As I continue to run Google AdManager on a handful of my blogs, one thing is becoming apparent to me, if you already display Google AdSense ads, you may as well run it through Google AdManager.

Google AdManager is an advertising management system. For small publishers like myself, think of it as a glorified banner rotation script. It's a small piece of javascript code you paste into your pages, and it rotates banners.

Google lets people use its AdManager for free because it will set AdSense as a default ad. You can set anything as a default actually, but it just gives you the option to choose AdSense.

So, think of it as a way to show AdSense ads, but utilizing a different script, one that lets you swap out ads quickly and easily, turn them on or off, or give one higher priority than the other. You can even show banner ads to those visitors from the UK, and then show AdSense to visitors from USA (if you wanted to).

You can still modify the AdSense colors within AdManager; AdManager has its own interface for that. You can load in all the AdSense channels you created on your AdSense account, or let AdManager create its own channels.

AdManager also gives you performance reports for the ad spaces you've defined, and even displays AdSense reports.

The biggest reason why you'd use AdManager to display AdSense ads, is so that you can quickly and easily remove the AdSense ads in favor for another ad. Otherwise, you might have to replace the code in your template, or replace the code in some other script you're using.

The second reason is because AdManager will provide AdSense earnings reports within AdManager. In fact, you'll be able to see the AdManager performance through AdSense's reports as well.

A third reason is that AdManager also gives you the option to let AdWords buyers buy ads specifically on your website. That is, AdManager provides a connection to AdWords. AdWords users can see the ad spaces you set up on your site, and lets them place paying ads on your pages. You can turn this on or off.

And for affiliate marketers, you can also do text links, because the creative interface in AdManager supports HTML and javascript.

One negative I can say about AdManager is that it's not easy to learn. It will take some time to understand it. AdManager provides several online videos and tutorials.

But if you're already running AdSense ads on your site, I recommend instead doing it through AdManager. The end result is that you'll still have AdSense ads showing on your site, you'll just be in a better position to rotate in other ads, etc.  ✓

When people ask me what I do for a living, I usually say, "website publishing". But yet, they always misunderstand that.

Instead, they take that to mean I build websites for clients.

I don't do that at all. Website publishing means publishing content on a website. I tell people it's similar to a magazine publisher, where they publish several different magazines, each focusing on different topics, and they make money selling advertising space. I do the same thing, but on websites instead of paper.

Website design is when you build sites for clients.

But it's not like I've never built sites for clients. I built a site for a local charitable group, who've since disbanded. And I built a site for a local biker bar, which I still maintain. But I built them for free, and hosted them for free. I told them I'd build a simple website, and that I wouldn't be able to provide much support. They were fine with that. The traffic was light enough that it didn't cost my server any significant bandwidth.

Just today, I got a phone call from a gal wanting a website built for her business. She was referred to me by a mutual friend. This friend thought I did website design. In these times, I don't like turning down potential money, so I kept the door open. I explained to this person that my primary business is in publishing, not design. But, I'm still capable of designing sites and hosting them.

She went on to say that she talked to another website design person who quoted her a price of $70.00 an hour. I took that to mean website design time only, and did not include hosting. But she felt that was a very high price.

Since I don't make website design my primary business, I don't have a rate card. I didn't know what to tell her on that. But she said she would send me details on what she wanted, and would wait to hear back from me. I in turn referred her to one of my websites, and said she could look at it and get an idea of what she could expect from me.

If you're an affiliate marketer, blogger, or publisher like me, who never pursued the website design business, perhaps we ought to prepare ourselves in case someone asks about it. How much should you charge? How much support will come bundled into that fee? How much hosting is bundled into that, or do you charge separately for hosting? How much to charge for additional support? What is your expertise in HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, or platforms like Blogger, WordPress, Drupal, etc.?

I always knew I could fall back on website design should my publishing business fall apart. But I know other people who do website design, and the thing that overwhelms them is support. They have so many clients, and all throughout the day they get calls from them wanting something changed or added. It's always a bunch of nickel & dime stuff. I didn't want to have client calls coming in at all hours of the day. That's one reason why I liked publishing instead, you get very few client calls.

But again, in these hard times, I don't like turning down money.  ✓

Twitterholic still shows me as having the most Twitter followers among users claiming Menifee, CA as their hometown.

And I only have something like 106 followers as of this writing.

Is that a reflection of Twitter, or a reflection of Menifee?

Menifee is still a small town by Southern California standards. Estimates put the population between 60,000 to 70,000 people. But before concluding that Menifee is too small to make a mark on the Twittersphere, consider that Facebook has a very popular following here in town. Most of the households on my block are on Facebook and we've all friended each other there.

People just don't understand Twitter.

I attended a "Tweetup" yesterday, organized by Kerilyn LaFournaise, a gal who markets herself as a social media consultant. There were about seven of us in attendance besides her.

She asked how many of us had MySpace accounts. We all raised our hands. She asked how many of us had Facebook accounts. Five of us raised our hands. Then she asked how many had Twitter accounts. My hand was the only hand raised.

We were all business people in one regard or another. Either we owned businesses or we were in the business of doing business, like banking, payroll, et al. Yet we were all in attendance to learn how Twitter could help someone with their business or to do business.

Yet they couldn't grasp the value of social marketing. Kerilyn to liken tweeting with attending a chamber mixer, which I thought was a great way to put it. But I still saw puzzled looks. I think they were wondering, "Well why should I tweet when I can meet people in person at a mixer?"

I think people understand Facebook because the social network in which you exist is closed. That is, your status updates are only seen by the people in your network. That gives you a sense of being in a fun circle of friends.

But everything in Twitter is wide open. While your tweets will be seen by your followers, they can actually be seen by the entire Twittersphere. It's just that your followers are more likely to see your tweets than others.

The fact that a circle of friends isn't really defined in Twitter is why average folks don't understand it. They think it's fine to tell their circle of friends that they're enjoying an awesome California roll right now, but they don't understand why you'd tell the whole world that.

People don't feel comfortable about opening their lives up to such great publicity.

As I said, Menifee is still a small town by Southern California standards. People here tend to see each other quite often, just by going to the grocery store, or standing in line at the bank. In a small town you don't need Twitter.

In a big city like Los Angeles for example, you have a lot of anonymity due to sheer size of population. In that scenario, Twitter helps you be seen.

In Menifee, people have little trouble being seen. If anything you need more privacy.

And that's why Twitter will never gain the following that Facebook has.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I read some articles recently about the fastest way to get your new website indexed into Google, or how to get it indexed most thoroughly.

I think the fastest way to get indexed into Google is to do nothing.

Google is just so good at finding new websites, you really don't have to do anything to get found. The Google guys are so anxious to stay one step ahead of the competition, that they've thought of everything possible to discover new websites, and new webpages.

Whether you like it or not, if you launch a website, Google is going to find it. It's just not true that you can launch a website and have Google never ever know about it. It's just not true.

Regarding the Google site map, I don't feel they're necessary, unless you want to prevent Google from indexing something. Google is pretty aggressive in finding every page on your website, it just isn't necessary. Again, if Google wants to be the most comprehensive search engine anywhere, they'll definitely crawl every page on your site.

They say that Site Maps are necessary for database sites where much of the content is accessed through search queries. But I've found that it's more efficient to build a script that creates a Table of Contents of every record in the database. Even with hundreds of thousands of records, Google still crawls every single one. I know this from having designed CousinConnect, and CousinConnect doesn't utilize Site Maps, yet Google crawled every single database record.

SEO Experts Spoiling the Broth

They say that too many cooks spoil the broth, and I think a similar analogy exists here. There are so many people proclaiming themselves to be SEO experts, and every one of them has a blog, and every one of them has to find something unique to say. As a result, they've convinced the general populace that SEO is SO difficult, that you have to hire an SEO consultant.

They do this to justify their trade.

The same is true with Twitter. These days, everyone wants to be a Twitter expert, and so each "expert" has to find something unique to write about, and in the end all it does is confuse people into thinking that Twitter is far more complicated than it really is.

And so when SEO experts tell you that you have to create a site map to ensure your site is thoroughly indexed, it's baloney. Google is automatically going to crawl every single page of your site whether you like it or not.

Google Site Maps was created so that you can control what pages you want Google to crawl, and how often. It was not created to guarantee it will crawl everything.

I previously expressed my disdain for so many self-proclaimed SEO experts zealously trying to find a new angle to report on, all in the quest to justify their existence. Instead they did nothing but scare people into believing something that just isn't true.

As a result, people have made SEO out to be something more complicated than it really is.

I've been in this business for 12 years now. I used to optimize for Inktomi when it was the dominant search engine, and then for Alta Vista, and now Google. I've seen it all. There is no magic bullet, no hidden secrets. Everything has been vetted out, and remedies created. It's now all based on creating quality websites.

Google wants to show quality websites in its listings, that's why it works so hard to find them. You can't build a piece of junk, and assume there's a special trick to getting it listed high in the rankings.

If someone tells you that you have to create Site Maps, or there's a special way to get indexed fast, it's just baloney, period.  ✓