the newest version would probably be a waste of time. But, I am very familiar with how important it is for Joel to provide value and over deliver. I wasn't disappointed!

Instead of just restating or rearranging the words from the original version, Joel added all kinds of new strategies and tips to really get your Google Adsense campaigns on steroids. It's not a new version but a whole new book altogether.

It has made a real difference in my campaigns. Just by changing the font and banners colors, I went from averaging between $550 - $600 a month, to generating that a week. I never would have been able to do that without reading his book. It paid for itself on day one.

Chris Swain

The Wealth Coach

Gave me info on starting my own web site ... what it missed when recommending to start building through blogging was that ad sense is not user friendly. still gonna have to rethink this whole website building venue.

I got started by watching Joel's videos on YouTube and he's the primary reason I've decided to try my hand at internet marketing.

This book is full of great info in a concise, easy-to-read format. Unfortunately, Google closed by AdSense account soon after reaching the $100 mark (which occurred within only two weeks thanks to Joel's advice), and I'm trying to have it appealed as we speak. I've since implemented a couple other advertisers.

Despite that, it's a great resource for someone just getting started in internet marketing and is looking to increase their revenue via advertisement. Is this information available all over the web? Sure. Joel even spoils the book in his videos and in various blog entries. Whether that prevents you from buying the book or not is totally up to you, I still think it's worth having.

Joel comes across as a very friendly person who is genuinely interested in helping people, which is the main reason I decided to pick it up. I've heard people accuse him of self-promotion in other books and this is no different, but I've come to expect it and truthfully it doesn't really bother me at all.

Worth the read. I just wish he had gone into more detail about search engine optimization.