Internet Marketing Smarts.com

I love Google for better or for worst. They provide me with easy ways to laser target any audience in the world within minutes for pennies using Google AdWords. Furthermore they account for 40% of my overall affiliate income by paying me for driving traffic to other sites. Getting paid for clicks is the best thing since sliced bread in my opinion.

But as much as I love those guys. They have been known to get it wrong sometimes. But honestly what company hasn’t? I love Jetblue to death but they’ve screwed me over many times. So every company has their slips up. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re evil or have it out for you. So stop being paranoid.

But I’ve heard horror stories of people that have lost their livelihoods because of getting banned from AdSense. Is it always just? Well I know for certain some of these guys were doing some shady stuff. But then there are also a lot that played by the rules and still got smacked down by Google.

I have a buddy who just started a blog and was banned from Google Adsense within a month. Look, I know this guy. We worked in a major life insurance company together for over 7 years. When I first met him, I thought he was tighter than an extra medium, metrosexual club shirt. This guy is a good "fella". He’s super anal about following the rules. I remember when he first started, he actually read through all the terms and conditions of every affiliate program he joined and asked me questions about some of their terms. That’s how straight laced  this dude is.

So he read Google’s Adsense terms and conditions and stuck by them. But alas he was still booted. He did the whole appeal thing and to no avail. The worst thing about the whole situation was that he made a whopping 30 something cents! Honestly who’s going to be breaking the rules over .30 cents? You would think people would take that into consideration before taking these actions. But let’s move on. This article is about being proactive and solution oriented not crying over spilled milk.

Smack Google Back With Affiliate Programs!

There has always been a camp of people who hated Google Adsense and claim why get paid cents when you can get paid dollars? I tend to agree with these guys to a certain degree. Personally my take is give me both the cents and dollars! I’m not a big proponent of leaving money on the table and people that don’t use Google Adsense in addition to other sources of revenue are doing just that. But I digress, when cents are no longer an option than move up to programs that pay you dollars such as pay per lead or pay per sale affiliate program. Let’s discuss how to do this while still maintaining the benefits of AdSense effectiveness even when you’ve been banned.

So you have to ask yourself, why does AdSense works so well. Most would argue it’s because the ads are contextual and text based. What this means is that whenever you produce any type of content, Google can automatically find related advertisers within seconds and display them on your page. Guess what? Before Google existed we all did this manually and still made money! Sure it took a little more work but the principle was the same.

AdSense Cloning Technique

So here’s my GENIUS solution! I hope you’re sitting down because it’s ground breaking. Manually add related affiliate ads to your content and make them look like AdSense ads, or as I like to call it, the AdSense Clone Technique! I know, I know, this is an Earth shattering concept. But seriously all sarcasm aside, it never dawned on me to do this until years after the fact. After all the AdSense text blocks are known to be the most effective text formats. So just copy their look and feel and place them within the middle of your content.

Where Do I Find Affiliate Programs To Use For My Fake Adsense Ads?

I’m going to assume if you writing content about something you have a knowledge or passion for it. Therefore you should know companies associated with your topic. Just do a Google search and visit web sites that offer related products or services to your industry. Then scroll to the bottom of their homepage and look for an affiliate program link. Sign up for their program and just start promoting their links on your site using AdSense like ads which we’ll show you how to achieve later in this article.

If you don’t know where to find sites related to your industry, just join some affiliate networks like ClickBank.com, CJ.com, Rextopia.com, Maxbounty.com, RoiRocket.com. They tend to list affiliate programs from various companies that cover nearly any subject matter you can think of.

Or you can visit your competitors or related sites in your industry that have Google AdSense links on them. Take note of the urls of the AdSense Advertisers. Visit their sites and see if they have an affiliate programs. If so, join and apply the AdSense cloning technique I described above.

How Do I Make My Affiliate Links Look like Adsense Ads?

Gosh, you ask a lot of questions. Must I do everything? You’re lucky I like you. Here’s the code for creating the best converting Large Rectangle Adsense looking ads on your site.

<b><a href="http://www.AffiliateWebsiteAddressGoesHere" target="_blank"><font style="line-height: 14px; font-size: 11px;" face="arial,sans-serif">Affiliate Ad 1 Title Goes Here</font></a></b><br>
<font style="line-height: 14px; font-size: 11px;" face="arial,sans-serif">First Sentence Goes Here!<br>
&amp; Second Sentence Goes Here!</font>
<br>
<br>

<b><a href="http://www.AffiliateWebsiteAddress2GoesHere" target="_blank"><font style="line-height: 14px; font-size: 11px;" face="arial,sans-serif">Affiliate Ad 2 Title Goes Here</font></a></b><br>
<font style="line-height: 14px; font-size: 11px;" face="arial,sans-serif">First Sentence Goes Here!<br>
&amp; Second Sentence Goes Here!</font>
<br>
<br>

<b><a href="http://www.AffiliateWebsiteAddress3GoesHere" target="_blank"><font style="line-height: 14px; font-size: 11px;" face="arial,sans-serif">Affiliate Ad 3 Title Goes Here</font></a></b><br>
<font style="line-height: 14px; font-size: 11px;" face="arial,sans-serif">First Sentence Goes Here!<br>
&amp; Second Sentence Goes Here!</font>
<br>
<br>

<b><a href="http://www.AffiliateWebsiteAddress4GoesHere" target="_blank"><font style="line-height: 14px; font-size: 11px;" face="arial,sans-serif">Affiliate Ad 4 Title Goes Here</font></a></b><br>
<font style="line-height: 14px; font-size: 11px;" face="arial,sans-serif">First Sentence Goes Here!<br>
&amp; Second Sentence Goes Here!</font>
<br>
<br>

Your ad will look like the one below.

Just replace the information with the affiliate programs you’re promoting.

Bonus Tip:

Many people will find it daunting figuring out what to use as the ad text in their AdSense Clone Text Ads. After all, that’s one of the great things about Google AdSense. They handle all that for you. No worries! Just steal borrow the ad copy from existing web sites that have AdSense ads on them. We’re doing this because it’s safe to assume these ads must be effective since the advertiser is paying web site owners per click.  So just visit some sites related to your industry that have Google AdSense ads on them and copy their ad text. Even if you’re not promoting the exact web site or offer of the actual ad, if it’s similar enough to the affiliate program you want to promote, then use it!

AdSense Tips That Should Be Applied!

Although you’re not using Google Adsense to display your ads,  their optimization tips still apply to your site which are as follows:

1. Use the largest rectangle ad block.

The ideal spot to place this type of ad block is right smack in the middle of your content. I know that bothers certain people. But honestly it’s the most effective. Have you ever watched a TV show and just when you’re getting into it, they smack a commercial right in the middle? Why? Because at that point you’re riveted. If you’re writing good articles the same thing will happen to your users and that’s why you want to slip in the Ad in between some of your paragraphs.

2. Blue links always convert the best! If your web site design doesn’t work with that. You better redesign. I don’t care what your graphic designer tells you. He or she is wrong! They’re not business people, usability experts or conversion specialist. Although many will have you believe they are. They tend to have a different eye for things than regular web users so you have to keep that mind. The fact of the matter is that Web surfers are accustomed to seeing blue links. They see a blue link and they know to click on it immediately. You can try to retrain them to associate Fuchsia as a link because your graphic designer likes the way it looks.  But I guarantee that you’ll conversions will always be lower than someone that uses blue links.

3. White background should be used for text and your ads. Again this goes back to the concept of "when in Rome do as the Romans do". Folks are accustomed to reading black text on white backgrounds. Most books are black text on white paper for a reason. It works better and is easier on the reader’s eyes. Again you can try to train your readers to use your designer’s color pallets. But I guarantee that your conversions will always be higher following this black text on white background rule of thumb.

Stop Your Crying!

Okay now you have a solution for getting banned from Google Adsense. Yes it’s going to take more work on your part initially, but trust me when I say it pays off. You’ll find that you can make as much as you did with Google Adsense or more. So go and apply it. I don’t want to read any more comments on forums about how Google sucks. So what, Life sucks sometimes. But we all still live it. So instead of complaining go and be proactive. What do you have to lose at this point?

I was just emailed by a colleague about a Google AdSense virus spreading out on the web that is adversely effecting publishers and advertisers a like. Apparently the virus is being distributed via malware to unsuspecting victims.

How It Works

Once the user downloads the malware, (more…)