Okay, I've got a website with some traffic going to it, can I turn that traffic into cash. Up until now my Google ads generate me enough revenue to purchase a chocolate bar every few days (mmmmmm, chocolate). It must be the case that this can be improved upon - after all I have to go with out chocolate every other day, which is plainly unaccecptable. Could The AdSense Code be the answer to my quest for an expand waistline? Find out below....
I could have done all the research that I needed online for free, but that wouldn't have given me an opportunity to review a book. So after taking look on Amazon I purchased a couple of books on AdSense, plus two other books (the rest of which I hope to be able to review for you shortly). The first book I've finished is The AdSense Code: What Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense
by Joel Comm. The cover of the book looks somewhat like The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown - but surely this must be pure coincidence.
Each chapter heading takes up a full page plus one to two blank pages, which basically means that this book is about 10% chapter headings, so an extra tree in ten was chopped down for the sake of large chapter headings. The rest of the content was pretty good (apart from some blatant self promotion of products - but he's applying his trade, I guess he can be forgiven for this). The book can be summarised by "display your ads in prominent positions" and "make sure they integrate well with the rest of your site".
If you are looking for an introductory book on adsense then this is not it, the author states that there is little point in reproducing the free manuals and materials that Google provides you. Nor is it particularly technical and I found it a fairly easy read (it took me two evenings). It's more about how to arrange you site for the maximum benefit of your ads (and hence your wallet).
Now the crunch - would I recommend this book? Well, this is a hard question especially as the book is only a year old and already somewhat out of date; Google is a fairly fast mover in the technology game after all. It has, however, prompted me to take some action and it might do the same for you. If you have a bunch of free components you're distributing through the web, and your click through rate on your obligatory AdSense adverts is not as high as you think it should be, then despite my rather cynical review, yes, I would recommend this book to you. But if you want a technical book on how AdSense works, you'd be disappointed.
Was it worth me reading this book? I won't know this for awhile, but I'll keep you posted.