Check out the news release detailing what happened here : Google meltdown

So what does the report show us mere mortals about the state of the web advertising industry.

Well, the reason the Google accounts were booted is that either their ads or their web pages were not of a high enough quality or relevance to be included in Google’s listings. This is important because many companies don’t understand how Adwords (Google sponsored listings) work – in fact the amount you pay for a listing is in part determined by Google’s
perception of the quality of the content.
In other words, if you don’t know what you are doing, you can (a) pay way over the odds or (b) get banned.

The account culling also shows us despite Bings launch last year, Google is not about to fall from its perch. In fact, it consolidated its position as the major Search player in the developed Western world with anywhere between 65-90% of the market
depending on the country. Google is strong enough to say ‘hey, in order to keep my long-term quality of branding I don’t need 1 in 20 of my paying customers’.  Wouldn’t we all like to have a business that could do that ?

]]> http://www.cfpartnership.co.uk/are-you-deemed-worthy-enough-to-be-a-google-customer/02/2010/feed/ 0 http://www.cfpartnership.co.uk/the-future-mobile-web/12/2009/ http://www.cfpartnership.co.uk/the-future-mobile-web/12/2009/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:37:03 +0000 admin http://www.cfpartnership.co.uk/?p=208 ‘The future’ is probably a misnomer for this blog as mobile browsing is here now and isn’t going anywhere soon. Our own HTC Touch Diamond2 (Windows) phone gives us a fantastic ‘at home’ type experience especially in a wireless zone, but even with 3G. The dedicated WAP Youtube service allows the ‘insta-play’ of videos, and its only when you hit sites which are ’slow to load’ at your desk, that it becomes a poor experience.
The growth in interactive and ‘always on internet’ phones such as the ubiquitous iPhone and the email friendly Blackberry mean that the mobile web is no longer a ‘Tomorrows World’ parody. Social media apps such as Facebook and Twitter have mobile platform interfaces which mean that, again, users can get pretty much the same experience in connecting up with their chums as they do behind a PC.

What does this mean for business ? Well, it means another nail in the coffin for totally offline commerce. Here’s what our friends at Mashable had to say :

A Guide to Mobile Web Design Tips and Tricks

Having a mobile-optimized web site can really make your site stand apart from the pack. These resources will help you create a killer mobile site in no time.

Search Engine Marketing is the work in getting targeted traffic to a website from search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and the recently launched Microsoft offering Bing.

The search engines were developed in order that the average joe, sitting at his PC, could make sense of the ever increasing sprawl of websites on the internet. By typing in keywords or search terms into the engine she could quickly get results which (in theory) were both relevant and authoritative. Today the technology involved in order to bring those results forth is a staggering triumph of scale and computing power. Google’s own blog estimates that in July 2008 they had over one trillion web pages in their ‘index’ database – all these results could become available in milliseconds upon any individual query !

Search Engine results can be divided into ‘paid’ (or sponsored) and ‘natural’ (or free) listings and so there are two separate activities (or ‘weapons’) which can be used to get traffic to a site – Search Engine Optimisation (for free traffic) and Pay Per Click Marketing (for Paid Traffic).
Why bother with Search Engine Marketing ?

To put it simply, if your are a business owner, and want to use your website as a successful sales prospecting tool you’ll have to. The reason for this is that around 80% of new traffic for an average site will come from the search engines.  So if you don’t promote your site in this way, you’ll be missing out on 80% of your potential customers online.

Given the fact that offline directories such as Thomsons and the Yellow Pages are seeing a serious decline in use due to the fact that people “Google” something when they want to find it – it makes sense to consider SEM as a must have tool in your marketing armoury.

Here are a couple of industry commentators takes :

The “new” FTC regulations and affiliate marketing — get the facts

However, most people are unaware that affiliate marketing on the Internet even exists, so it seems unlikely to me that they will know you’re earning a commission without being told outright, unless what they’re clicking on is clearly an …

FTC Crackdown: The REAL Death Of Affiliate Marketing | Jonny …

The REAL Death Of Affiliate Marketing (And Just In Time For Christmas!) By now I’m sure you’ve heard the FTC is dropping the hammer starting Dec 1st 2009 regarding product endorsements and the use of testimonials in marketing… …

Reading between the lines it seems as though (a) you shouldn’t make outlandish and unverified claims about any product, even if you have used it, and definitely not if you haven’t, and (b) you should always make clear that you are receiving compensation through commission for any products that are clickable on site.
This all seems like fairly sensible, rational stuff that applies (certainly here in the UK) to ‘offline’ businesses. It looks as though the legislation was bought in to deter and make an example of ’scammers’ and unethical online marketers – something we’d all agree with ?

So, a controversial study by Engine Ready has got the industry all ‘a-flutter’ as it states that according to their evidence the opposite is true. Check it out :

Does paid search deliver more conversions than organic search …

This is equally true of the SEO v PPC debate. It is dangerous to view such claims as “visitors coming to an online retailer’s website from a paid search ad are 50% more likely to make a purchase than visitors coming from an organic …

Ultimately our own view is that whatever the truth about their relative effectiveness, both SEO and PPC have their place in business marketing armoury. The weapon of choice depends on the particular promotion and its stage in the marketing lifecycle.

A good example is a client who came to us for a Christmas sales of limited offers for the gift market. Clearly a short-term campaign, limited in scope, is perfect for a PPC campaign.

In both cases similar principles will ensure maximum conversion rate – visibility, well written ads and sales copy, effective use of other onpage media and a well-placed call to action.

Wordpress has traditionally been used to create blog websites (for the uninitiated a blog is kind of online diary, often used for personal websites), but its capabilities have expanded such that it can now happily support content managed sites, e-commerce sites, and even social media sites.

With an almost unlimited number of plugins to add all sorts of types of functions, and being ridiculously easy to use – we’ve put it bang at the heart of our client solutions.

Oh, and its SEO friendly too.

Click here to find out more about how Wordpress can help you generate sales.