ATTENTION: Using Adwords to BUILD A LIST or sell Ebooks

[Adam Roy]

First, I was hanging out in the Google Adwords forum trying to get some info on quality scores, site policies, and using Adwords to build a list and sell ebooks in the Internet marketing niche.

First, I read a reply from a Google employee who said, it's OK to do this, but you must be careful, and make sure to provide unique content. Here's the Adwords employee's reply in the thread...

From Adwords employee:

It is really more a matter of how it is done, not that is not 'allowed'.


You will note, given poor practices by many eBooks advertisers in the past, that eBooks are mentioned in the first page referenced below as a type of site to advertise while being be particularly careful to adhere to the landing page quality guidelines -- especially the rule about offering unique content.


Regards,


AWP

So, if you're going to sell ebooks via adwords, or build a list via adwords you have to be very careful about how you do it.

If you link right to a big-promise squeeze page via Adwords, you'll likely get a big fat slap, I've seen it happen to a bunch of people on the forum there. You have to be creative, like build an actual site with a squeeze page there so you won't get slapped, you'll have lower costs, and you'll be providing more value to the reader.


Here's the Adwords guidelines mentioning ebook selling and squeeze pages:

Types of Websites That Receive Low Landing Page Quality Scores



Users have consistently provided negative feedback on several types of websites. In our commitment to make AdWords as effective as possible for advertisers and users, ads promoting these types of websites may receive low landing page quality scores. In some instances, they will not be allowed to run.
Website types to avoid
The following website types will be penalized with low landing page quality scores. If we receive complaints about ads for websites of this kind, they will not be allowed to continue running.

• Data collection sites that offer free items, etc., in order to collect private information (squeeze pages)
  
• Arbitrage sites that are designed for the purpose of showing ads
• Malware sites that knowingly or unknowingly install software on a visitor's computer

Website types to advertise with caution
The following website types will sometimes merit low landing page quality scores and may be difficult to advertise affordably. If you choose to advertise one of these website types, be particularly careful to adhere to our landing page quality guidelines -- especially the rule about offering unique content.

• eBook sites
• "Get rich quick" sites
• Comparison shopping sites
• Travel aggregators

Types of Websites That Receive Low Landing Page Quality Scores - AdWords Help


So, figured I'd share this Adwords info here, so anybody on the fence about building a list with Adwords, will think twice about how they do it.

Long story short, if you want to use Adwords to build a list or sell ebooks in the MMO niche, you have to provide Google's searchers with unique content and value FIRST.

Have a short tour of Google's Adwords forum and see for yourself what others are doing wrong, learn from their mistakes so you don't make the same ones.

AdWords Help

[stc151]

much thanks for the post. I was thinking about setting up some adwords campaigns and sending them to a squeeze page and was currently wondering how I was going to design it. I think I'm gonna make it a squeeze page with links to articles on the nav menu and these articles lead to pre-selling my product/squeeze. We'll see how it works...