A new video my nephew Alex and I just put together… enjoy.

How often do you review Google’s site quality guidelines? Honestly, I never used to all that much until recently… now I go through them with a fine tooth comb.

Enjoy the video!

Here Is The Link To The Guidelines

I just wanted to post some thoughts to help you in 2010. These thoughts are mostly about Google of course, and how you can get through the slaps and actually make more money than you were previously.

First, let me say I in NO WAY agree with how Google has handled the recent series of slaps and bans. Over 100,000 people had their AdWords accounts terminated since Sepetember.  Some didn’t even get a warning.

No reasons for the most part… just “low quality landing pages”. Some had content sites LOADED with content to the tune of hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of articles. It didn’t matter.

BTW here is an official reason for a ban (ARBITRAGE_AFFILIATE_BRIDGE) from a Google rep who sent this to a person who was actually banned when he asked for more info as to WHY. Affiliate Bridge… hmmmmmm.

My take? I think Google is really taking favor to merchants because they view affiliates as “duplicate content” servers. Think about it. No matter what site people click on, if people are all basically hitting the same merchant sites in the end, then the site is really a duplicate content server.

Example:

bestwidgets.com – 100 unique articles, aff links to allwidgets.com
topwidgets.com – 100 unique articles, aff links to allwidgets.com
widgethub.com – 100 unique articles, aff links to allwidgets.com

In the end, these are basically bridge pages to allwidgets.com.

The big question is, what can you do about it. I think the game has changed to where you need to have your own product, whether it be an ebook on widgets, a membership site on widgets, SOMETHING. Just don’t have blatant affiliate links.

Another reason is I believe Google will eventually become the world’s largest super affiliate. They now have their own affiliate network and are looking to draw merchants whom THEY will advertise.

I won’t go in depth, but it’s covered pretty well here.

My point is, if you want to continue on the AdWords gravy train, look to where Google is heading, and join them. That’s all you can do.

I hope 2010 brings you much prosperity, happiness and health and I look forward to continuing to provide you  even more insights!

Wow do you realize I haven’t added a blog post in over 2 months? I better get my butt off the couch here! No, actually, I’ve been really busy lately, coupled with some illnesses in the family.

All is well NOW but i’ll try to post more frequently now.

I want to talk a little bit about writing effective ads on the content network. Most people struggle here, and rightly so. Unless you’ve really tested a lot of different types of ad writing styles, it can be a battle initially!

The content network is different for search. Sometimes on search, just including the keyword in the title can assist your CTR.

On the content network however, it is based on the “theme” of the adgroup, and on top of that, people are actually looking for a specific thing. You are interrupting them, PLUS you are being thrown on many different types of blogs/forums etc, making it nearly impossible to be too direct and targeted.

Here is how you should write an ad on the content network.

If your keyword theme is “Blue Widgets”, then make the headline mention Blue “Widgets”. Now because you will most likely be thrown on “widget” pages (perhaps red widgets, green widgets etc) you’re going to need to cover yourself by making the rest of the ad more generalized..

Need Blue Widgets?
Find Any Widget In 2 Minutes!
Guaranteed 2 day Delivery.
WidgetsAreUs.com

You see what I did there? I covered myself my mentioning in Description Line 1 that they can get ANY widget…

I would also make a generic widget page versus red, blue, green for the same reason… you will be thrown on a very broad spectrum of pages and you want to cover yourself.

I hope this helps you write more effective ads on the content network!

Bidding can be a make or break scenario for most affiliates who are just finding profitabilty.

In the video below, I talk a little bit about how you can be more aggressive, sacrifice ROI, and put more money into your bank account.