Steffan Antonas' Blog » Entrepreneurship

Book Review: The Adsense Code - What Google Never Told You About Making Money With Adsense, By Joel Comm

Steffan — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 19:27:24 +0000

Before I dive into the pros and cons of this book, I think it’s important to acknowledge how significantly the book has impacted the way thousands of Internet publishers use and understand Adsense. At this writing, the book is just over a year old and it has been heralded as an instant classic in the growing world of Internet marketing. After making the New York Times best sellers list in 2006, The Adsense Code firmly established Joel Comm as an authority in the world of contextual advertising. Regardless of what I say in this post, the numbers tell the story. This book was a hit. Here’s why.

Although countless millions of websites run adsense ads, very few sites actually generate enough traffic to really see large, consistent adsense earnings. When web site traffic is low, infrequent and unpredictable, it’s tough for site owners to see how small tweaks in the placement or configuration of ads on a page affect click rates and earnings. This makes maximizing your adsense income difficult. But big numbers don’t lie. When a website is getting large amounts of consistent traffic, small changes in the way ads look and where ads are placed can make a big difference to the number of clicks they get.

At the time that Google released their Adsense program, Joel Comm was running sites like WorldVillage.com, which were generating hundreds of thousands of visitors daily - You might say that Joel was in the right business at the right time. Exposing large numbers of daily visitors to adsense ads can mean big money…we’re talking “6-figure-income” big for the ones who’s pages are really sticky and popular. Joel experimented with his traffic by filling his sites with different types of adsense ads, making changes in placement and configuration of the ads over time and tracking his income and clickthrough rate results. Joel’s documentation of the results of those experiments, found in chapters 3 4 and 5, make up the heart and soul of this book. They provide data-driven answers to a gamut of basic, but elusive questions like “Where Do I Put Ads On My Page so that People Click more? and “What Colors make people click the most?”. Because clicks are what generate revenue, these three chapters alone make this book a must-read for people who want to learn how to maximize their adsense income. The book has definitely influenced my adsense strategy for the better, and I refer to it often when building sites that run adsense ads. Most importantly, the fact that it’s available under $20 on sites like Amazon begs the question, why not buy this book? You can probably find it on amazon used for under $15. I got my used copy for $6 on a holiday special.

What This Book is Not

Maxing out your pages with Adsense doesn’t do anything if your website isn’t getting any traffic. If you’re looking for answers about how to drive traffic to your website, this book is not for you. The core of The Adsense Code focuses on strategies for converting existing traffic into clicks, not how to get the traffic in the first place. If you’re looking for information on how to drive traffic, I highly recommend The SEO Book. It’s a bit pricey but it’s the best resource available today for getting the traffic you need to make money. You also get a bunch of free software tools that professionals use included in the purchase price.

Criticism of The Adsense Code

Although this is the best resource out there for learning about how to amp your Adsense earnings, not everything in this book useful for non-novices. You probably wont be surprised to find out that a lot of the later chapters in this book act as advertising for some of Joel’s sites that are riddled with Adsense ads and affiliate links. He does give good high-level advice, though, and he helps novices find good resources and tools to get started. Affiliate marketing professionals and webmasters that are already using powerful tools like Wordtracker and Affiliate Elite may not want to waste their time reading the whole book because Joel doesn’t offer much beyond high-level advice and recommendations on commonly known strategies and resources. Novices, however will benefit from the general awareness his overviews provide.

Summary and Final Thoughts

This book is not just for novices, it’s for everyone using Adsense to make money online. The people who will benefit immediately from reading the book are going to be those that already have large numbers of repeat visitors coming to their sites. Bloggers, newbie web designers and affiliate marketers, however, will gain a good awareness about how to build content around adsense to maximize their earnings in the future as they build a web presence. On the whole, The Adsense Code is a quick, valuable read, and for the price you can get it for on Amazon used, it a steal.

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Like Moths To A Flame: Why Open Source Draws Entrepreneurs And Why It’s Important For Innovation

Steffan — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:07:43 +0000

Where there’s a social buzz around good open source code, there’s opportunity. And where there’s opportunity, there will be entrepreneurs. In fact, digital entrepreneurship is one of the most natural and predictable bi-products of the open-source movement. Although open source die-hards (myself included) associate the open source movement with “freedom”, we should never delude ourselves into thinking that “freedom” will always produce code that is “free.” I’ve never understood why some open-source advocates are so adamant about defending the concept of a free digital utopia. Drawing entrepreneurs to code is fundamental to innovation, community-building and sustainability of any open source platform. Here’s a few arguments why entrepreneurship around open source platforms should be encouraged:

Innovation Requires Time, Effort and (often) Capital

Let’s be real, there aren’t many people who are willing to take on complex problems for the fun of it. It’s not a question of coding for coding’s sake either, it’s that most people just don’t have the time, energy or resources to justify starting, even if they can see a clear solution to a well-defined problem. The opportunity cost associated with “diving in” is often too great. The opportunity to profit from an idea or solution, however, can create a powerful incentive that shifts priorities enough to turn someone (who may have never started) into an innovating entrepreneur.

Innovators Respond Well To Social Incentives

Sure, entrepreneurs are driven to innovate because of monetary incentives, but that’s not the whole story. Social status, power, connectedness and pride play a large part in the innovating process. Income generation is often just the spark that starts the creative flame, but once a project is in motion, other incentives provide a lot of the fuel that keeps things moving. Successful entrepreneurs know that they’re not going to just release code off into a vacuum. In today’s hyper-connected world, communities form around innovative code, especially if it solves a common problem or need well. The word gets out, traffic increases, communities form and innovators can become celebrities (sometimes overnight). Even at a basic level, the popularity that ensues creates a sense of achievement and recognition that all human beings strive for. The desire for status and connectedness can be a powerful incentive that not only pushes digital entrepreneurs towards great code around platforms and products, but drives community-building and overall sustainability around those platforms and products.

Entrepreneurs Put In Effort To Draw Crowds

Because of the above-stated social incentives, entrepreneurs who innovate around open source platforms have incentives to become agents that build communities. We’re all marketers of our own brand to some extent, but for innovators releasing code into the wild it’s especially true. Making a stable, consistent income “adding” to open source platforms results from a combination of (A) filling a need or solving a problem and (B) making sure A LOT of people who are having that need or problem know about you. The A + B combination results in crowds, which is definitely what you want around open source because a lot of eyes and scrutiny results in better code (that’s the theory at least) and patterns of improvement lead to sustainability.

The point I’m trying to make, of course, is that whether or not profiting from an idea was the spark that got someone to innovate should be irrelevant - the end goal should always be community-building, better code and sustainability of open source platforms. Entrepreneurs are, and will always be, agents of change because they have a unique set of incentives that drive innovation and community-building. Those who are pro-open source should recognize that those incentives can have great affects for everyone and not get so hung up on defending the “free” faith. If we try to squash incentives that drive entrepreneurship by requiring everything that is produced to be free, the end result will just be less innovation.

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Hat Tip To The Boys In Blue

Steffan — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:32:37 +0000

First off, congratulations are in order to my friends over at AdaptiveBlue. Not only have they surpassed the 1 million download mark this year, they’ve been recently highlighted by Richard MacManus, Founder of the the influential Read/WriteWeb blog, as one of 10 Semantic Web Apps to Watch.

Also, thanks to Fraser Kelton, Director of Business Development at AdaptiveBlue, for the gracious thank-you email I received this morning for my miniature contribution to the great work they’re doing as part of their xmas giving. It completely put me in the Christmas Spirit. I am totally psyched to receive and devour my en-route copy of Zen and The Art of Motorcyle Maintenance! Thanks so much guys!

Post from: Steffan Antonas' Blog

Steffan Antonas' Blog » Entrepreneurship

Book Review: The Adsense Code - What Google Never Told You About Making Money With Adsense, By Joel Comm

What This Book is Not

Criticism of The Adsense Code

Summary and Final Thoughts

Most Commented Posts

Like Moths To A Flame: Why Open Source Draws Entrepreneurs And Why It’s Important For Innovation

Most Commented Posts

Hat Tip To The Boys In Blue

Most Commented Posts