Google Advertising Tools: Cashing in with AdSense and Adwords, 2ed. is one of those books where you take lots of notes. I have been involved with AdWords and AdSense, on a surface level, for a couple of years. So I knew my way around these services. I would say that a third of this book is devoted to screen shots and help with navigation. Which is good, but wasn’t helpful to me. If you are newer to these services then you will love these sections as they are very well pulled together. This also means that a full two-thirds of the book was helpful to me.

The author does talk about staying reader-focused and the need for consistently creative and unique content, but most of the ink is spent on the reason/need for sitemaps, tips for good page layouts, techniques, etc. He does a good job explaining the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ all of these things.

I really like the layout of the book which is in three sections:

1. Making money with a website
2. Cashing in with Adsense
3. Working with Adwords

These allow the author to really setup strategies apart from the tools to execute the strategies. In the first section he even talks about non-Google related “affiliate programs” and some Adsense-competitor networks. All in an effort to show you that Google is not the only way. Which I appreciated. It allows for honest context and back of the napkin type metrics. This is something that a lot of these types of books are lacking. It is these real world tips, based on actual data, that can help you build your site and network. I am talking about tips such as:

• A daily blog post should have 250-300 words. On average, this gives an optimal mix of human-friendly words and keyword saturation (search engine-friendly words).
• If your post/page is over 300 words or if your readers are spending more than a minute on that post/page, then you might want to consider breaking it up which could help with readability and add another chance to display revenue-generating elements.
• A good Click-Through-Rate for ads is 1.5% or better. The author recommends troubleshooting anything lower. He also offers tips on how to troubleshoot and tweak page layouts.

I would recommend this book to anyone who needs a solid introduction to the “how” part of monetizing a website. Advanced folks should look elsewhere. If you’re a developer, you’ll be disappointed in the lack of code. In all honesty, if you follow the right blogs and do a few key Google searches you could probably dig a lot of this up on your own. But it’s nice that I didn’t have to spend my weekend digging and learning. I could just spend it learning. I give this book a solid 3 out of 5 stars and have already recommended to two people.

Derek Sivers’ Anything You Want is a quick read. It comes in under an hour if you don’t take notes and don’t stop to think about things. But I am guessing you will want to as there a some pretty inspirational (and easy to implement) ideas for serving your customers.

This is not a how-to business book. It is much more a manifesto on keeping things clear, simple and taking a common sense approach to work. Sivers, founded and sold CDBaby.com. This book is a summation of the lessons he learned with the stories that taught him.

My favorite part is titled Ideas are just a multiplayer of Execution. Basically he says an awful idea gets a -1 rating while a brilliant idea gets a 20. “No execution” is worth $1 while “brilliant execution” is worth $10,000,000. So a brilliant idea with poor execution will only get you $20 while a weak idea (a full 1 rating) brilliantly executed would get you $10,000,000. These are the extremes and there are tiers between them. It gives you an idea of where your so-so idea with a so-so execution plan would land you. I really like the perspective this lends.

Lots of practical advice here. It’s the kind you’d get if you were sitting in the back yard drinking a beer with Sivers. He’s quick to explain, in very plain images, why (to him) legal stuff just doesn’t matter and how business folks don’t stay clear-headed enough. You will not hear these kinds of points being made by any MBA.

Basically he sums it up with keep the customer first. You better be solving a real problem. And the success will naturally happen.

In such a small book, Sivers crams tons of insight on work ethic, customers (very important), business formalities vs. flying by the seat of your pants, etc. all of which is backed with stories of his founding, running and selling CDBaby.com. He even tells the story of when Steve Jobs dissed him.

This book seems to speak to the entrepreneurial spirits out there. But I also think that it serves as a fun quick “gut check” for those looking to tweak their existing business set-ups. I give this one 3 out of 5 stars.