Google Advertising Tools, 2nd Edition

Preface

In the five years since the first edition of Google Advertising Tools was published, Google tools for making money from content with advertising (Google AdSense) and for creating contextual advertisements (Google AdWords) have become even more important to every business with a web presence. This software is now ubiquitous in the life of anyone doing business on the Web. In addition, these programs and the related Google offerings have greatly expanded in functionality and complexity.

In the first edition of Google Advertising Tools, I noted that “advertising on the Web is a $7 billion market…with a 40 percent estimated annual growth rate.” Give or take a few percentage points, this growth prediction has proven accurate, and the lion’s share of it belongs to Google. But no one could have known the extent to which Google has expanded into other areas of our lives, from video to office applications to mobile telephony and beyond.

Five years is forever in Internet time, and in those intervening years the Google AdSense and Google AdWords tools have grown even more useful and powerful—and more complex. The need to understand Google’s advertising tools has also become more universal.

Every business and businessperson needs to know how to position advertising with AdWords, and should consider how to capitalize on the moneymaking potential of AdSense. Effective use of both programs requires a practical mastery of a number of related issues, including how to create an effective Internet ...