John Jonas Blog

Here’s a podcast of this blog post
Or you can listen to it here:

(The audio is different than what I wrote below)

If you’re using Google Adwords, you’ve probably already seen or heard about the change that’s coming on April 1, 2008:

Important Change to URL Policy Enforcement Starting in April, display URLs for new ads will be required to match their destination / landing page URLs, without exception. Please adjust your URLs accordingly when creating new ads.

I’ve had a few people ask me about how to deal with this so here are a few thoughts:

1. For People Doing Direct Linking
I have 3 solutions for how to deal with this for people who are direct linking to affiliate programs.
First, get better at adwords than your competitors and out rank them. By out rank them, I mean write a better ad that gets a better CTR and hence a higher ranking ad in google’s results. If you do this, you can use the merchants display url with your affiliate link and your ad will be shown above all other affiliates.

If the merchant is advertising for themselves on your keyword…I don’t really have a solution for you. Very often if you outrank the merchant they’ll get really mad at you for being better than they are at selling their product and they’ll kick you out of their affiliate program.

However, if you’re just competing with other affiliates, writing a better ad will usually do the trick to get your ad shown.

One thing you need to realize in this is that while google doesn’t dislike affiliate marketing, it doesn’t help their core business. Affiliates usually fill an inefficiency in a marketplace. Google doesn’t like inefficiencies and if they can take care of them without having an affiliate in the mix, they’ll be more than happy to do so.

As a direct linking affiliate, you’re fighting an uphill battle. Not that it can’t be fought, but over the years google has shown a consistent pattern of making it more and more difficult to do direct linking as an affiliate.

Knowing this, you can either make the choice to continue doing it, fighting the uphill battle, or you can chose to evolve and do something that google isn’t fighting against.

At this point, it’s like the days when adsense died. Google had made it clear that they didn’t like sites that were made for adsense (MFA sites). At one point they made a change where it became very difficult to continue with the page generator/adsense business model. Smart people changed their model. Others continued doing it because it was the easiest path, and today they’re really struggling (at least…I don’t know anyone who is still succeeding with that model. If you do, I want to know them).

Second, set up your own domain. You have a few options in doing this. You can set up a simple iframe landing page where your domain just has a page with an iframe on it. The src= part of the iframe is your affiliate link. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t know how google is going to deal with it with their new rules. But, doing this, you can have your display URL be the same as the actual page where the person ends up (because they’re on your website).

Another option for your own landing page is to try and add value to the transaction you’re trying to create. As an affiliate, you’re trying to get person A (buyer) to buy product B. If all you’re doing is providing a link to product B, you’re not adding very much value to that transaction.

However, if you can give person A a reason to buy product B (You give this reason on your website), now you’re adding value to the transaction and now you’re starting to build a business for yourself.

In doing this, you leave the realm of people google is fighting against and join the side of people google likes…information providers.

Google knows that the first reason someone goes online is to find information. It’s always super simple to find someone who will sell you something, google knows that. They also know that it’s much more difficult to find someone who will give you good information without selling you something (or even someone who will give you good information before selling you something).

They also know that the first 2 steps in the buying process (browers and then shoppers) are looking for information. If you can be a voice that someone trusts in those first 2 steps, they’re very likely to trust you when they’re ready to whip out their credit card.

So how do you give a person a reason to buy?
Here are a few ideas:

• Write reviews that tell the person which product is the best
• Solve a problem the person has and give them the solution if they buy through your affiliate link
• Give them a free something (report, mp3, video…) that partly solves their problem, and then tell them to buy product B to completely solve their problem
• Write about your personal experience with product B and how it solved your problem and how it will solve their problem too

There are a ton of ways to add value to the transaction. I think most affiliates who are doing direct linking would be surprised to see their conversion rates go up after creating a good landing page.

Third, try cloaking.
You can set up a landing page that just has content on it that’s related to your keywords so that google will give you a high quality score, and then cloak that page (either by a redirect or a straight cloak…there’s software that will do this for you) to go to your affiliate link. This will allow you to pass that visitor on to the final landing page (not your own url) but will have google think that the person actually is landing on your url (so your destination URL is your domain, and google thinks the person is going to end up on your domain (so they’re ok with it for their new rules), but the person actually ends up on the final landing page through your affiliate url).

Just be warned. This can be tricky, it is considered black hat, Google doesn’t like it, and it can get you in trouble.

Lots of people do it.

That’s all I’m going to say about it.

2. For people using adwords for testing
Brian Todd wrote a good piece on how to split test url’s using Adwords even with google’s new rules.

Read it.

3. Go use Yahoo/MSN
Obviously this isn’t a way to deal with Google’s new rules, but I think that most affiliate just blatantly ignore Yahoo/MSN ppc.

Mistake.

While there isn’t as much traffic from either of those as there is from google, and both of their systems are more difficult to use, I consistently find that the traffic I get converts better. Less money spent + more conversions = higher ROI (Yes, I understand that it doesn’t always mean higher profits).

Conclusion
As far as I can tell, what they’ve said is that this will effect “NEW” ads that are created after April 1. It shouldn’t (not yet) affect things you’ve done in the past. But, if google is moving this direction, you better believe that at some point they’ll make this rule retroactive.

This is a good point for affiliate marketers using adwords to make a decision about what they’re going to do in the future with their businesses. As far as I’m concerned, I think it’s time to evolve.

Let me know your thoughts.

About 5 months ago Keith Baxter gave me an audio course that he and Peter S. had done about how to use blogs to sell things.

I was totally blown away.

It wasn’t that it was totally new information. It was how they had put together a bunch of different concepts and used them in such a way that it took advantage of all the things we know about blogging and cut out all of the un-useful things about blogging…when it comes to selling products.

They took a blog and turned it into an exceptionally effective ecommerce site. Then they repeated it.

I get asked all the time “how can I easily build a website about X”.

My response: WORDPRESS!

The thing that really hit me hard was that you can (and very often should) use wordpress to build almost any type of site you want (ecommerce, single sales page, information, cms, affiliate site, review site, squeeze page). It’s all set up for you and with the info they give in this course you know exactly how to configure it for best results…for selling!

There’s such a huge difference between being able to sell things online, and being “cool” or “read” or “just in it for fun” or “I just do it for networking”. This is where a lot of people I know get caught going in the wrong direction with their blogs. They want to make money from it, but they’re treating it like a social event. They don’t ever get into what actually makes people buy things online.

It’s also where I see marketers go wrong in how they’re trying to integrate web 2.0 into their plans. They go about spamming instead of just using the tools given them to their advantage where it will stick around for the long term. Using wordpress in conjunction with the system BTS outlines integrates the best of both worlds (the blog/web 2.0 world and the internet marketing world).

So, after I listened to the course I immediately went out and started a blog based on the principles they talk about.

Then, over the next month or so, I really, really ramped it up (this is why I call it “Blogging To Sell On Steroids”).

I took all the marketing tactics I could remember and wrote them down in an organized todo list. Then I went and started asking other people who I know knew a lot of stuff, about marketing tactics they use, and I added their lists to my list.

What I came up with in the end were 13 todo lists that start before the beginning of the BTS course and take you way past the end of the BTS course, on the path of setting up a super successful blog that actually sells stuff and makes you money.

I call the system:

Blogging To Sell On Steroids

and you can get my todo lists for yourself by following that link.

I’m giving the system away for free (Keith let me give away their course…Thanks Keith!)

It’s not for everyone. It’s just for people looking to make money online who already have some knowledge about blogs and marketing.

[tags]blogging to sell, wordpress, blog, marketing[/tags]

This morning I had an interesting email conversation with a subscriber of mine who just got banned from Adwords for promoting software that makes MFA (made for adsense) sites.

Yes, banned from Adwords, not adsense.

Here’s what happened:

He is a beginning affiliate. He just promotes other people’s stuff through adwords. Obviously not google’s favorite person, but not something they discourage either (there are hundreds of thousands of people like him).

He has promoted 4 products:

1. JP’s Niches In a Box
2. Brad Callens’ Niche Revolution
3. Mark Roth’s Affiliate Radar
4. Keyword Elite

He got a “content violation” warning for the first 3 campaigns.

In his words:

Sure, the first 2 just have a brief mention of ‘Adsense’ at the bottom. But not affiliate radar, that’s just a conversion tracker. I emailed Adwords explaining this, and they apologized and said they would route this to their technical team. So the killer came with KE, which they disapproved automatically after 24 hrs of me putting up the ad. Not suspecting anything wrong, I just made some slight amendments, and emailed them explaining why KE is not a ‘Adsense template generator’ but a ‘keyword research tool’.

6 hours after making the changes he got banned from adwords and was told that if he tries to sign up again they’ll know and shut him down.

He chatted with them 3 times, sent 2 different emails, and had 1 phone conversation where they said that their decision was final.

So here’s my question: Why is it that Google makes these blanket decisions and then has no process for repentance or explanation or forgiveness or anything of the sort.
What if they’re wrong with their decision? What if they made a mistake? Do they not know they’re playing with people’s lives?

I’m not saying that they don’t have to run their business, but can you imagine if my adwords account got banned and they said “our decision is final” and there’s no way for me to appeal or anything? That would sort of change my life!

This guy didn’t get any warning about it. He wasn’t even doing anything wrong either. Keyword Elite is a keyword tool. Yes, it also builds adsense pages, but it’s main purpose is as a keyword tool.

Also, why this guy?. If you do a google search for keyword elite you’ll see dozens of KE affiliates still promoting the product.

Why aren’t they being shut down.

Why will google not even look at someone’s explanation and consider it?

Remember when google used to be cool and hip and trendy? Back before they went public and they cared about people, not shareholders?

Back when they said “going public won’t change our company!”

To tell you the truth, google looks more like microsoft than like google.

Now, a disclaimer: I could have been told half the story. I don’t think I was, but it’s possible that I wasn’t told the whole truth and that this guy really did do something wrong. I don’t think so, but it’s possible.

[tags]adwords, google, banned from google[/tags]

Next Tuesday I’ll be releasing UnderCoverProfits, which is going to change the way a whole bunch of people do affiliate marketing.

See…in the past, when promoting other people’s products, what most people have done is pick a program to promote, and then go test it on Adwords to see if they can make it profitable. It takes time to pick the right program, and it takes time and money to test.

UnderCoverProfits reverses the process. Instead of spending money to test, it uses other people’s testing to figure out for you what affiliate programs will be profitable, so that you can start your campaigns knowing that they’re going to be profitable from the beginning.

It’s the exact opposite of the big hype right now about keyword level conversion tracking. With keyword conversion tracking, you test keywords on your own dime. With UnderCoverProfits, you test keywords and affiliate programs on other people’s dime.

If you’re looking to promote your own product on Adwords, as a competitive intelligence tool, I don’t know anything that will give you better information about your competitors than UnderCoverProfits. It will show you what keywords they’re bidding on, and which of those keywords are profitable for them.

So far our beta testing has been amazing. About 85% of the beta testers are now making money as affiliates on Adwords where they previously weren’t.

[tags]UnderCoverProfits, Under Cover Profits, Undercover Profits, affiliate marketing, affiliates[/tags]

A few weeks ago I saw “The Secret” dvd, a movie put together by Rhonda Byrne with a bunch of successful people in it including Jack Canfield, Bob Proctor, and Joe Vitale.

When I saw it, I immediatly identified with it because I have seen the “law of attraction” in my life over and over again. If you seek out good people, good people will seek you. If you look for certain things in life, they’ll find you.

Since I haven’t blogged for a while, I thought this would be a reasonable way to get back into the swing of things. The secret dvd is worth watching. You can rent it at blockbuster.

While it alone won’t change your life, the principles they’re teaching are good. (There’s also a really good lesson to be learned from the whole movie)

[tags]the secret, the secret dvd[/tags]

Since Yahoo sent out the email telling everyone how they’re upgrading search marketing accounts, I thought I’d look into it.

Holy cow do they have issues.

First, I was looking at their API. They have all the documentation for their searchmarketing api online, but it doesn’t work. It’s not active for people. There’s a list at the bottom of the main page about it that has “How so I sign up?” as one of the list items, but it’s not a link. It’s just a question. This is just where the problems begin.

Second, I had to dig around to find a phone number to contact anyone about it. I ended up finding the phone number to a company called kowabunga who was listed on their api faq page. I called them but they didn’t know anything about the API. All they could tell me was that the super fantastic yahoo ambassador program pays you $20 per account that you refer to yahoo search marketing. So, basically, this is an affiliate program that you have to pay $50 to join. That’s all they could tell me it was. I laughed at the chick and she laughed back because it’s sooooo dumb. Thanks…I’ll pass.

Third, I got a phone number to yahoo customer service from the chick at kowabunga so I called. When they answered they asked me for my search marketing account number. I told her that I just had a simple question about their API and she said “So, I still need your account number so I can record the call.”

Ridiculous.

So I gave it to her.

She then proceeded to put me on hold for every question I had and she would come back with a response of “I don’t have that information.” That’s basically all the information I could get out of her. We don’t know. I don’t know. They don’t know. Contact “them” and “they’ll” give you more information.

I finally said to her “They don’t give you much information, do they?” to which she didn’t say anything.

I hung up.

No wonder so many people use google adwords and google’s getting rich off it while yahoo just continues to struggle.

It is absolutely amazing the lies people will tell to sell something online.

This is my critique of a sales letter about 19 copywriting secrets.

The dude is teaching how to write better copy.

In the first email he sends there is a blatant lie in it.

No wonder “being honest in your copy” isn’t one of his “19 secrets”.

People are starting to catch on to these liars tricks.

With the release of Joel Comms rebuttle, Adsense is alive!, I think I need to talk about what is going on.

I’m doing this for the same reason I do What’s Crap and What’s Not.

First of all, before I say any more, you need to realize that Joel has a 5 figure monthly income from selling adsense lessons. Of course he cares if people talk about adsense being dead. He has a huge stake in adsense working.

Is Joel really making what he says he’s making on adsense? Yes. Absolutely.

Is it as easy as he says for YOU to make money on adsense anymore? No. It’s not.

So what’s really going on with adsense?

The reality is that it’s becoming more and more difficult to make money off adsense UNLESS you have an already established website that is getting a significant amount of traffic.

But…NOBODY is talking about this.

Why? Because there isn’t a bunch of money to be made in selling a product to existing webmasters about how to put adsense on your site. There IS a bunch of money to be made however, in selling to people who want to make money online but who don’t really have anything to start out with.

So, I wanted to respond to what Joel Comm is saying in the “Adsense is Alive” ebook but I didn’t want to type it all out.

In short, I think Joel (and Eric) missed the point of what Scott is trying to say.

In this MP3 I talk about:

• How Joel didn’t understand what Scott Boulch meant when he said “Adsense is Dead”
• Why Adsense isn’t dead, for a few people
• What’s not being told when Joel says that an “average person to make a substantial income from adsense” and why it’s not true
• Who are the “peers” Joel talks about who are making more money than he is, and why those “peers” don’t apply to the other 99% of us
• Who is making 4 and 5 figure monthly incomes when they’re just starting out with adsense
• Why there isn’t a Catch 22 in the Click Flipping/Adsense is Dead model like Joel says there is
• Why both Click Flipping AND adsense are middlemen (why adsense is actually the middleman of middlemen)
• What’s different about Click Flipping than about what others have talked about in the past (because Joel is right about this one, that it’s not new, …he just kind of missed the point)
• Why Click Flipping isn’t just a temporary “tactic” that will come and go
• What’s the real truth about making money online with adsense

Now, don’t get me wrong and think that Click Flipping is the solution to all adsense problems. It’s just a different way of making money online. It work, but so does selling ebooks, selling membership sites, selling useful software, selling physical products, selling on ebay, writing reviews as an affiliate, …

Nothing will every be as easy as making money on adsense has been over the past few years. It was a get-rich-quick scheme that actually worked. It’s not anymore.

I can understand everyone telling people that it still worked up until a few months ago, but after that, your message needed to change. You needed to tell people that making money online just isn’t as easy anymore and that you’re going to have to do a significant amount of work now.

Click flipping requires a significant amount of work. So do the rest of the things you can do online to make money.

Listen to the mp3 and be careful with what you buy from people.

The “gurus” have had an easy time selling stuff to people over the past few years because what they were selling actually worked. It’s not as easy anymore and a lot of them just won’t stop.

One last thing…a disclaimer: While I don’t actually have anything to do with click flipping and don’t have any vested interest in it, Scott is a good friend of mine and I have helped give him advice on what he’s doing with click flipping. I have been a beta tester of his system, and it does work. Other than that, I don’t have a financial interest in the click flipping situation.

Adsense is Dead/Alive MP3

[tags]adsense is dead, death of adsense, life after adsense, adsense is alive, adsense, make money from adsense[/tags]

In case you haven’t heard about it yet, here’s a link:

The death of adsense

Scott made a huge splash in the internet marketing community.

He released “Life After Adsense” today (which you can download inside your account on the site).

In it he basically details the method (click flipping) he uses to make a ton of money online. I’m not going to talk about it, you can read it for yourself.

What I loved about it is that Scott gave it away for free. This ebook details exactly what he does to make money. It’s not a sales letter, unlike every other offer out there.

Everyone wants to sell something. They prostitute themselves for anything they can find. The Almighty Dollar is more important than being honest with people and giving them what they want.

Scott was different.

So is Perry Marshall (join his mailing list, the guy is amazing).

I think we’ll start to see a lot more information given away over the next few months because of the success of Scotts marketing campaign. Sure, his timing was impeccable and so was his message, but when you give something away for free, especially something as valuable as this, you gain a lot of respect. There are a lot of people who will buy whatever Scott wants to sell them right now, because he has gained their trust first.

If you want to sell a bunch of something, give people something of huge value first. Once they trust you, they’ll do anything you tell them to.

[tags]the death of adsense, death of adsense, life after adsense, adsense, scott boulch, click flipping[/tags]

————
Update Jan 2008: You should look at my most post about why Hostmonster is the best hosting company.
————

Today was the last straw for me.

I have had hosting accounts and still have hosting accounts with 8-10 different hosting companies.

I used bluehost for a long time. They were my favorite.

Now my favorite is Hostmonster. Incidentally, they’re both owned by the same company.

But my blog had been hosted with penguinhost.net (no link for you!). They were the first hosting account I ever had.

However, I can’t handle them anymore. They’re nazis about hosting.

Plus, today on the phone the dude talked to me like I was a total idiot and lied to me. He tried telling me that anyone who wants to can easily hack drupal 4.6.3 and gain access to your hosting account. That’s just blatantly not true. They want me to upgrade every piece of software I have on the account, which just isn’t going to happen.

So, I cancelled the account. Today I moved my blog and my family site (I know…I know…it’s not much of a family site) to one of my hostmonster accounts.

I’m done with the penguinhost guys.

[tags]hosting,web hosting,hostmonster[/tags]