This Report is for anyone who advertises with Google Adwords or plans to advertise with Google Adwords.

This Report is also for anyone who advertises affiliate products with Google Adwords.

This Report will show you how to use landing pages to beat the Google Slap and get low priced keywords. 

You will also discover how to use landing pages to market affiliate products and build a list.

What Is the Google Slap?

Have you ever had low priced keyword bids in one of your Google Adwords Ad Groups go to $5.00 or $10.00 overnight? Then your Adwords Group received the Google Slap.

If one of your Ad Groups receives a very low Quality Score then it will more than likely receive the Google Slap, which means that most or all of your minimum keyword bids in that Ad Group will be very high. Some times your minimum keyword bids can go as high as $5.00 or $10.00 each.

To get lower keyword bids it may help to know the Google Adwords rules, but some times even knowing the rules won’t help you beat the Google Slap.

According to Google:

Quality Score is a dynamic variable assigned to each of your keywords. It's calculated using a variety of factors and measures how relevant your keyword is to your ad text and to a user's search query.

Also according to Google:

Quality Score Formulas:

The formula behind Quality Score varies depending on whether it's calculating minimum bids or assigning ad position. It also varies based on whether it's affecting a keyword-targeted ad on the search network, a keyword-targeted ad on the content network, or a placement-targeted ad.

While we continue to refine our Quality Score formulas, the core components remain more or less the same. Below you'll find a breakdown of each type of Quality Score.

For calculating a keyword's minimum bid:

·         The keyword's click-through rate (CTR) on Google; CTR on the Google Network is not considered

·         The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group

·         The quality of your landing page

·         The historical performance of your account, which is measured by CTR across all your keywords

·         Other relevance factors

The Google Quality Score information is vague. You can make changes based on Google's Quality Score information, but in most cases it will be a waste of your time. I know because I have tried to make changes to ads and landing pages of Ad Groups that received the Google Slap and my minimum keyword bids still remained high.

Does Google really understand how we
make money with our landing pages?

Based on the conversations I have had with Google Adwords "specialists," they don't understand how Internet marketers and affiliates make money with sales letters on landing pages.

Most Internet marketers and affiliates want to make a sale or capture a visitor's name and e-mail address on their landing page. Some times they try to do both.

Internet marketers and affiliates are in the business of providing solutions to problems in the form of a product or service that they are selling on their landing page.

Google Adwords "specialists" seem to think that a good landing page has links to more information on the subject of the landing page. That is ok if the links support or help make the sale, but if they don't then these links are nothing more than "escape links." These "escape links" allow your visitors to keep "surfing the web" and you lose the opportunity to try to make a sale with your sales letter. The last thing you want to have on your landing page is "escape links" that don't help you make a sale.

Why would an Internet marketer or an affiliate want to send their visitors to other web pages with "escape links" that don't help make the sale? Would it be to make Google happy by providing visitors with relevant content?

I don't know about you, but I have no interest in providing Google searchers with relevant content that doesn't make me money. When I'm buying Adwords advertising I want a return on my investment, which usually means having a focused sales letter on a landing page with no "escape links." Google doesn't seem to like this type of landing page and will usually give it a low Quality Score.

 
The type of web sites that Google seems to "Slap" more than others are as follows:

·        Affiliate sites which often may have some duplicate content that can be found on the vendor's web site.

·        One page web sites with a long sales letter.

·        Squeeze pages where a free report, ebook or e-course is offered in exchange for the visitor's name and e-mail address.

·        AdSense arbitrage, where you put Adsense ads on a web page that target high priced keywords. Then you drive traffic to the web page with low priced keywords with Adwords or other pay-per-clicks.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to get around the Google Slap and get low priced keyword bids? Well there is and I'm going to share the information with you.

Here is what happened when I tried
to raise the Quality Score of one of my
landing pages that received the Google Slap

I have an Adwords Ad Group for one of my products, “The Ultimate Guide to Free Public Domain Money” – www.FreeMoneyPublicDomain.com.

This Public Domain Ad Group is profitable because the sales conversion rate is almost 3%, which means that three out of every 100 visitors to my web site buy my Public Domain Package.

I was bidding $0.30 for the keyword bids in my Public Domain Ad Group. My actual costs for these keywords were less than $0.20. Then overnight my minimum keyword bids went to as high as $10.00 each as shown below.
 

 
This is a copy of the Adwords ad I was using:

I sent Google Adwords an e-mail and asked them why all of my minimum keyword bids were now so high?

Google replied back and told me the Quality Score for my Ad Group was low and that was the reason why my minimum keyword bids were so high.

Google also included some links in the e-mail to their web site that had information about Quality Score. Using the Quality Score information as a reference, I made many changes to my ad and landing page but I still had high priced keyword bids.

At this point I phoned Google and asked one of their Adwords “specialist" what specifically I needed change in order to raise the Quality Score of my Public Domain Ad Group so I could get low priced keyword bids again?

The Adwords “specialist" wasn't able to give me a solution to my problem. Ultimately the Adwords “specialist" suggested that my product and landing page wasn't a good match for Google Adwords and perhaps I should advertise my web site elsewhere. I'm serious! The Adwords “specialist" suggested I spend my advertising money elsewhere!

Here I was selling a product about the Public Domain and I was bidding on Public Domain keywords. My Adwords ad described exactly what was on the landing page, but the Adwords “specialist" couldn't provide me with a solution.

At this point I was determined to advertise my product with Google Adwords because I wanted the traffic and the sales associated with that traffic. I was also determined to lower my keyword bids.

How I lowered my keyword bids

The first thing I did was to create a landing page on one of my other web sites, www.aWebBiz.com. I knew from past experience that trying to create a landing page on the same domain that received the Google Slap wouldn't work.

Google has a very sophisticated system which seems to remember the domain URL of any landing page that gets a low Quality Score. The best way to get around this is to put the landing page on a different domain.

Domain names only cost about $9 a year. If you want to use my landing page technique then I would recommend that you buy a generic sounding domain name. That way you can create landing pages for all types of products. If your domain name was DogsAreUs.com then it would be hard to create a landing page promoting a vendor's web site that sells an ebook on starting a window cleaning business.

I own about a dozen domains and I have hosted all of them with HostGator.com for about four years. In all that time I can't remember any of my web sites ever being down. With HostGator you can host multiple web sites with just one account.

How to get content for your new landing page

You will need to write an article of about 500 to 700 words that deals with the subject of the product you are selling. The product you are selling might be your own or it might be a product you are marketing as an affiliate. Make sure the article doesn't come off sounding like a sales letter.

If you don't want to write an article yourself then hire someone at RentACoder.com to write the article for you. You shouldn't have to pay more than $5 to have an article written. Make sure you hire someone who has a feedback rating of 9.0 or higher. Also make sure that you request some samples of the articles that your bidders have written before you award the job to anyone.

Before you pay the winning bidder you picked to write the article, you will want to post the article on one of your web pages and publish it. Then you will check the URL of the web page at Copyscape.com and make sure the article isn't plagiarized.

My new landing page…

This is the new landing page that I created for my Public Domain Ad Group:
www.aWebBiz.com/public-domain.htm

Below are the minimum keyword bids for my Public Domain Ad Group using the new landing page. You will notice that the minimum keyword bids are now $0.04, $0.10, $0.15 and $0.20 each. I beat the Google Slap!

This is a copy of the new Adwords ad I use for the new landing page:
 

Building a list with a opt-in form

I don’t use an opt-in form on my new landing page because I have a link at the bottom of the page that goes to www.FreeMoneyPublicDomain.com where I do have an opt-in form. And because I also own the FreeMoneyPublicDomain.com web site, I am building my own prospect list.

If I was marketing an affiliate product then I would have an opt-in form on my first landing page in order to capture the names and e-mail addresses of my visitors before they clicked on my affiliate link that would take them to the vendor’s web site. Again I get to build my prospect list.

The whole idea of having an opt-in is to build your prospect list so that you can follow up and try to make a sale. Plus you will be able to market other related products to your prospect list in the future. This is even more important when you are marketing an affiliate product because you want to get the names and e-mail addresses of all your visitors before they leave your web page.

Why you need to pay for an auto-responder service

I would be lost without an auto-responder. When I first started out I used a free auto-responder service. I built up a list of over 2,000 names and e-mail addresses. Then one day I went to the free auto-responder web site and it was gone. Overnight the owner shut the free service down. I wasn't able to contact the owner and ended up losing the names and e-mail addresses of over 2,000 people!

Don't make the same mistake I did. I recommend that you don't use a free auto-responder service. Use a paid service that has a track record. I have been using aWeber.com for about four years. I can set up unlimited auto-responders for all my campaigns, e-courses, etc. aWeber is very dependable and their customer service is excellent.

Here is another reason why you should use a landing page

We know landing pages are good for beating the Google Slap.

We also know that landing pages are an excellent way to collect the names and e-mail addresses from the traffic you get from Google Adwords.

There is a third reason why you should use landing pages if you are marketing affiliate products.

Google Adwords will only display one URL in their ads for any keyword. So if you are trying to advertise a vendor's web site using the web site's URL, you may not get your ad displayed. That is because your keywords for the vendor's URL may not have the highest CTR and/or keyword bid. In that type of situation, creating your own landing page with some type of pre-sell or article may be the best solution. By using your own URL you will know for sure that your ads will be displayed in Adwords, providing your keyword bids are high enough to get your ad impressions.
 

Summary

I cannot guarantee that building a new landing page for your Adwords Group will always beat the Google Slap and lower your minimum keyword bids. However, if the keywords are profitable then it is worth your time and effort to create a new landing page on a different domain in order to try and lower your minimum keyword bids. All I can tell you is that most of the time it has worked for me and I was able to lower my minimum keyword bids.

Landing pages are also a great way to build your prospect list. All you need is a web page, an auto-responder and traffic.

And last of all, landing pages can help you market affiliate products with Google Adwords when there is a lot of competition from other affiliates who are trying to market the same product using the vendor’s web site URL.

Good luck with all your Internet marketing efforts!

- END REPORT

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