The experts agree, search engines like Google are on a mission to provide the best, results-oriented search returns for it’s end users.
That is how Google overtook Yahoo and MSN as the #1 search engine in the world in just a few years. Remember Google was the new kid on the search engine block when they started out.
Their reward has been phenomenal success and an insane stock price ($521.48 as of 20-July 2007).
Most of Google’s revenues come from those tiny ads we see on our search results called AdWords which is the affiliate marketers bread and butter to drive traffic to our websites.
But the days of just slapping up a one page crappy no-value “website” full of affiliate links are long gone. Google dropped all those crappy websites from it’s index last year in what was known as the “Google Slap”. Good riddance if you ask me.
And that my dear readers is only the beginning. Google is tweaking it’s algorithm code all the time to improve the search results for the end users which will increase Google’s revenue and it’s value to their share holders.
The cleaner the searches, the more searchers, the more advertisers place AdWords, and up goes the value of Google’s already high priced shares.
As Martha Stewart would say, and that’s a good thing. Think about it, how many time have you done a search clicked on the link to find a crappy site with no value and only affiliate links or an AdSense template site with zero value in it for you?
It’s happened to me a lot!
I’ve written about this before, the key to succeed now as an affiliate marketer is to add value by creating a content rich website. You can still sell and promote affiliate programs, Google does not have a problem with that. It’s when you have nothing to offer for the end user that you will be slapped by Google.
If your website is just about making YOU money without offering anything in return (by providing good search related content) you won’t make it.
After the big Google slap heard around the Internet marketing world there were some Internet marketers who went from making $20,000 per month to making $500 on their AdSense/AdWords driven websites! Ouch! But there were others who made it through fine because their core websites added value to the end users.
You will also hear about folks who are bidding .10 cents per click for a keyword only to have Google cancel it and invite them to re-bid at $15 per click! The reason is because Google found their website doesn’t bring any real value to the table for the searcher so if they want to bid on that keyword, Google is really going to make them pay to play!
So a crappy website providing no real value to the end user might have to pay $15 per click on a keyword while another website with quality content that actually helps the end user will pay .10 cents for the same keyword at the same time.
This is a way that Google rewards good marketers and their quality driven websites.
Moral of the story – design your websites for content and for people not for the search engines and you should be able to survive any upcoming Google slaps and you can still make money as an affiliate marketer.
Note – If you want to learn how to design an affiliate website the correct way pick up Jeremy Palmer’s e-book: High Performance Affiliate Marketing. You can read my full review by clicking this link: High Performance Affiliate Marketing.
I work with affiliates and see this problem all the time. Google is now deeming the affiliates to have “thin” pages, meaning the site is basically a bridge site with no real value to the searcher. The obvious ways around that are to create content rich sites and not try to act just as an affilaite. Create a site that makes it appear that you are a small company trying to offer that product/service. Great article and keep up the good work. For PPC advice and tips check out my wordpress site at http://ppcpro.wordpress.com.