Click fraud is a pay per click online advertising crime where a person, automated script or computer program imitates a web browser user clicking on an ad. The purpose? To generate a charge per click without having actual interest in the ad, usually in a bid to use up a competitor’s marketing budget.
The overall industry average click fraud rate in Q2 was 12.7%. That’s down from 13.8% for Q1 2009, and from the 16.2% rate reported for Q2 2008 (source: ClickForensics).
MarketingSherpa recently did a study that compared SEO improvements of companies that rely on in-house staff versus agencies.
It reported in-house SEO efforts saw a 38% lift during a six-month period. Meanwhile, agencies achieved a 110% lift during the same period.
It highlights the opportunity specialists can deliver. Limited staff or jack-of-all-trades can no longer keep up with the assorted online technologies and tactics. While this is the case for everything from web design to development to copywriting, it’s especially true in the SEO realm.
Consider the fact that today’s websites compete with more than one trillion pages, versus just one billion pages in 2000. With the Web getting more complex, and more competition vying for attention, deep knowledge in a specific area can equate to a major competitive advantage.
Google, Facebook, MySpace have all done it. Now another player, Yahoo, is dipping its toes into the self-service ad industry.
Yahoo recently unveiled its self-service option for display advertising aimed at small-to-medium sized businesses. The display ad solution is called Yahoo My Display Ads, and according to Yahoo it “puts display advertising within reach for businesses of all sizes.”
Should small businesses jump on board and start advertising with Yahoo My Display Ads?
To get the scoop on Yahoo’s latest venture, we chatted with Tamara Brooks, co-owner of Vancouver-based October 17 Media. Tamara is a seasoned marketing professional, having working in online marketing and the branding industry for roughly 12 years. With her business partner Brenda Cadman, October 17 Media has worked alongside clients such as Future Shop, Fitness Town, Canadian Gene Cure Foundation, Leahy Music, the District of West Vancouver, Homeworks Services Inc, Pennzoil Quaker State US, NAPA Canada and DDB Canada.
Google has embarked on a public-relations offensive claiming it’s not so big as regulators are intensely scrutinizing its every move.
“Some analysts say that government opposition, here or in Europe, could pose the biggest threat to Google’s continued success,” noted New York Times’ Miguel Helft.
Experts are also saying the steady stream of headlines about antitrust investigations could taint Google’s image with consumers, who view the search engine company in a positive light.
To be sure, Google’s “Senior Competition Counsel” Dana Wagner faces a daunting task, considering:
But Wagner insists: “Competition is a click away.”
It’s true. Google is a search engine giant. But we need to remember, just a few years ago, Yahoo was on top of the world. And now Yahoo could lose its number two spot to Microsoft’s increasingly popular Bing.
Google’s got a grip on the market – for now. Fortunately, they still have worthy competitors gnawing away at their heels, looking for a bigger piece of the pie. It’ll keep them innovative and honest.
Read full story: Google Makes a Case That It Isn’t So Big.
Web designers can make or break a business. In fact, a good web designer can be just as valuable to a company as any director or VP.
The reason is a good web designer can make your business look established and credible on the increasingly popular Web.
Some 15 years ago, if you wanted to build a successful brand, you had to hire architects and trades people to build a facility, and then spend major dollars on print, radio and TV promotions.
Today, quite often, all you need is a well designed website.
Even if your business is just coming out of the gate, a relatively small investment can get you a professional presence on the web, allowing you to out-brand and outperform an established company in almost any industry.
Don’t undervalue what a good web designer brings to the table. With approximately 70% of the population using the Internet, a professional web designer can help you connect with prospects all over the globe, efficiently and with minimal cost.
And when seeking a quality web designer, remember the web design market has no boundaries. Whether your business is located in London, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Toronto or Vancouver, you can work with a web designer or web design firm situated in any city or country. That’s the beauty of the Web.
Partner with a professional web designer. Your brand will flourish and your bottom line will benefit, too.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt slammed Microsoft’s new search engine Bing on Fox Business Network this week.
Here are some highlights from Schmidt:
“It’s not the first (search-engine market) entry for Microsoft. They do this about once a year. From Bing’s perspective, they have a bunch of new ideas and there are some things that are missing. We think search is about comprehensiveness, freshness, the scale and size of what we do. And it’s difficult for them to copy that…”
“(We’re) actually not (spending more money in response to Microsoft’s advertising blitz), given the name. But the fact of the matter is that we are spending all of our time on exactly what we’ve always done, which is innovation. I don’t think Bing’s arrival has changed what we’re doing. We are about search, we’re about making things enormously successful, by virtue of innovation…”
“You earn (the No. 1 spot). You don’t buy it with ads. You earn it, and you earn it customer by customer, search by search, answer by answer. And we believe that today we beat our competitors because we’re so focuses on comprehensiveness, speed, freshness and having the depth that people really care about.”
Schmidt is free to share his views, but ultimately it’s the market’s opinion that counts. So far, Google seems safe, but Yahoo might start losing sleep soon.
Read more at Seattle P-I.
Forrester Research recently evaluated web design capabilities of top interactive marketing agencies across 18 criteria, and reported that Sapient, imc2, Razorfish, IconNicholson, and IBM Interactive led the pack for transaction-led projects.
This was due in large part to the “high usability scores earned by the client reference sites they supplied.”
Organic, just shy of the leaders’ circle for transaction-led projects, received impressive scores for its online branding work, which boosted it into the leaders’ circle for image-led projects.
New to Forrester’s rankings this year, Ascentium, Blast Radius, iCrossing, OgilvyInteractive, Resource Interactive, and Rosetta emerged as strong performers, a category rounded out by returning agencies Critical Mass, Molecular, R/GA, VML, and Whittmanhart. Arc Worldwide completed the research firm’s list of evaluated web design and development firms.
Don’t have half a million dollars to invest in your website? Don’t get discouraged.
While these web design and development agencies are out of reach for most small businesses, there are many reputable smaller scale web designers and developers that deliver high-quality websites that perform well.
In fact, if you do your due diligence, you can get a basic website professionally designed and developed for as little as $5,000 to $15,000.
Microsoft launched the new version of its search engine called Bing earlier this month.
Is it a Google killer? Unlikely, given Googling is a deep-seated habit amongst the majority of Internet users. But it’s certainly chasing #2 search engine Yahoo.
Bing represents the third rebranding of MSN’s search engine products, preceded by MSN Search and to Live Search.
StatCounter analyzed search engine market share two weeks before and after the formal launch of Bing on May 28 (May 14 to May 27 and May 28 to June 10). For the US market it found:
The Globe and Mail once again noted Webcopyplus in its Report on Business section. While we’re definitely grateful for the coverage, the recent write-up demonstrates the importance of getting the right title beside your name.
Almost always, I use the title Senior Web Copywriter. However, the Globe and Mail referred to me as a communications consultant. While this is accurate in a general sense, it lead to a couple of enquiries surrounding media relations and PR consulting, which are not a part of our core service offerings.
Had my official web copywriter title been used, perhaps others would have reached out for web writing-related projects.
I’ve noticed several top consultants are incredibly consistent when referring to themselves. Take Rob Frankel; he religiously brands himself as a branding expert. And it pays off! When people need a branding expert – whether they’re CEOs or reporters – Frankel is often top of mind, or at least at the top of Google.
Consumers are cutting down on excess, forcing marketers to take a new approach to selling luxury.
It’s time to be more rational, notes Bert Helm in a BusinessWeek article: “Forget the usual talk of indulgent luxury. Instead companies from General Electric to Lexus are employing sober, left-brain pitches – special deals, useful features, long-term savings.”
Indeed, during these trying times, marketers must focus on value, practicality and durability.
