What do I do now ?

Maybe try reading the TOS for advertisers you choose to use.

Might help.

WoW Mike Kind of blunt don't you think.

Hope all is well with you.

I think you should stick with what's working for you my friend and capitalize off that.

You can sign up as many accounts with Google as you can. There's no limit. If they ban you just sign up another a new account and don't do what got your ban, voila problem solve.

Try a new offer that's my 2 pennies, hopes it helps

As some others said, it's always a good idea to at least get a basic understanding of the TOS of any network you're working with. You can try appealing their decision and see if they'll reinstate your account (they take their sweet time to reply but they have been known to give "second chances"). And yes, you can open another account, but be careful with that. Don't listen to the advice about "sign up as many Google accounts as you need". That is fine for having multiple Gmail accounts but when it comes to AdWords/AdSense, Google is good with linking accounts together and if they catch you, you'll be back at square one (i.e. banned). If you're going to open another AdWords/AdSense account, try to do it in a 'legitimate' manner. Maybe a family member who lives at a different address, use their information, or your corporation information (if you have one) instead of your personal info, etc. Not a good idea to just open another account with the same exact information as before, as Google already made it clear how they feel by banning that account.

First, you mentioned direct linking and having a tough time with it. Maybe it's time to stop direct linking and push visitors through your own site(s). You can also build a list that way (I'm sure you've heard that before).

Second, the thing with PPC is that it's not feasible if you don't have at least a little bit of funds to experiment with. You may spend a little bit of money on a campaign and watch it fail or maybe break even, and then you're out of funds to tweak your campaign - when maybe the next tweaks would have made the campaign profitable. So, you need funds to ride out the 'experimental period' basically until you can get to a profitable state. This is true especially for beginners. A seasoned PPC marketer may be able to take a few bucks and turn it into a profitable PPC campaign (that usually doesn't even happen). However, that is tough to do for a complete beginner. I would advise trying other ways to make some cash first and then come back to PPC with some funds (if you like PPC and want to continue experimenting with it).

I respectfully think that you need to stop reading and start doing (I'm sure you've read that on this forum before also). If you read what I just quoted above, all you're saying is how you've read X but then you read about Y and you were thinking about doing it but then you read about Z, etc, etc. You won't know what works and what doesn't until you go out and try it for yourself. If I'm eating a burger and I give you a 5 hour speech describing every aspect of the burger and how good it is, you still won't know how it tastes until you have a bite for yourself. Same concept. Hope that makes sense.

Do some keyword research and set up one or more websites and experiment away with them. Find out what helps you get rankings and traffic and what doesn't. Then keeping learning more as you go along. That's the only way you will learn. What if you end up discovering some new way to rank a site that no one has discovered yet? You'll never find that out by reading forum posts.

If you enjoy PPC and think that is your calling, that is great, but it's still good to diversify your business so an account getting banned somewhere doesn't shut down your entire business. If you want to get back into AdWords, I would appeal the ban on your account while at the same time figure out a way to open a 2nd (legitimate) account, read the TOS and do things right with this account so you don't get banned again. At the same time learn some SEO by taking action yourself and not by reading only, and maybe you will end up making some cash to use for your PPC campaigns.

Worst case scenario of jumping into SEO? Nothing happens. You waste a little bit of your time and a few bucks for domains & hosting.

Best case scenario? You find a winner which completely changes your life.

I think we should have basic understanding of the TOS of any network as when we are going to work with any site atleast we should know its working rules/norms.