If your sales and marketing costs don’t add up, or seem suspicious, it could be that you are one of the many victums of click fraud. 

What is Click Fraud? Click fraud is when a human, automated script or computer program clicks on a paid asvertisment for a fraudualent or non-legitiamte purpose. The purpose is to artificially raise a competiors marketing costs and publisher’s income from Adsense (Lecture Notes).

This is a major concern to web businesses because a large amount of their marketing budget might be wasted on fraudulent clicks. In addition, it is almost impossible to measure success of the ad or campaign if there are fraudelent clicks. 

Fraudulent traffic accounted for 28.1% of all ad hits on such networks during the third quarter of 2007, compared to 25.6% for the second quarter of this year, and 21.9% for the first three months of the calendar, Click Forensics contends. Outside of North American countries, click fraud is most likely to originate from France (4.2%), China, (4.1%) or Germany (3.7%). Moreover, “with the Canadian market about two to three years behind the U.S, click fraud maybe be more prevalent in the Canadian market.

It is obviously an issue that should be dealt with better by search engine sites.  Even though search engines can make a profit from fraudulaent clicks, as it drives more traffic to their sites.  Web businesses might become frustrated if nothing is done about this.  If there is a search engine that can closely monitor fraudulent action, this will attract more e-commerce businesses.  If firms can trust that their ads are being clicked on by ligitimate consumers, than it could be more wothwhile for them to spend more advertising dollars. 

What is being done? Google is testing a new advertising model to deal with click fraud: cost-per-action ads. Advertisers don’t pay unless the customer performs a certain action: buys a product, fills out a survey, whatever. Further more, to combat the negative publicity, last week Google launched its Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center, which intends to provide advertisers with information on click fraud.

Google has started to realize that something has to be done.  A large portion of their profit comes from businesses advertising on their sites. However, if this issue is not effectivley dealt with then google could lose out on future e-commerce business ad dollars. It is only a matter of time before another search engine company comes out with the technology to effectivley deal with this problem and then could potentially steal business away from google.

References

 Biz Report ClickForensics: Click fraud reaches 16%http://www.bizreport.com/2007/10/clickforensics_click_fraud_reaches_16.html 

Click Forensics: Experts say issue of click fraud not improving Google disputes the results published. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9043542&intsrc=news_ts_head

Globe and Mail: Fighting click fraud: Is it really down for the count? http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070822.wgtclick23/BNStory/PersonalTech/

Wired: Google’s Click Fraud Crackdown  http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2006/07/71370                                                                                                                                 

“If a SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or ’throwaway’ domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google’s index.”

The online search rankings are becoming increasingly more competitive than ever before.  Businesses count on top rankings in order to attract consumers. There are some businesses that will do whatever it takes to climb to the top of the search lists. One study concluded that sites that appear on the first page of results attract six times the traffic they did before landing there and earn double the sales. With this in mind its very easy to see why businesses are tempted to use black hat methods.

Google and other search engine companies now employ a team of expert web detectives to flush out and defeat the Black Hat optimizers. A Black Hat optimizer is paid thousands of dollars to optimize your website and had little or short lived results.  Initially this method can bring the search rating up and draw in more users. However, businesses are constantly making changes and improvements to their websites, so there are no guarantees to the websites success over time. In addition, the site could be removed from the search results if the business is abusing the system. 

With many companies frustrated with wasted budgets and poor results from optimization, we are seeing a trend to the natural and pure side of Internet marketing. We refer to this as organic or natural optimization . Instead, they’re fine-tuning their sites so that they appear in ordinary search results. In addition to being free, these links are often more effective than paid ads, because some users pay more attention to them. Top ranking organic search results are definitely more effective then paid search results. The organic search results appear right under the search bar where the user typed in the item they wish to search. 

The paid search results show up on the right hand side in a column on their own. It is very important that e-commerce businesses spend time instead of money to research organic methods.  In the long run, trying to cheat the system is not worthwhile.  If businesses learn how to properly use the organic search methods, they will be much further ahead.

References

Building a web community will be the way of the future for internet sites. 

What is a web community?

Community is the relationships between users that encourages stickiness and loyalty. Community can create attractive content for free and they can make the user feel that they are valued by the firm. Community can satisfy needs not otherwise able to be satisfied individually finding people through tools are message boards, customer reviews, chat sessions, member’s areas (Class Lecture). One of the best examples of a web community today is face book.   

The Way of the Future  

Web communities are becoming increasingly popular among internet users.  Almost every user is involved with a community. Internet users belong to communities to build relationships and connect with other people. Face book is one of the fastest growing social networks today. Communities are a tool for users to discuss interests, concerns and discussions. This is a great way for e-commerce businesses to connect with their consumers. Businesses now have an opportunity to build a relationship with their customers, which was once very hard to do over the internet. Dell used the platform to create Dell IdeaStorm, launched last February to interact with customers and solicit ideas about products. According to Swensrud, the computer manufacturer was soon inundated with suggestions to return to offering the Linux operating system with its machines. As a result, Dell decided to offer machines pre-installed with Ubuntu Linux on some consumer desktop and notebook machines.

Web communities create oppourtunties for businesses and find solutions for customers. “We want to be that trusted resource for small business owners, to help them grow their business and be with them when they grow,” Mark Hogan, Bank of America’s president of small business banking told the AP. “And we want to help them anyway we can to make that process easier for them.”  By solving cutomers problems this will increase customer satisfaction.  Furthermore is will help the company identify problems before they happen. If something occurs the firm is immediatly notified through the site, rather than a few months down the road when sales have declined.

Now eBay is creating online community with their new My Neighborhoods feature. eBay wants to facilitate more interaction between buyers and sellers. There are more than 600 neighborhoods already.

This is a smart way to add more user-generated content instead of just ecommerce to the site. It also gives the community more reasons to stay on the site. If people are spending more time on the site it will increase stickiness, which will lead to more sales.

References  

Marketing Pilgram

http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/10/ebay-builds-social-networking-into-site.html 

The ClickZ Network: Dell Sales force

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3627070 

Web Pro News: Bank of America Launches Social Network

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/10/10/bank-of-america-launches-social-network

The biggest mistake firms make when designing a website is thinking that the visual design is more important than the informational design. (Class Lecture)  

Graphics are an important part of the website, however if it lacks content than the website is useless.  There are many components that make up a good website. To make a good web design you must be able to think like your customer, understand their needs and build an attractive and interactive web presence.

Think like Your Customers You must put yourself in the customers’ position.  “Whenever you’re doing anything electronically in terms of messaging or marketing, always get into the mindset of the audience you’re trying to target,” he said. Think about who your customers are. Are they young web savvy educated individuals or are they older, more traditional and slower to adapt to new technology. If you’re targeting the younger generation you should make your website more flashy and appealing. However, if you’re targeting the older baby boomer generation, then a clear, simple, easy to use website would be better suited. “Failure to understand what constitutes an effective website will result in dissatisfaction from both the business and user perspective”. Understand Your Customers Needs  

Understanding users and their information needs are critical elements in the success of a website. “If users are not satisfied, cannot complete a task or are frustrated by their experience, the next website is only a click away.”

Attractive and Interactive Web Presence It also important to develop a lively and attractive web presence, Mr. Patrick said, and to update it often. “You want to have an active and ongoing online discussion with your customers and suppliers,” This is very important for an e-commerce business because people do not get the same interactive experience as would by going into a physical store.  It is very difficult to build a relationship with someone browsing your website. Allowing the customers to post blogs on the web site will increase sales and customer satisfaction.  This is a great way to get direct feedback from the customer and allow the firm to make any necessary changes and or improvements of their product or service.

Firms need to carefully consider all aspects of a good web design because it can make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful business.    

Resources 

A paper for the Small Enterprise Association of Australia and New Zealand 16^th annual Conference: The Importance of Information Design for Small Business Websites

http://www.cecc.com.au/programs/resource_manager/accounts/seaanz_papers/63BentleyTheimportanceofwebdesignfinal.pdf

The Frederick News Post: Internet Marketing Secrets  

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/business/display.htm?StoryID=65245

The New York Times: Strategies to Succeed Online

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/business/smallbusiness/26brand.html?em&ex=1190952000&en=5bd90c957be2ba58&ei=5087%0A