Does Pay Per Click Advertising Has more that it fair share of bad apples in the Barrel?

Affiliate marketing has always been a good way of getting started with an online business but just lately things are getting alot tougher for the newbie marketer. Those affiliates that are just learning how to build a good landing page and promoting real value products are starting to feel the effects of the bad apples in the barrel and may never learn how powerful Pay Per Click advertising can be.

It looks like Google and the FTC are stepping up their anti-affiliate game, and coming down hard on the affiliate marketer. Accounts on Adwords are being banned or closed down for good and in some cases affiliates are being taken to court by the FTC. It is true that Google don’t really like affiliates and only want to deal with ‘real’ companies but it’s the small affiliate marketer that many large companies rely on to generate their leads. So what’s the problem with the small affiliate marketer?

Well it seems complaints are on the up at Google about new affiliates creating fake blogs and review websites, a fake blog “let’s say about weight loss “will usually show a picture of a woman or man with made up names like Susan’s or Mikes Weight Loss story Blog. The problem is that Susan or Mike doesn’t even exist! It’s just some person making up a fake story, review or testimonials about how they lost a ton of weight using the product their blog is promoting.

These sites are targeted at certain keywords and products, when some unsuspecting surfer clicks on an ad they are taken to a flog (fake Blog) or website. The sites have little or no original content with just a link to the affiliate offer. Usually the offer is a free trial where you only have to pay for shipping with your credit card, but it seems a lot of the companies are charging people the full price before the end of the trial period or giving people no way to contact them to cancel the re-bill if they do not want to continue with the offer.
So who should be worried about this? Well the hobbyists affiliates just move on to the next money making system leaving the serious marketers to sort out the mess and in the process lose money due to Google slapping them.

So what’s going to be the best way forward for a new pay per click marketer?
Well to start with you are going to have to build a real site with good quality content about the niche your are promoting and when I say a real website I mean a site with at least fifteen pages of unique quality content to start with.
Don’t use fake testimonials on your landing page or else you will be in even bigger trouble. Google or the FTC will ask you to produce proof that backs up the claims made in the testimonials.
Research the offer you are going to promote find out as much about the company as you can, make sure they have a way to contact them and a clear policy on refunds.

Make sure your landing page follows the TOS on the Google website and you have a link to your privacy policy and Terms and condition statements.

The one page landing review sites are on the way out, you need quality content about the product you are promoting on your landing page and lots of it, also links to other high quality content sites in the same niche and the link to your sites home page should be easy to find.
These are just a few of the things a new affiliate marketer will have to deal with. But if you are “in it to win it” and don’t mind putting the time in to get your business off to the best possible start then you’re going to see the benefits that a content rich website will bring you. The days of the fly by night affiliate marketer are coming to an end!