Online spending enjoys continued growth

Online spending increases in times of economic down-turn

A recent article in www.perthnow.com.au by Grahame Armstrong explores the phenomenon of online spending not showing a downward trend, where offline spend has.

From his sources, it is apparent that online spending this Christmas is on the up and up, and that many online retail sites are predicting further growth of 40 - 100%. Many online retailers are able to offer their products at cheaper prices due to the lack of overheads required to run their businesses, and this leads to more competitively priced items which are definately more attractive to customers with a finite budget. The need for showroom stock is also not required, which means that the retailer does not need to reduce the price on display goods, and in turn can keep his profit margin healthy. A number of retailers who have both online and offline outlets have noticed that their online divisions are continuing to experience growth whilst sales in their traditional stores have been rather flat of late.

Online shop building can be tricky

A word of warning must be made here. Whilst the incentives to create an online store are ever increasing, like any business venture, the proprietor must do their homework. It is not enough to "build it and they will come" anymore. A good hosting provider, a well designed, secure website and good marketing must all go hand in hand in order to get qualified customers to the front page of the shopping site. If any one of the three legs breaks, so will the venture.

Online marketing (SEM) is crucial

As far as the marketing aspect of online shopping is concerned, as well as traditional methods of advertising, Google Adwords™ advertising is an absolute must. Beware though, as there are a number of unqualified "experts" out there who are only too willing to take your hard earned cash without beeing too worried about the results that you get. Always look for Google's sign of approval for any company that you wish to engage to do your online advertising for you. The most important of these is the Google Authorised Adwords Reseller logo, as the handful of companies that Google have selected to wear this badge with pride have the knowledge, knowledge and customer service required to make your advertising account work for you.

Searchsmart is one such company and would love to talk to you about bolstering your market position in order that you can benefit from the online revolution.

Critical Internet Explorer Security Warning

15/12/2008 Article posted by Paul Falla, Searchsmart Research & Development Manager

We have just had notification that there are a number of severe security flaws in the latest versions of the Internet Explorer web browser. Can you please ensure as a matter of urgency that you use either Mozilla firefox or Google Chrome as your internet browsers for the foreseeable future. The Safari browser should also be fine to use

I will advise further once more information from Microsoft becomes available. The full story is below:

Attackers have recently begun exploiting a previously unknown and presently unpatched flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) web browser. In the field of computer security, this is referred to a “zero-day” vulnerability.

Exploitation of this flaw leads to complete compromise of the targeted computer. This vulnerability is triggered when IE7 views a specially crafted web site.

Some of you may be aware of public reports regarding this vulnerability, particularly a story on the popular computer news site, http://slashdot.org. Please take note – the story not completely correct. It references a different unpatched flaw in Wordpad that only affects Windows XP SP2. The IE7 vulnerability affects every Microsoft Operating system, including Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista SP1.

There is presently no patch available. ITS will endeavour to block sites that are known to be hosting malicious code using Murdoch’s proxy server.

IT Security recommends users increase their vigilance when browsing the internet using IE7. Users may wish to consider using an alternate browser, such as Mozilla Firefox. Alternate browser should only be used if they are up-to-date and fully patched. The current version of Firefox is 3.0.4. Firefox’s version can be checked by opening the “Help” menu, and choosing the “About” option.

This morning, Microsoft released its December 2008 security bulletin disclosing six vulnerabilities of "critical" severity that permit "Remote Code Execution”. This means the vulnerability can be exploited remotely. A severity rating of "critical" means "a vulnerability whose exploitation could allow the propagation of an Internet worm without user action."

In addition, Microsoft announced two vulnerabilities of “important” severity. A severity rating of important means “a vulnerability whose exploitation could result in the confidentiality, integrity or availability of users’ data”.

All versions of Microsoft desktop and server operating systems (including Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008) are vulnerable, and should be patched ASAP.

All versions of Microsoft Office are also vulnerable to exploitation of the critical nature and should be patched immediately.

All systems with Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0, Visual Studio .NET 2002 or Visual Studio .NET 2003 installed are also vulnerable to remote exploitation. All installations of these programs should be patched immediately.

All of these vulnerabilities are applicable to the Murdoch environment, and can lead to total system compromise.

More information is available here - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-dec.mspx

Asia scammers try their hand at cyber squatting

A few of our customers have recently made us aware that that they have had official looking emails from Asian domain registrars. Basically the content of the emails centre around the domain registrar contacting you to let you know that they have had a request from a company to register domain names with the same as yours, but with Asian country domain name extensions.

They request that you contact them as the use of your business name in a non-australian domain name "may relate to the usufruct of brand name on the internet"

The first thing that should ring alarm bells is the use of the word 'usufruct' (which inceidentally means "the legal right to use and derive profit from or benefit from property which belongs to another"). Other than in complicated legal documents, where-else would you see that word used?

The other point that they use to try and scare you into contacting them is use of the phrase "the internet trademark". There is no such thing as "the internet trademark".

If you have received an email such as those outlined above, please delete them without giving them a second thought, and if you have any concerns over them, please feel free to give us at Searchsmart a call and we will help in any way we can.

Official Phishing Notice From Google

You or your clients may have noticed recently that there have been emails appearing in your inboxes which look like an official email from Google asking you to update your billing details. It would seem that this is a phishing exercise. It must be on quite a large scale as Google have now approached their Adwords advertisers with an official email on the subject.The content of this email can be seen below. You have been warned.

Hello,

At Google, we take the safety of our users very seriously, and we work hard to ensure that your accounts are secure. As part of those efforts, we recently compiled some tips on our blog to help protect you from "phishing," which is an attempt to fraudulently collect passwords, credit card numbers, and other sensitive information: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-to-avoid-getting-hooked.html

This information is important because any online account can be targeted by phishers, including online advertising accounts.

There are currently reports of phishing attempts that appear to be from adwords-noreply@google.com. These fraudulent emails ask users to update their billing information, take action on a disapproved ad, edit their account, or accept new AdWords terms and conditions. Please remember that the Google's AdWords team will never send an unsolicited message asking for your password or other sensitive information by email or through a link.

If you need to change your account information, such as your billing details or your password, always sign in to your AdWords account from the main AdWords login page at https://adwords.google.co.uk and make the changes directly within your account.

We've included more information below on how to avoid phishing. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at http://adwords.google.co.uk/support/bin/request.py?ctx=cuffhelp.

Sincerely,
The Google AdWords team

--

Tips on how to avoid phishing:

- Don't reply to or click on links in emails that ask for personal, financial, or account information.
- Check the message headers. The From: address and the Return-path should reference the same source.
- Instead of clicking the links in emails, go to the websites directly by typing the web address into your browser, cut and paste or use bookmarks.
- If on a secure page, look for "https" at the beginning of the URL and the padlock icon in the browser
- Keep your computer's antivirus, spyware, browser, and security patches up to date and regularly run system scans.
- Review your accounts regularly and check for unauthorised activity.
- Use a browser that has a phishing filter (Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Opera)

If you receive a phishing email, please report it to Google by completing the Report Phishing Form: http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/request.py?ctx=cuffhelp&contact_type=phishing

Google Confirms Page Loading Time Added To Quality Score Algo

We have today received an official notice from Google that the recent changes to the Adwords quality scoring algorithm now include a page load time component.

The official word from the Googleplex Gods reads as follows:

"As part of our continuing efforts to improve the user experience, we will soon incorporate an additional factor into Quality Score: landing page load time. Load time is the amount of time it takes for a user to see the landing page after clicking an ad.

Why are we doing this?
Two reasons: first, users have the best experience when they don't have to wait a long time for landing pages to load. Interstitial pages, multiple redirects, excessively slow servers, and other things that can increase load times only keep users from getting what they want: information about your business. Second, users are more likely to abandon landing pages that load slowly, which can hurt your conversion rate.

When are we making this change?
In the next few weeks, we will add load time evaluations to the Keyword Analysis page (we'll notify you when they are available). You will then have one month to review your site and make necessary adjustments.

After the one month review period, this load time factor will be incorporated into your keywords' Quality Scores. Keywords with landing pages that load very slowly may get lower Quality Scores (and thus higher minimum bids). Conversely, keywords with landing pages that load very quickly may get higher Quality Scores and lower minimum bids."

Many advertisers will probably be in a bit of a lather over all of this, but based on our research, we take the same stand point as google, if users have to wait around for your page to load they will probably bounce away from the landing page and search elsewhere for what they want. This obviously will have a large impact on the campaigns ROI as there will be clicks which will not convert to sales.

If you want to read more on this subject, please see this Google Help article.

Adwords and SEO go hand in hand

Through our research into online advertising, we are now in a position to confirm that optimising your website for search engines will have a positive impact on your e-marketing advertising campigns (especially with Google Adwords advertising).

By optimising the pages that your adverts direct searchers to, you will improve the quality score of the keywords and searchers are more likely to consider your site more relevant to their searches. The better your quality score (coupled with very good click through rates) the lower your average cost per click will be and the better your impression page positioning will be.

In a bid to improve the " User Experience", as Google likes to refer to it, we are taking the time to give you an introduction to Search Engine Optimisation. This is by no means a definitive guide, but merely an overview of best practices to follow.
To make this information a little easier to digest, we will be splitting it into three lessons.

Title Tag
The title tag plays one of the most html tags used by GoogleBot (and other search engine spiders), and is generally the heading that Google chooses for each of its organic listings. Place your target phrase near the start of the tag and repeat it in the middle or near the end of the tag. For best results, each page on your site should have unique title tags. A little used tip is to make your title attractive to searchers and to add a call to action. If you do only one thing to your website, make sure that all your title tags are relevant, unique, and contain your target phrase for each page.

Meta Description Tag
The Meta Description tag is by Google as the description which appears in the search results themselves. The wording used in the Description Meta tag should be short and punchy with your most important phrase close to the start and never repeated more than three times. Like the Title tag, every page on your site should have its own unique Description Meta tag.

Meta Keyword Tag
Although recent changes to Google's algorithm have taken a lot of focus away from the use of this tag due to misuse by over-zealous optimisers, and because a lot of wysiwyg website creation software applications do not make good use of this tag, it still makes good sense to populate the content of the Keywords Meta tag with the most relevant keywords describing your products or services. Where possible match these keywords with the words in the body of your page.

At the end of the day, if you are ticking all the boxes (or the vast majority of them), Google can only view you in a positive light!

Keyword Density
This practice plays a much larger role now that the Google search algorithm has changed. Write your page copy carefully and use your keywords carefully in order that your page makes sense and is easy to read. If you are an electrical contractor, you should use words such as 'electrician', 'electrical contractor', 'electrical installations', etc. as many times in your page headings and wording as possible without it becoming bloated and nonsensical.

Synonyms/Antonyms and other word variations
Ensure that various synonyms, antonyms and variations of your key words/phrases are also used in the body text on your page(s). Google uses these word variations to calculate the relevance of the content on your page.
There are any number of resources available on the internet that can help you with finding relevant word variations, and very soon our very own Smartwordz software will be available to take the drudgery of this task away.

Keywords in Domain Names
If you are able to, obtain a top level domain (TLD) with your most important keyword in the name. Using the electrician example again, www.sparkyelectrician.com.au will attract a better score than www.sparkycontractors.com.au by virtue of the fact that 'electrician' is used in the TLD

Keywords in page URL's
Using keywords in your page URL's can also aid your scores and ranking, if you use them correctly and with relevancy in mind. Try to use keywords as directory and file names where it makes sense to do so. For Sparky the electrician to make make best structural use of the different services he provides, he should consider breaking his site into a well organised directory, so that when the pages are indexed the URL's would look something like the example below:

sparkyelectriciancom.au/emergency_electrician/electrical_emergency.html.

Heading Tags
Using your keywords/phrases within the heading tags on your pages adds to the importance of those phrases when viewed by the spiders. Structure the content on your page so that the most important keywords are used in the H1 (heading 1) tag, next most important in the H2 tags, and so on. Once again remember the mantra 'Relevancy' and do not clutter your tags with irrelevant keywords, as this will end up counting against you.

Link Anchor text
This is the actual text you click on as part of a link. When full or partial target phrases are used within your text links they help pass on some value to the linked page for those phrases. This is also true when considering surrounding text. When the content around the link is also relevant, the link holds slightly more value.

Image Alt Text
Image alternative text tags are important, especially in image based navigation. If you have an image linked to another page, the alt text will be attributed much the same way as standard link anchor text is.

Image Alt text should always be relevant and should accurately describe either the image itself, or the page the image is linking to. Do not use alt tags solely for adding to your keyword density.

Inline Links
These are links that are found mid sentence or mid paragraph as opposed to a simple listing of links as found in a menu or possibly on a sitemap. Links found mid paragraph tend to pass on a little more value from the surrounding text and can offer more relevance to the linked page.

Site Navigation
It is absolutely imperative that your website is able to be indexed by the search engines. You would assume that this statement comes straight out of the book of all things obvious, but you would be surprised how often often web designers ignore Google's ability to crawl a website. Googlebot is very advanced in what links it can follow and how it can spider a site, but there are still some things which will cause it headaches.
- Flash: Use of Flash as a platform for your site should be avoided at all costs. At it's most basic level, your site will be viewed simply as a movie file. If you want your site to be highly visual and graphic orientated, then rather use flash elements embedded on your html site - Do not let your web designer talk you into an expensive flashy Flash site, for, in terms of SEO, it will be money poured down the drain. You have been warned!
- Frames: Avoid using frames for your site wherever possible. The Spiders will not be able to index your site correctly. It may be the case that that your web designer prefers to use frames for the graphical and design time-saving benefits it gives them, but what is the point of having a site that cannot be indexed, and thus not found?
- Java Script / DHTML: These days most Java Script and even DHTML menus can be indexed by the more powerful search engines, but this is not always the case with the smaller ones. If your site uses fancy navigation and you are battling to find the internal pages of your site, have a look at Google's Cached Text version of your pages. If you do not see any text links, then your navigation is probably invisible to the spiders.
- Images: Image based navigation is ok to use, but remember that you absolutely must use relevant alt text tags on your buttons.

Summing it all up
Ensuring that basic SEO guidelines are followed is crucial to your online success. On their own, the points mentioned above will not necessarily fire you to the top of the search engine impression pages, but they will definitely help in getting the spiders to see you. When coupled with an Google Adwords advertising campaign, you will be on target to achieve a better return on investment.

About The Author
Paul Falla is the Research and Development Manager at Searchsmart Pty Ltd, based in Perth, Western Australia.

Welcome to the Searchsmart Blog

Welcome to the first of many articles we will be posting here in order to share opinions and notices of changes to the Google Adwords Programme. We will also be sharing news on new innovations being introduced by Searchsmart.

Searchsmart tm is one of Australia’s leading online marketing companies. Our specialty not only stems from a passion for Search Engine Marketing, but helping businesses succeed online.
Using unique Searchsmart developed Smartpage tm technology along with proven marketing communication strategies we direct qualified pay-per-click (PPC) traffic to your website from the front page of Google.

Why Choose Searchsmart?

• We will help you to unravel and profit from the complex world of online advertising. We will work with you at every step to maximise your marketing impact by:
• Supplying you with an in-depth objective business analysis, along with tailored marketing communications that maximise campaign performance and match your business.
• Ensuring you are found with ease on the front page of Google (subject to your daily budget).
• Driving increased numbers of those people looking for your products and services to your web site with the potential to increase your market share and conversions.
• Allowing you to change or introduce new advertisements with a quick turnaround time, which is unique to online marketing

Don’t lose potential customers because they find your competitor first.