Tài liệu Building.your.business.with.google.for.dummies

Building Your Business with Google  FOR DUMmIES ‰ by Brad Hill Building Your Business with Google  FOR DUMmIES ‰ Building Your Business with Google  FOR DUMmIES ‰ by Brad Hill Building Your Business with Google For Dummies® Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 Copyright © 2004 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4355, e-mail: brandreview@ wiley.com. Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. Google, AdWords, AdSense, PageRank, and Froogle are registered trademarks of Google, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ. For general information on our other products and services or to obtain technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Control Number: 2004104561 ISBN: 0-7645-7143-5 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1B/RQ/QW/QU/IN About the Author Brad Hill has worked in the online field since 1992 and is a preeminent advocate of the online experience. As a bestselling author of books and columns, Hill reaches a global audience of consumers who rely on his writings to help determine their online service choices. Brad’s books include a Publishers Weekly bestseller and a Book-of-the-Month Club catalog selection. Brad’s titles in the For Dummies series include Internet Searching For Dummies, Google For Dummies, and Yahoo! For Dummies. In other venues, Brad writes about cybercultural trends, digital music, virtual investing, and all sorts of online destinations. He is often consulted about the media’s coverage of the Internet. He appears on television, radio, Webcasts, and is quoted in publications such as Business Week, The New York Times, USA Today, and PC World. Brad is a staff blogger at Weblogs Inc. (www.weblogsinc.com), where he runs the Search Engine Marketing weblog (SEM.weblogsinc.com) and contributes to several others. He also operates The Digital Songstream (www.Digital Songstream.com), a news and review site for digital music. Brad’s personal site (www.bradhill.com) describes all his current projects and provides an e-mail link. Brad doesn’t get outdoors much. Sunshine baffles him. As compensation, he is listed in Who’s Who and is a member of The Authors Guild. Author’s Acknowledgments Every book is a partnership of author and editor. Susan Pink is the editor of this book and a collaborator in other projects as well. Besides laughing at my worst jokes, Susan’s keen eye for clarity and incisive comments make me look good. She also remains calm in the face of deadlines. Too calm. I scheme to make her panic but nothing works. Karen Wickre at Google pored over this manuscript with a relentless attention to detail that would cause brain-cell loss in a less robust individual. Her refinements improved this book’s accuracy tremendously. Ana Yang at Google was an enthusiastic and helpful partner in this book from the beginning. My sincere thanks to Ana for her time and diligence. Also at Google, Michelle Vidano and Joel Slovacek clarified my questions and gave generously of their busy schedules. Melody Layne at Wiley Publishing nursed this project from the start and saw it through to the end. I’m very thankful. I send a warm and admiring thank-you to the marketing experts who provided extensive quotes to the manuscript. Amazingly generous, these pros contributed an extra dimension that will benefit every reader. Continued thanks to Mary Corder at Wiley. Many thanks to all the copy editors and production experts who lent their expertise to every page of the manuscript. Publisher’s Acknowledgments We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/. Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following: Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development Composition Project Editor: Susan Pink Acquisitions Editor: Melody Layne Technical Editor: Karen Wickre Editorial Manager: Carol Sheehan Permissions Editor: Laura Moss Project Coordinator: Courtney A. MacIntyre Layout and Graphics: Karl Brandt, Andrea Dahl, Lauren Goddard, Denny Hager, Stephanie D. Jumper, Lynsey Osborn, Heather Ryan, Jacque Schneider, Mary Gillot Virgin Media Development Supervisor: Richard Graves Proofreaders: Carl William Pierce, Brian H. Walls; TECHBOOKS Production Services Editorial Assistant: Amanda Foxworth Indexer: TECHBOOKS Production Services Cartoons: Rich Tennant, www.the5thwave.com Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director Publishing for Consumer Dummies Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director Composition Services Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services Contents at a Glance Introduction .................................................................1 Part I: Meeting the Other Side of Google .....................11 Chapter 1: Meeting the Business Side of Google .........................................................13 Chapter 2: Getting into Google ......................................................................................21 Chapter 3: Building Your PageRank Through Networking .........................................37 Chapter 4: Optimizing a Site for Google .......................................................................55 Chapter 5: Putting Google Search on Your Site ...........................................................83 Part II: Creating and Managing an AdWords Campaign .............................................101 Chapter 6: Introducing Search Advertising and Google AdWords ..........................103 Chapter 7: Designing Your AdWords Campaign and Starting an Account .............117 Chapter 8: Understanding AdWords Statistics and Reports ....................................145 Chapter 9: Creating Effective Ad Groups ....................................................................159 Chapter 10: Managing Ongoing Campaigns ...............................................................183 Part III: Creating Site Revenue with AdSense ............193 Chapter 11: Introducing the Google AdSense Program ............................................195 Chapter 12: Starting an AdSense Account and Publishing Ads ...............................209 Chapter 13: Enhancing Your AdSense Revenue .........................................................229 Part IV: Google Business for the Larger Company .......255 Chapter 14: Getting into Froogle and Google Catalogs .............................................257 Chapter 15: Premium Services .....................................................................................271 Part V: The Part of Tens ...........................................281 Chapter 16: Ten Site Optimization Resources ...........................................................283 Chapter 17: Ten SEM and SEO Tips from the Pros ....................................................301 Glossary ..................................................................325 Index........................................................................337 Table of Contents Introduction..................................................................1 About This Book ..............................................................................................2 Conventions Used in This Book ....................................................................3 What You’re Not to Read ................................................................................4 Foolish Assumptions ......................................................................................4 How This Book Is Organized ..........................................................................5 Part I: Meeting the Other Side of Google ............................................6 Part II: Creating and Managing an AdWords Campaign ....................6 Part III: Creating Site Revenue with AdSense .....................................7 Part IV: Google Business for the Larger Company ............................7 Part V: The Part of Tens ........................................................................8 Icons Used in This Book .................................................................................8 Where to Go from Here ...................................................................................9 Part I: Meeting the Other Side of Google ......................11 Chapter 1: Meeting the Business Side of Google . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 Google and Its Competition .........................................................................14 Two Sides of the Google Coin ......................................................................16 Google’s Empowerment Model ....................................................................16 The Three Goals of Every Webmaster ........................................................17 Google and Your Web Site ............................................................................18 Google and Your Product .............................................................................20 Chapter 2: Getting into Google . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 The Three-Step Process ...............................................................................21 Meet Google’s Pet Spider .............................................................................22 Timing Google’s crawl .........................................................................24 To submit or not to submit ................................................................25 The directory route .............................................................................27 Checking your site’s status in Google ...............................................28 Keeping Google Out ......................................................................................30 Deflecting the crawl ............................................................................30 Excluding pages with the meta tag ...................................................32 Avoiding the cache ..............................................................................33 The invisibility problem .....................................................................34 xii Building Your Business with Google For Dummies Chapter 3: Building Your PageRank Through Networking . . . . . . . . .37 Incoming Links and PageRank .....................................................................38 Human Networking .......................................................................................39 Working the Link Exchanges ........................................................................40 Coding Effective Link Exchanges ................................................................43 Distributing Bylines and Link Sigs ..............................................................45 Publishing articles ...............................................................................46 Posting messages with linked sig files ..............................................48 Assessing Your Incoming Link Network .....................................................49 Using the Google link: operator .........................................................49 Using the Theme Link Reputation Tool ............................................50 Using Alexa ...........................................................................................53 Chapter 4: Optimizing a Site for Google . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55 Optimizing Before Building ..........................................................................56 Keywords, Keywords, Keywords .................................................................57 Going for the edge ...............................................................................58 Checking out Wordtracker .................................................................58 Trying the Overture Search Suggestion Tool ...................................62 Peeking at competing keyword groups ............................................64 Determining great keywords ..............................................................67 Selecting a Domain ........................................................................................68 Effective Site Design ......................................................................................70 Page and Content Design .............................................................................72 Tag Design ......................................................................................................75 Creating a title tag ...............................................................................75 Creating a description tag ..................................................................76 Creating a keywords tag .....................................................................77 Creating alt tags ...................................................................................77 Poisoning the Google Spider ........................................................................79 A Glossary of SEO Terms ..............................................................................80 Considering SEO Services ............................................................................80 Chapter 5: Putting Google Search on Your Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 Terms and Restrictions ................................................................................84 Getting Your Code .........................................................................................86 Free Web and Site Search ...................................................................88 Tweaking the search form ..................................................................89 Customizing Search Results .........................................................................93 Building Your Own Google Site ....................................................................98 Table of Contents Part II: Creating and Managing an AdWords Campaign .............................................101 Chapter 6: Introducing Search Advertising and Google AdWords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103 Old Advertising in an Old Media ...............................................................103 Old Advertising in a New Medium ............................................................104 New Advertising in a New Medium ...........................................................105 What You Need to Get Started with AdWords .........................................109 Understanding How AdWords Works .......................................................110 Seeing the Big Picture: The Google Ad Network .....................................113 Chapter 7: Designing Your AdWords Campaign and Starting an Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117 The Big Picture: Campaigns, Ad Groups, and Keywords .......................118 Planning the first level: Campaigns .................................................121 Planning the second level: Ad Groups ............................................125 Setting Your Goals .......................................................................................128 Clarifying your marketing goals ......................................................128 Understanding the AdWords budget ..............................................129 Preparing Your Landing Page ....................................................................130 Productive Budgeting .................................................................................132 Writing Effective Ads ..................................................................................136 Creating an AdWords Account ..................................................................139 Finding Your Ads at Work ...........................................................................144 Chapter 8: Understanding AdWords Statistics and Reports . . . . . . .145 Viewing Account Statistics .........................................................................147 The account overview ......................................................................147 Seeing inside the campaign ..............................................................149 Seeing inside the Ad Group ..............................................................150 Creating AdWords Reports ........................................................................155 Chapter 9: Creating Effective Ad Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .159 Creating New Ad Groups ............................................................................160 Editing Elements of an Ad Group ..............................................................162 Editing ads ..........................................................................................162 Adding and editing keywords ..........................................................164 Editing your bid .................................................................................166 xiii xiv Building Your Business with Google For Dummies Researching and Refining Keywords ........................................................167 Hunting for the ideal keyword .........................................................167 Using the Keyword Suggestion Tool ...............................................174 Thinking like a customer ..................................................................175 Complying with Google’s need for relevance ................................177 The gray area of trademark infringement ......................................178 Using keyword-matching options ....................................................178 Chapter 10: Managing Ongoing Campaigns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .183 Pausing and Resuming Portions of Your Campaigns ..............................183 Repairing Broken Campaigns ....................................................................185 Reactivating a slowed account ........................................................186 Recovering disabled keywords ........................................................186 Pros and Cons of Geo-Targeting ................................................................188 Setting Up Conversion Tracking ................................................................190 Part III: Creating Site Revenue with AdSense .............193 Chapter 11: Introducing the Google AdSense Program . . . . . . . . . . .195 The Business of Serving Ads .....................................................................195 The AdSense Overview ..............................................................................196 Evaluating Your Site’s Eligibility for AdSense ..........................................198 Content-Sensitive Ads . . . or Not ..............................................................203 Running AdSense on Existing and New Sites ...........................................204 Show Me the Money ....................................................................................205 Working Both Sides of the Fence: AdSense and AdWords .....................206 Chapter 12: Starting an AdSense Account and Publishing Ads . . . .209 Joining AdSense ...........................................................................................209 Creating Your AdSense Code .....................................................................211 Choosing an ad layout and color palette .......................................212 Making a custom color palette ........................................................216 Viewing AdSense Reports ..........................................................................218 Viewing aggregate data .....................................................................218 Viewing channel data ........................................................................220 Setting Up AdSense Channels ....................................................................221 Understanding channels ...................................................................222 Creating channels ..............................................................................223 Adding New Pages and Sites ......................................................................226 Removing Ads and Stopping Your Ad Publishing ...................................227 Table of Contents Chapter 13: Enhancing Your AdSense Revenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .229 Optimizing Your Site for AdSense Success ..............................................230 Shooting for More Valuable Ads ................................................................232 Identifying high-value keywords ......................................................233 Conceiving and building high-value AdSense pages .....................237 Improving Clickthrough Rates ...................................................................238 Placing ads above the fold ...............................................................239 Choosing your pages ........................................................................240 Fighting ad blindness ........................................................................242 Filtering Ads .................................................................................................251 Using Alternate Ads ....................................................................................253 Part IV: Google Business for the Larger Company .......255 Chapter 14: Getting into Froogle and Google Catalogs . . . . . . . . . . .257 Google as the Ultimate Shop Window ......................................................257 Understanding Froogle’s Index and Search Results ...............................260 Being crawled by Froogle .................................................................260 Search results in Froogle ..................................................................261 Submitting Product Information to Froogle .............................................265 Optimizing for Froogle ................................................................................268 It’s (still) all about keywords ...........................................................268 Create sales ........................................................................................269 Optimizing your product description .............................................269 Two final optimization tips ..............................................................270 Getting into Google Catalogs .....................................................................270 Chapter 15: Premium Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .271 Premium AdWords ......................................................................................271 Premium AdSense for Content Sites .........................................................274 Premium AdSense for Search Sites ...........................................................276 Custom WebSearch .....................................................................................277 Silver and Gold Search ...............................................................................278 Part V: The Part of Tens ............................................281 Chapter 16: Ten Site Optimization Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .283 Search Innovation .......................................................................................285 HighRankings.com ......................................................................................286 xv xvi Building Your Business with Google For Dummies Mediumblue.com .........................................................................................287 Keyword Verification and Link Popularity Tools ....................................288 Marketleap Keyword Verification tool ............................................288 Marketleap Link Popularity Check ..................................................290 Mike’s Link Popularity Checker .......................................................292 TopSiteListings.com ....................................................................................293 SEO Consultants Directory ........................................................................294 Search Engine World Tools ........................................................................294 Webpage Size Checker ......................................................................294 Sim Spider ..........................................................................................295 Keyword Density Analyzer ...............................................................296 JimWorld ......................................................................................................298 Eric Ward ......................................................................................................299 SEO Directory ..............................................................................................299 Chapter 17: Ten SEM and SEO Tips from the Pros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .301 SEM Is (Somewhat) Revolutionary ...........................................................302 On Keyword Targeting ................................................................................305 On Finding the Balance between Free and Paid Marketing ...................307 Optimization versus Incoming Links ........................................................311 On Content and Site Design .......................................................................313 On the All-Important Title Tag ...................................................................315 Aiming for the Top Ten ...............................................................................316 On Large and Small Companies .................................................................318 Building Incoming Links .............................................................................320 The Most Important Tips ...........................................................................321 Glossary ...................................................................325 Index........................................................................337 Introduction I n the Introduction of Google For Dummies I wrote, “There has never been an Internet phenomenon like Google.” The book you’re holding now doubles the truth of that statement, revealing and illuminating the hidden half of Google. Taken together, Google’s front end (the consumer search engine) and back end (the business services) make up an online juggernaut arguably more significant to online society than eBay, Amazon.com, or Yahoo! right now. And Google’s momentum as a revenue-generating media company is just starting to pick up speed. Until recently, Google’s radical impact on Internet citizenry, and society generally, was focused on the consumer experience of searching. The quality of that experience was established in a revolutionary triple whammy (whammy being the technical term):
The clutter-free home page. In crisp contrast to the ad-clotted and frantically informational Web portals that previous search engines had morphed into, Google’s spare appearance is exhilarating in its announcement that search — pure Search, with a capital S — was back, and back hard.
The quality of results. This factor, of course, built Google’s fame and planted “Googling” in the global lexicon. Does Google read your mind? Or do the uncanny results derive from groundbreaking technology? Well, it’s the latter. But those who prefer imagining that they have a telepathic relationship with Google should go for the fantasy with gusto.
The speed of results. Lightning-quick results have pushed Google into the little cracks in everyone’s work day. People Google because the engine matches speed with the online lifestyle. Google never thinks of itself as the destination; hence, it is the most important destination. (Ahh . . . Zen insight.) Google’s unprecedented performance is underlined by its much-publicized traffic statistics: more than 200 million searches each day and more than 55 billion searches per year, servicing at least 50 percent of all search queries. Approximate and changeable as these metrics are, they emphasize the impressive command Google has established in the consumer searching arena. But Google has another side — and another personality. Behind the scene of any simple search lies a frenzy of competition and a wealth of opportunity. Web sites wrestle with each other and with Google for position on the search results page. Advertisers bid for attention-getting placement on that same page. Other sites all over the Web vie for the privilege of showing Google ads.