Category: News & Trends

A great way to get free advertising exposure is to register your site in your hometown with Google Maps. Use this link to read about the new features that Google has added to their local interface.

Now you can add a photo, more information, and even properly position your map marker if it is wrong. However your listing only shows in your local area. You can not fool Google and try to show your listings in another location. Google will snail mail you a postcard with a PIN to verify your correct location for your listing. But it is still great exposure.

Not only do you get free advertising, but in some local searches on www.Google.com, your listing and map image will even appear above all of the organic listings regardless of where your real site placement is when a reader does a local query. That is reason alone for making sure that you are listed in Google Local!

Are you sick of it yet in the professionals forums; all the yacking about click fraud. I for one have simply accepted that some degree of click fraud is just part of the online business landscape. Do I believe that click fraud is rampant – no. Is it .02% like Google claims that it is? No, I think that the .02% number is bogus and Google should really be more forthcoming over the figures that they really believe.

Personally, from the accounts that I manage, and sites that I webmaster, I have not seen in the log files huge volumes of traffic that I would have ever considered fraudulent. That being said, what I have seen, I believe the truth on click fraud is somewhere between 5 to 10% of all clicks are fakes. I consider this simply a cost of doing business. I am not worried by the numbers and feel that the benefits that my own business and the businesses of my clients receives far out weighs the minor problems in regard to click fraud.

I still believe however that Google, Yahoo, and MSN should still invest heavily in proprietary tools to weed out bad clicks, but does all this mean that I am moving my budget dollars out of the pay for performance arena. No, not me, I am really able to get a bang for my buck there and even with a 5 to 10% possible fraud figure the returns for my business and for my clients have been tremendous.

I guess the bottom line is that click fraud exists, accept it, pressure the engines to address it, and then shut up about it and move on. I for one am sick of the incessant yacking and redux about it.

I thought that I would write today about February’s business. I have found that for most businesses that we work with, February was very flat. Not only were results depressed in Google AdWords, but sales and traffic for many customers were lacking for February.

I have had a number of clients express concern about February and if we had not seen the broader trend, I may have been concerned, but February just seems to have been a poor month for nearly everyone.

Here’s to hoping that March will be better!