Newsflash: Book author builds money-making sites with AdSense!
One of the fun things about having a blog is that sometimes people leave comments. Now, I don't always agree with what the commenters say, but I generally don't delete comments unless they're obviously spam (luckily, blojsom lets me turn off comments for individual postings, which lets me control the ones that attract the most spam quite easily). An anonymous reader had this to say about this morning's AdSense case study posting:
I can't believe you even consider adding an image on each page, “Stage 3″ of a “Case Study.” You're really trying to capture the person who shouldn't be building websites with your “introductory” book and the basicness of this “Case Study”.
Let's ignore the fact that the commenter posted anonymously. I normally don't take those too seriously, because it seems cowardly to post something and not be able to stand behind your words. But this comment raises some interesting points that I'd like to discuss.
The purpose of my case study, of course, is to show one way to build a niche website that ranks well in the search engines and can be monetized via AdSense. This should be no surprise to anyone. After all, my book is titled Make Easy Money with Google. Readers of this site know that monetization of content is its focus, just like the book. The case study is a step-by-step tutorial that follows the process I lay out in the book. It's “basicness” is quite deliberate.
Sure, I've added images to each page of the case study mini-site. Why not? It makes the page more interesting. But I'm not done, of course, next I'll be beautifying the pages using cascading style sheets. I'll move the pictures around. I may resize them, crop them, whatever. Things are still in flux. But of course, if you'd been reading the case study all along (consult the archives) then you'd know all of that.
What I really don't like about the comment is its elitism. Here's the second paragraph of the comment:
Let's leave the web building and development to people who know what they're doing, eh? Besides, you're encouraging “Made for AdSense” pages which are against the Terms and Conditions of AdSense.
Today, anyone can build a website. It's always been that way. Why should we change it? What right do you or I have to tell someone they can't create a site? Or start a blog? I certainly know what I'm doing, and part of this blog's purpose is to teach others what I know. The emails I get show that people appreciate it. And that's what counts.
As for encouraging “Made for AdSense” sites… again, regular readers of this blog will remember that I've discussed this before. Please go back and read these postings, specifically:
As you can see, I have read the AdSense terms and conditions quite closely and found no definition of what a “Made for AdSense” site is. But in my mind, all it takes is a simple test: does the site stand by itself without the ads? The Invisible Fence Guide certainly does. It's an interesting story about how I keep my dogs safe and contained using an Invisible Fence system in addition to a regular fence. Anyone in a similar situation will find it useful.
And please spare me the complaints that the site was specifically designed for monetization. Anyone who doesn't understand the underlying commercial nature of the World Wide Web needs to move into the 21st century. The Web has changed since the early 90s, but some people don't seem to realize it. Google monetized search where everyone else had failed, so they definitely understand it. AdSense is just the next logical step.
Eric Giguere is the author of Make Easy Money with Google, a real (printed!) introductory AdSense book for non-technical people, available at all fine bookstores. Be sure to download the free sample chapter for more information about the book. Or add it directly to your Amazon shopping cart!
 |
Enjoyed this post? Get free updates by mail or by RSS! |