CAT | Click Fraud
23
Search Engine Marketing is not a Business Lifesaver
0 Comments | Posted by andy in Articles, Bing, Click Fraud, Google Adwords, Keyword Research, Landing Page Optimisation, Local Search, Pay Per Click (PPC), Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Marketing Resources, Yahoo Search Marketing
Without doubt, the Internet is a great place to be for anyone looking to sell products or services online.
Buying online is now very firmly in the mainstream and there are many businesses operating profitably online. Some of these have taken care of their own search engine marketing, whilst others have elected to use a specialist agency such as Slipstream.
Whichever direction a business takes, it is vital that they recognise the marketing of their website is just one part of a complex model. With Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), you can improve your online visibility in the natural search results and using Pay per Click (PPC), you can complement SEO by having your adverts shown when users perform a search.
Both of these are proven methods to drive more targeted visitors to a site and we at Impact Media have helped many businesses to achieve more from their online marketing. However, Search Engine Marketing is certainly not the ‘be all and end all’ of running a successful business online.
Search Engine Marketing – A Business Lifesaver? Of course, the site itself has to perform well and engage with visitors in a positive fashion. There are many clues Webmasters can get from their log files and other reporting mechanisms. Google Analytics will show a Bounce Rate, this being a percentage of people that exit a site immediately. If your Bounce Rate is high, e.g. over 50%, for a page, then you need to understand why. Some suggestions could be:
1. Your pricing is not competitive (Tip – take a sampling of your products and compare with other online suppliers)
2. Your site design or navigation is poor (Tip – try usertesting.com for independent reviews)
3. Your payment processes are restrictive. (Tip – Provide as many methods as possible and don’t just rely on PayPal or Google Checkout)
Obviously, one of the advantages of the Internet for shoppers is the fact that they can visit a range of suppliers in minutes and carry out their own comparisons very quickly. For this reason, you need to ensure that your site is optimised for making online sales, not just receiving visitors (Tip – buy ‘Don’t Make Me Think‘ by Steve Krug. Also, whilst you’re buying it from Amazon, think about your own purchasing experience and how it compares to your own site)
It is vital that you review your analytics data and overall site performance. Just throwing money at Search Engine Marketing whilst ignoring the type of issues highlighted above is just not very sensible.
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Published by SEO Prof Andy
23
Do You Suspect Click Fraud? Here’s a Simple Solution…
0 Comments | Posted by andy in Bing, Click Fraud, FAQ - PPC, Google Adwords, Pay Per Click (PPC), Yahoo Search Marketing
We recently had reason to suspect that one of our client’s Pay per Click campaigns was being targeted by one of their competitors. We suspected that they were clicking the ads to try and use up the daily budget early in the day. The trouble was how to identify who was clicking the Ads.
There are many expensive Click Fraud solutions available but we found a simple and free way of checking who was clicking the ads by using Statcounter.
By putting the Statcounter code on the website pages we were able to easily see the IP addresses of the clickers. This clearly showed that two Competitors were in fact clicking the ads. We then forwarded our findings to Google and hope this will result in a refund for our AdWords client.
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Published by SEO Prof Andy
23
Pay Per Click Fraud Remains Constant at 16 Percent
0 Comments | Posted by andy in Click Fraud, FAQ, FAQ - PPC, Pay Per Click (PPC)
Click Forensics have just released a press release highlighting the fact that pay per click fraud for Q3 2008 was 16%, a slight reduction on the previous quarter and the same period in 2007.
Pay Per Click Fraud Rate by Quarter This data is taken from their Click Fraud Index.
Unfortunately, the UK is listed as one of the PPC fraud hot spots accounting for 3.5% of all fraudulent activity.
If you’re a pay per click advertiser, clearly you need to be vigilant with your traffic. There are professional solutions available for anyone wishing to monitor their paid traffic closely or, as reported last month, there is a simple solution if you do suspect click fraud and want to monitor your traffic.
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Published by SEO Prof Andy
