Google’s come-one, come-all advertising programs (AdWords and AdSense) are enticing to every Webmaster with entrepreneurial inclinations. “The main   Google index — a marketing venue in itself — presents you with three significant opportunities for business growth:”  [1] Google search listings. Getting into the listings (see Chapter 2) is the first major step. As you work your way in, concentrate on building up your PageRank (see Chapter 3). Many Webmasters attain ongoing success without any advertising by fighting for and retaining a high searchpage position for important keywords (see Chapter 4). [1] AdWords. Google’s search advertising program, AdWords increases presence and drives traffic. And the first part — increasing presence — is free. AdWords ads appear on the right side (and sometimes at the top) of Google search pages. Advertisers pay for their ad only when a Google 18 Part I: Meeting the Other Side of Google user clicks on it. The AdWords program offers a quick way to place your site on a search resu lts page without necessarily being in the Google index. (Part II explores AdWords in detail.) AdSense. Google’s ad-syndication program, AdSense is a method of making money on your site. Webmasters in the AdSense program display AdWords ads on their pages and share advertiser payments with Google. The goal of an AdSense page is to get visitors to scoot off the page by clicking an ad. The ads are supplied by Google, and in fact are the same AdWords you see on Google search results pages. When a visitor clicks one, the AdSense publisher shares the cost-per-click ad revenue with Google. Participating in the AdSense program is free to any qualifying page or site. (Part III fully describes the AdSense program.) The three marketing venues just described — search listings, AdWords, and AdSense — roughly correspond to three business activities. Understanding how and to what degree to approach these three activities helps guide you toward the best Google marketing service for your talent and taste: [1] Optimize. Site opt imization is ongoing, detail-minded work that asks for  writing talent, organizational skill, a willingness to update and tweak daily, and an eagerness to stay on top of an evolving field. Optimization is the foremost activity for those aspiring to climb upwards to greater visibility in Google’s search results listings. Don’t forget, though, that certain optimization tasks are necessary in all aspects of online marketing. To some extent, site optimization is integral to every site’s greater success. If you love to optimize, climbing the listings is your marketing arena. (Chapter 4 is all about optimization.) [1] Publicize. If your site has the goods — by which I mean great information, saleable products, interactive features, or an essential service — the slow grind of optimization might be too gradual a path for you. If you’re ready to transact business now and are confident in your site’s ability to convert visitors without an optimization overhaul, advertising might be your bet. AdWords offers a cost-efficie nt method of sending qualified leads to your domain. You pay by the click — which means you’re buying actual visitors, not ad displays — so your return on investment (ROI) depends on your site’s ability to convert. As you learn in Part II, you can strictly control your costs in AdWords by placing a ceiling on the amount you pay per click and on your overall expenditures. [1] Monetize. If you don’t sell products, and want your site itself to generate revenue, AdSense is a program made for your entrepreneurial needs. AdSense is a free way to join Google’s advertising network and display AdWords ads. Revenue earned in this manner — by publishing ads that generate income — is called passive revenue. Unlike the busy lifestyle of fulfilling orders taken through a Web site, the passive-revenue lifestyle lets the site do the work, not you.

Innumerable business plans operate side by side on the Web. But all these sites — online stores, travel agencies, virtual magazines, community portals, even modest personal sites — share three fundamental goals: Chapter 1: Meeting the Business Side of Google 17 [1] Increase presence. Putting up a Web site is like mounting a billboard in a desert: Nobody sees it. Chapter 3 explains how to network your site to greater visibility by getting other sites to link to it. In the context of Google, increasing Web presence means increasing presence in Google’s Web index — the gigantic collection of Web pages from which Google derives its search results. And that means raising the site’s PageRank, which I discuss in Chapter 3. [1] Drive traffic. Traffic is the natural extension of presence. For our purposes, presence is visibility in Google, but that presence, by itself, doesn’t do a Webmaster much good. Google visibility must be turned into traffic, which happens when Google searchers click your link. [1] Convert visitors. T raffic is enough for some Webmastering purposes. In nonrevenue sites, the goal might be just to get eyeballs on the home page. But that simple ambition is rarely the objective of a site. Almost every Webmaster wants to get visitors to do something — visit a certain page, fill out a form, join a mailing list, travel across an opt-out page, buy a product, click an ad. Whatever the aim, the conversion of traffic from unproductive visits to productive visits is the final step that nearly all Webmasters seek. Google is a powerful ally in the first two goals. Nothing increases presence like a high listing on a Google search results page. If high positioning isn’t enough to drive traffic or isn’t possible in certain searches, Google’s advertising program (AdWords) can help divert the flow of traffic in your direction. Google can’t magically convert visitors, but it does help its AdWords users track visitors who do convert.

At the top of this chapter, I stated that Google’s business model makes money when you do. But as I also mentioned, Google makes money even if you don’t. That’s not a situation Google likes, and it tries to help you correct it, as I discuss  n Part II. Google wants you to succeed. 16 Part I: Meeting the Other Side of Google This reciprocity is built into Google’s advertising services in three ways: [1] They are democratic. Anyone can get involved, from a first-time entrepreneur with a new Web site to a billion-dollar corporation. As in any great democracy, ingenuity, knowledge, and persistence can compete with, and sometimes triumph over, incumbency and deep pockets. [1] They are reciprocal. Google’s success is good for you, and your success is good for Google. Google’s consumer users win, too, when you work effectively in Google’s advertising programs. This three-way reciprocity is difficult to establish (and even measure) in traditional media advertising. [1] They are efficient. And that’s an understatement. Goog le’s innovations in search advertising strive for an ideal match of advertiser to customer, hinged on a keyword. You pay only for reasonably good matches recognized by your potential customers. Google’s AdSense program, in which participating sites share ad revenue with Google, doesn’t cost the participant a dime — now that’s efficiency. eBay, the most successful dot-com venture through the collapse of the Internet bubble, was founded on the same three principles: democracy (anybody could get involved), reciprocity (eBay and its users benefited when its participants succeeded), and efficiency (participants controlled their costs and tracked their returns). In time, the advantages of eBay’s system got the attention of midsize brick-and-mortar stores, which now operate eBay outlets as an essential part of their business plan. Much larger corporations routinely use eBay to dispose of inventory. The playing field is level and the economics are equally favorable, whether you are selling computers or a lamp in your  ttic. Google’s two prime-time revenue programs, AdWords and AdSense, have followed an adoption curve similar to eBay’s. Fashioned for universal participation, both programs were adopted first by small players — single Webmasters, entrepreneurs, and one-product companies. Word spread, and now both programs are in far-flung use by the Internet’s largest publishers, manufacturers, and e-tailers. As with eBay, small and large participants enjoy the same benefits.