I thought I’d survived my recent Google AdWords banning quite well but after having a look at how my sites are ranking in Google using the Advanced Web Rankings tool I was a little surprised to see that a sizeable percentage of my sites had dropped right out of the Google Search Results Pages (SERPS) for some of their keywords.

My main sites don’t seem to be affected (yet), at least not for their main keywords, but some of my less profitable sites have either dropped right down or fallen off the radar completely.

There are a few reasons I can guess at that might have caused this:

• If Google thinks my sites aren’t good enough for AdWords then they aren’t good enough for the organic search so has penalised my sites there too.
  Likely-hood: probable but the sites that have dropped aren’t all sites I was promoting with AdWords although they are on the same shared hosting package.
• I’ve been buying a lot of forum profile back links and blog commenting back links lately.  
  Likely-hood: again quite likely as these links are pretty weak in terms of quality and most of the sites I got them for had no links before hand and now suddenly have 100 links – although most don’t seem to be indexed.
• I’ve only recently started monitoring my sites in the SERPS since getting the ranking tool.  With the tool I can check how my sites are ranking for lots of keywords and get updates every day.  Perhaps beforehand my sites were jumping around a lot and I never noticed.
• Likely-hood: not too high but fingers crossed this is the reason and it was going on all along.

So how are you sites doing?  Has there been a Google update?

Lets hope it doesn’t spread to my more profitable sites!

Big Drops in the SERPS for my Sites is a post from: How I Got Rich

The Google AdWords people have been in touch about some of the sites I am promoting with their service and we were in discussion about how I could improve them to make them less like affiliate sites. I gave it a try but short of taking all my affiliate links off the sties I was unable to meet their demands.

I just logged into AdWords after a weekend away and none of my ads have received any impression since half way through October 7. I’ve not had an email or any notification inside AdWords but I am guessing my account has been stopped.

Its a shame but I was relying too much on AdWords and hopefully this will allow me to keep my outgoings down a bit as I was spending about £500 a month with them.

AdWords Ban is a post from: How I Got Rich

I got an email from lpq-support@google.com the other day giving me a final warning for violating the AdWords policies. Despite it being my first warning I was quite alarmed. Although most of my traffic comes from SEO a fair amount of my sales for big ticket items come via AdWords ads so if I stopped the ads I’d probably lose out on a fair chunk of my earnings.

Only a few of my sites were listed as offending Google but they looked like most of my others sites which I am promoting through AdWords.

The email told me not to delete or pause the ads to those sites but to change the sites to meet their guidelines and then resubmit them for their approval.

I deleted the ads to the offending sites anyways and sent them an email which they have just replied to letting me know about my sites.

They told me that my sites were bridge pages and I need to make them more useful to the end user.

The sites are technically bridge pages as they link through to the merchants but they all have at least 200 words of original content about the products they are promoting.

If they are considered bridge pages then all affiliate sites are bridge pages in my eyes.

Short of removing the affiliate links on these sites I don’t see what else I can do to please Google.

I’m going to try and cut down on the number of sites I promote with AdWords and aim to reduce my reliance on it in preparation for the day when my account gets cancelled.

The worrying thing is if these sites offend Google AdWords what’s to say they won’t soon offend Google regular, organic search and get the boot from there too?

I never really worried about the dominance of Google but perhaps now it is time to start!

Final Warning: Your Google AdWords account has multiple violations is a post from: How I Got Rich

A while ago I tried to do some ‘tests’ to see how accurate the Google Keyword tool is and also how much traffic you get for being number one or two in Google.
Read about it here: http://howigotrich.net/tag/google-keyword-tool/

I tried it again recently with a site I have that has been number three in Google for its main keyword for many months but only gets about 3-6 unique hits a day.

After running a Google AdWords PPC campaign for that keyword I found out that the keyword got 273 impressions in one day (I’ve only run the campaign for one day so will see how it goes).

That means that for being number three in Google my site gets around 2% of the searches for that keyword clicking through to my site. This is not a lot!

According to the Google KeyWord Tool this keyword gets 1,900 exact match searches per month which works out at 64 per day. This is over four times less than what the AdWords research tells us.

So what have we learnt? The Google Keyword Tool is still inaccurate but we already knew that but this reinforces the idea and I would urge anyone doing keyword research to use AdWords rather than the Google Keyword Tool before choosing a niche.

Also it tells me that this niche is worth targeting and putting some more effort into as it is getting around 8000 exact searches a month instead of the 1900 reported by the GKWT. But there is also the problem of the 2% click through rate the site is getting being at number three in Google. Will this improve if I get the site to number two or number one? Only time (and some dodgy forum profile backlinks) will tell…

More Google Keyword Tool Data is a post from: How I Got Rich

Just seen this little tool for WordPress on another affiliate blog and thought I’d post it here incase anyone hadn’t seen it.

The idea is that it records which keyword your sales came from or something like that.  Read the full story here:

http://shanebrown.co.uk/new-wordpress-keyword-tracking-tool-plugin/

Keyword Tracking Plugin for Adwords is a post from: How I Got Rich

Recently I set up a new site that I was going to promote via PPC using Google’s  AdWords.  I set the site up and created a page for each item and put an image of the product on the page and an Easy Content Unit comparing the prices from different merchants.

Instead of adding content I decided to start some AdWords campaigns for the site to get the ball rolling and hits coming in before I got around to writing and adding the content.

The next time I logged into AdWords to check the campaign I noticed my keywords had a 1/10 quality score and the reason given was something to do with a poor quality site.   The low quality score means my ads will hardly ever, if at all, be shown.

I then added the content, waited for it to get indexed and started a new campaign on the same account for the site.  Google noticed straight away and gave me another 1/10 quality score.

So now I have registered a new domain and am in the process of moving the content over.

Once I have done that I will start a new campaign for the site and hopefully it will pass Google’s criteria.

Fingers crossed…

Beware the Google Slap is a post from: How I Got Rich

May 2010 was my best month in affiliate marketing so far apart from December 2009.  I did quite well last month so wasn’t sure if I would be able to top it but was very pleased when I did. Also  one of my sites that started the month off well and was on page one in Google got knocked way down the SERPS for some reason at the start of the month and didn’t make any more more sales.  But a few of my other sites stepped up and I made a good income for May.  Also during this month my Adwords account was suspendde due to non payment until the last few days of May so I only spent about £9 on clicks which was very good.

A fair amount of this traffic was seasonal though so I need to keep working other sites to keep me going all year round.

I’ve also been doing a lot of outsourcing.  I’ve been getting someone to write product descriptions for me which keeps me supplied with fresh content for my sites and is something I would definitely recommend to anyone who has trouble motivating themselves to write content.

I have also outsorced the design of a webstie which I am very pleased with.  I will be using this design for my PPC financial leads project so I wanted something good and I was happy with what I got.  I will be starting work on this in June.

I will be away for six weeks from the start of July so am trying to get as much done before then as probably won’t be able to do much affiliate marketing work whilst on the road.

How was your May 2010?

Monthly Round-Up: May 2010 is a post from: How I Got Rich

My credit card has expired and due to my location I have been able to get another one.  This has lead to my Adwords account getting suspended.

Does anyone know of a way around this?  Any tips, other ways to pay?

Cheers.

AdWords Without a Credit Card? is a post from: How I Got Rich

My regular readers will know I often like to grumble about the lack of accuracy of the Google Keywoord Tool.

Getting a site to number one in Google usually gives me about 2-4% of the number given by the Google Keyword Tool for exact search in hits per month i.e. Google Keyword Tool says 14,000 exact matches for my sites main keyword but my site will only get about 500 hits per month making it completely unprofitable.  Either no one is clicking through or the Google Keyword Tool is well out.

So to find out I have just setup an AdWords campaign for one of my sites main keyword.  The Keyword Tool said there were 12,100 exact searches for this keyword last month but my site at number two in Google only got 140 hits in that month (1%).

Lets see how many impressions my ad gets (and lets hope it doesn’t cost me too much!).

Google AdWords vs Google Keyword Tool is a post from: How I Got Rich

February was a poor month for me and I only made about 300 pounds and I had to spend about 80 quid on AdWords to get there.  This was my worst month for probably about six months and the first real big drop in profit.  But onwards and upwards as they say.

I have started proper work on a ‘big site’ but am only focusing on one type of product for now and will then start adding in more products once I am ranking ok for the first product type.

I’ve started paying for content and reinvesting some of my earnings from affiliate marketing now I am working full-time again.  I’ve been buying content in lots of 500 words and having the content focused around my niche keywords.  I had a site that had been at the bottom of page one in Google for ages and after adding the content it moved to number three in Google so hopefully I should see a return on that investment shortly.  Before that the site was languishing on page two and sometimes further out but after moving it to WordPress and separating each product review/description into a separate Wordpress post it moved to the bottom of page one in Google.  So moving to WordPress plus adding good written content can equal a decent jump in the serps for a site.

As for my big site I am having trouble finding a decent WordPress theme that is suited to an affiliate site.  I’m using a magazine theme at the moment and I do like it but it doesn’t quite meet my needs and I am having trouble deciding how to structure a site that is bigger than my usual one type of product site.

Can anyone recommend a good WordPress theme, free or otherwise, for a decent sized affiliate site?

How was February for you?

Monthly Round-Up: February 2010 is a post from: How I Got Rich