Paying for visitors instead of clicks

Posted on July 24, 2008 by

Coule be a red herring, a ruse, a bait-and-switch, but I read an article that caught my eye for what basically amounts to the title above.  As the rest of the article seemed to be more of a pimping of the company and possibly even they’re advertising scheme, I still liked the concept enough to write my thoughts on it.

Much the same as too much SEO work gets done with little attention paid to conversions, more focus in Pay-Per-Click is put on Impression/Click Through ratio rather than Click Throughs/Goal Pages conversion.  Seemingly, the bottom line keeps getting forgotten:

Having your site work for you.

Whether that’s making you money through sales or making you money by driving customers to your shop, shouldn’t you be paying for people that are doing someting on your site other than clicking on it out of curiosity?  You spent money on builiding your site and continue to spend money on it to market it, shouldn’t you be getting more than what you spent on it back in your pocket?

So what’s the best way to find out if this is happening?

Simple.  Figure out how much you’ve spent vs. how much it’s earning you.

Yeah, I hear you, maybe not so simple.  But it should be, and the people you’re paying to market your site should be helping you find out.  If they’re not or can’t, sad as it seems it may not actually be an issue of them not wanting you to know if they’re proving their worth or not, it may actually be because they don’t even know how.

Something I’m working to push these days, as a business and as an individual in the industry, is transparency.  Accountability goes along with this quite naturally, as does providing clear information and reporting, and both are part of an overall service that it seems so few offer.

So, here’s me telling you that you need to be telling your clients how worthwhile your efforts (and their budget) are clearly and effectively.  If you happen to be my competition, then I hope you ignore this advice because it can only make your business stronger.  If you’re a potential client, Welcome, I’m not going to hide anything from you.

Quite conversely, I’m going to tell you quite a lot that you didn’t know, and even some things that you didn’t know you didn’t know, know what I’m saying?

Category: State of the Web | No Comments

Keyword Research – Marketing Pilgrim’s SEM Contest

Posted on June 12, 2008 by

Yep, I’ve entered into a contest on the Marketing Pilgrim website with an article called "How to Research Keywords".

I know, I KNOW, the title is pretty vanilla.  Consider that one a lesson learned.  Especially in light of the fact that the other entries are stacked on top of mine like kids in a dog pile, and only the ones with numbers ("5 Easy Ways to..") in them or CAPS actually stand out.  Oh, and the one that mentions Kobe Bryant.

All I need is to get into the Top 4 for traffic though, and I’ll have a chance at the Grand Final.

Unfortunately, without my entry being titled something WAY catchier, I doubt anyone’ll notice it.

I’m off to ideate and hopefully salvage my chances at winning this bugger.

Thanks to those that have hit the site, stayed for 2 minutes, and left a comment.  I’ll hook you up with some free research or something.

‘Til then, have a good website.

Category: SEO | 1 Comment

Search Engine Marketing – 29/5/08

Posted on May 29, 2008 by

Good stuff today, with a few Press Releases that are actually PRs and not "We’ve found another way to promote the SEO page on our site" because really "TechName Solutions Announces Their SEO Offerings" isn’t really news, goddamit.  It’s NOT, it’s you using a News Site to promote your site.  "UniqueName Studios Announces New SEO Tool Aimed At Photographers" actually IS news, and deserves to be there instead of your tired crap.

/rant

Old dogs and new tricks: why the content industries are the real pirates

Though this one really only touches on it, and it focuses mostly on file sharing and other some such… This Could Be Huge.

He may be right, and the real perpetrators may have nothing done to them, but for all those crapwads out there stealing content and publishing it on their sites, as their own words, their ISPs may have to turn ‘em over.

Which, of course, I think is seven shades of awesome.

Hey, I have to play fair in this little game, so should you.  If you cheat, you should be punished.  At the end of the day, may the best SEO win.

P.S. It’ll be me.  Haha.

Internet Marketing Services Company Cybertegic Shares its Tools With the Public

Okay, you know how I went on that rant at the beginning, and promised you better?  Yeah?

Well, I sort of lied.  I guess I didn’t lie really, I just needed to clarify a few things.  This "Press Release", this supposed piece of latest news coming from a certain company… well it’s a prime example of the kind of flotsam that’s permeating the News Sites these days.

Go ahead and read it through, and make sure you count the number of times they target a specific phrase (hint: it’s in the title of the article).  Then, go ahead and click on the links.  They’ve promised these new and exciting SEO Tools right?  Should be something exciting yes?

A page of links.  LINKS!!

Why issue a Press Release to tell me that you’ve got a page full of sites that I already know about instead of those valuable SEO Tools that you promised me?

Brutal, and the kind of thing that I’ve been railing about lately.

Reputation Management Service Launched by Search Engine and Social Media Marketing Firm, Brick Marketing

This, on the surface, can look disturbingly similar to the one above, which I railed against.

Nup, this one is an example of what is different, and what companies should actually use this for.

This guy, my buddy Nick Stamoulis of Brick Marketing, is a reputable bloke who is using the News Releases to tell the world about something that’s actually News.  He’s offering a new service, similar to others using the PRs to tell about them doing the same sure, but his is actually NEW to the industry.  Reputation Management, as a service, is fairly new and not many companies are doing it (or even doing it well).  Everybody’s heard of SEO, so saying how excited you are about SEO Tools and then just giving me links to Google (GOOGLE!  By the soul of Matt Cutts I’ve bloody heard of GOOGLE’S SEO TOOLS), is crap.

Do it like Nick, and save your big announcements for when you actually want to announce something big, it’s worth it and it’ll pay off if for no other reason than I’ll stop sledging you.

How to choose the right SEO expert or company?

Though this content looks relatively unique, meaning that I Googled parts of it and found no dupes, it’s basically someone else’s SEO page run through the "marginally correct" English translator.  Ever taken a phrase in Babelfish, run it through the English-French translator, and then taken the result and run it back through the reverse?  That’s what this entry looks like.

I would’ve probably given some points until I got to the comments.  By any stretch of the imagination am I to believe that these are all different people from different companies?  Oh man.

The Need For Search Engine Optimisation Standards

Not ground-breaking, but nonetheless true.  Preach on brother!

Part of the reason our industry has negative connotations attached to it, like "Snake Oil Salesmen" and such, is because there are consistently suss happenings, and no one policing them.  Google can ban a site, or an IP, but they can’t find BlackHat McSpammington and put him in Google Jail.  He’ll just pop up again, with a different IP and domain, ready to work his craptastic magic once again.

Standards are really the only answer.  Unfortunately, no one knows how to go about this in the right ways just yet.

Including me.  But it’s something I’ll think on.  Watch this space.

————————

Whew, I feel an odd combination of wanting to hug something small and cuddly and reassure it that the World is going to be a safer place with me leading the charge and wanting to kick something hard.  Not at the same time mind you, for that would just be wrong.

Til next time, have a good website.

 

Category: Around the Web | No Comments

Search Engine Optimisation Australia – 22/5/08

Posted on May 27, 2008 by

Not much for this day.  These were mixed in with the other junk, of course, but I’m always pleased when I find something worth reading.

Newcastle: Illegal Use of Trademarked Keywords In META Tags

Short and sweet, he writes about how you better not use anybody else’s trademarked words in your meta tags.  They’ll still find you and, apparently, sue you.

Introduction to SEO Strategies and Techniques

Found this one and realised that it sounded startlingly familiar.  Then I checked around and saw that it’s from Kanga Internet, whom I know from the Port 80 forums.  Small world, eh?

—————–

Okay, there were more, but I finally traced a few of them back to a place that distributes articles for free.  Fair enough, you can’t write your own content because you are really, really, ridiculously stupid, so you get someone else’s.  Thing is, one of the stipulations of using that content is to link back to the site and include the author’s info, which most of these do not do.

I’d be all for writing articles for others to use as long as I got a backlink and credit, but these buggers are just getting the article and posting it as their own.  Oh, they don’t say "By ME" but by NOT saying "By so-and-so" they’re still just as wrong.

I’m off my soapbox now, and going to make a sandwich.

Adios, and have a good site.

Category: Around the Web | No Comments

Pay Per Click Advertising – 21/5/08

Posted on May 27, 2008 by

Lots of these for the day, some a bit more basic (as PPC articles tend to be) and others that are a bit more relevant.

Pay Per Click (PPC)-Why You Should Care?

Not Rocket Science, but a good article for a small business owner to get introduced to PPC.  I dig this one because Jeff Paro didn’t write it to pimp his own site, he’s doing it for the good of his users.  Bonus.

Pay-per-click Advertising – How to get traffic to your site.

Short and to the point, but beneficial to people seeking an explanation.  Again, not for the purpose of site promotion (at least not solely for that reason), which scores points with me.

I use Google Adwords for advertising my website I use pay per click keywords with no luck. Yahoo any better ?

This is an open discussion on a member site, where someone’s discussing Yahoo! over Google for paid placement.  Debates are good, and different people’s experiences help us decide which way we should go.

Two Things Your PPC Ad Copywriting MUST Do

Another Nick Stamoulis article that’s short and sweet.  Still don’t know where I know him from.  It really IS time to email him and ask.

Category: Around the Web | No Comments

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