Marketing industry commentators have noticed a further substantial increase in attempted click fraud rate in recent months. A recent study produced by Click Forensics shows that the overall industry average click fraud rate was 18.6 percent, up from the 17.4 percent reported for the first quarter of 2010 and the 12.7 percent rate reported for the corresponding period in 2009. Some countries are more prone to these habits than others.
Click fraud is a cause of concern for a business considering pay-per-click promotion. It may still be a rare abuse of paid advertising but it is becoming more common. It has even led to legal action by one business against Google apparently arising from wilful action by a rival business, deliberately clicking on the plaintiff’s adverts to increase the quantity of charged clicks for no gain. It could be that with worries|concerns|problems related to paid advertising, it may be time to think about a different direction, such as search engine optimisation. Your business should already be using search optimization processes to develop natural search engine positioning of its pages, but it could be the time to expand the effort in that direction. Search platforms still dominate the way that many intending consumers look for services, so it is essential to entice intending consumers by making your business’s domain more prominent on a search engine’s results page. There is enough anecdotal evidence to imply that many searchers consciously bypass sponsored results and concentrate on those with a good natural search engine positioning. All the more reason to make the most of what search optimization has to offer.
The nature of search engine optimisation is that there can be competition from competitors for popular keywords but it is not as troublesome as with systems such as AdWords or the equivalent offerings from other search platforms. Any trustworthy search optimization company that you use to promote your business’s
domain will be realistic about the length of time it takes to have a visible effect on your rankings. Some basic physical alterations can have an effect on even well-established websites, especially those that have somehow managed to forget the basic things that any experienced webmaster should consider as second nature, such as titles and pertinent descriptions on each page. The sort of alterations that may be required to improve page loading speed may take longer to apply but can also be worthwhile.
It is the off-page promotion that your optimization professional needs to do that takes time. The writing of documents designed to comment on matters related to your business’s website is a long-term plan but should be productive without any interference from competitors.
It can be hard to decide whether some forms of click fraud are truly malicious, as the generated clicks may arise from inexpensive pay-per-click advertising. One way to avoid this concern is to concentrate on the use of search engine optimisation methods to improve your natural search engine positioning. This can attract more business at any time without being greatly impacted by the actions of competitors or being involved in bidding wars for popular keywords in the pay-per-click systems.