Click fraud and invalid traffic

Around 38% of the traffic on the internet is generated by bots and automation. Out of these bots, 24% are bad bots or the ones that use theft and fraud. While undertaking a paid search campaign around 14% of the clicks come from non-genuine sources. Around 15% of the paid internet traffic cannot be attributed and is lost to click fraud. Some on-demand service industries such as pest control and plumbing are observing close to 60% click frauds on their paid advertisements. It was discovered that click fraud cost digital marketers nearly $35 billion in 2020 alone.

The amount involved in click fraud has been expected to rise from $19 billion in 2018 to $44 billion in 2022. Almost all the PPC ad campaigns on Bing and Google are affected by these click frauds. The click fraud rates jumped by more than 21% during the initial phase of the pandemic. Some of the industries with greater click-fraud rates include pest control, plumbing, locksmiths, waste removal, and photography. The legal and financial services were hit by close to 25% fake clicks and invalid traffic during 2020. Companies that spend $10,000 every month for Google Ads are losing around $12,000 to $15,000 every year due to click fraud.

The click fraud business

The PTC or paid-to-click industry paid almost $13.2 million to different remote workers for clicking ads for traffic in 2020. It is easy to buy clicks online with around 1000 clicks available for $5. Many click farms advertise openly on several platforms such as YouTube and they can give thousands of clicks for $100 a month. These click farms often use real people and a network of devices for creating genuine appearing clicks on anything from paid links to social media. Botnets and click farms are not entirely illegal. However, some portions of their work may be prosecuted under the law such as data theft and wire fraud.

There are several enterprising criminal networks around that were discovered to be running fraudulent botnets. Some of these include Methbot, Hydra, Hyphbot, and 3ve. Most of their operators are making millions of dollars every year. Apart from inflating the payouts for the publishers, these click frauds can also be utilized for falsely attributing downloads and app installs to the fraud developers. This is known as attribution fraud. Click bots are nothing but simple scripts that can be deployed for doing anything from posting comments to following social media accounts to generate views for the display ads.

Inference from the statistics

From these figures, you can see that one of the most important tools used for business marketers is Google Ads. However, it is also wide open for the fraud problem. Google keeps on bringing in new changes such as dropping cookies from their browser Chrome in 2022. This step is expected to bring large changes to the way click fraud is analyzed and handled by Google. But many people also believe that not much will change.

Click fraud and invalid traffic is likely to keep on being a problem shortly. One of the better ways of ensuring that the PPC ad campaign expenditure is optimized is by using click fraud prevention methods. There are some online tools available for blocking click farms, bots, and competitors from your ads. You can prevent fraudulent clicks to an extent for your Bing and Google ads. If you are not sure about the whole thing and would like to talk to pros, consult I SEO U Company if your business belongs to Clearwater, FL, area.

References:
https://cheq.ai/the-massive-indirect-cost-of-digital-ad-fraud/
https://www.clickcease.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/SME-Click-Fraud-2020.pdf
https://www.statista.com/statistics/677466/digital-ad-fraud-cost/
https://www.imperva.com/blog/bad-bot-report-2020-bad-bots-strike-back/
https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/gig-economy-click-farms-surge-during-covid-19/1701091
https://www.diggitmagazine.com/articles/look-behind-scenes-click-farms

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1. Get more out of the existing content: At the time of the holiday season you may not have sufficient time for the creation of additional content. This does not mean that you should abandon the content strategy altogether. Rather you might be able to save time by re-purposing your older existing content. The ways of doing this can be found online.

2. Sync your marketing strategy with Facebook: Facebook constantly changes its algorithm. This many times results in small businesses struggling to get their messages out to people. However, if you can make certain small adjustments it will help. Your business needs to evolve with the social media algorithm.

3. Use video business cards: The usual paper business cards are not effective during this period as there are fewer trade shows and fewer networking events. However, you can use a new format that can help you bring more customers during the holiday season. You can use the video business cards for your marketing. You may introduce your small business in the card or even extend it further. There are many ways of making business promotion simpler by using video business cards.

4. Step up the local SEO: This holiday season will provide many opportunities for the local businesses. You can concentrate on local SEO to not only bring traffic online and offline but you can get started with a new strategy. You can set up your GMB profile for the season, optimize your site for local SEO, keep an eye on your online reputation, and track the local SEO performance of your website.

5. Stay afloat during this Christmas: As you are aware this holiday season is not like usual. Several small businesses are already suffering from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. For staying afloat this season you need to re-assess the delivery methods and timings, perform marketing for the local customers, ensure that you reward the loyal customers, and raise your social media campaign.

6. Support other small businesses: Supporting various small businesses is a terrific way of keeping a greater degree of cash within the community. As an entrepreneur, you must be aware of the impact of purchases made by small businesses. If you are looking to get support for your small business during the holidays do the same for others. You can get gift certificates from these businesses and offer them as gifts to your customers.

7. Leverage digital events: The in-person events have been mostly canceled due to the pandemic. However, several brands have turned to digital events for promotion. It looks as if this format is here to stay. There is every chance that virtual and in-person events will co-exist in the future. But at the moment there is uncertainty about the return of in-person events.

Festive SEO can scale the graph of your revenues to new heights. You can use these tips for optimizing your website for a great holiday season. If you are not comfortable in handling the SEO by yourself you can get aid from professionals such as I SEO U Company if your business operates in the Clearwater, FL area.

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1. Optimization of your website: Perform an audit of your site and find out where the online traffic and outreach is coming from. Try and add lead generation forms to the high-traffic pages for achieving greater quality leads.

2. Use the marketing automation platform more: It is the right time to take a closer look at your contacts database and make use of the marketing automation platform for improvement in lead generation.

· Lead scoring for nurturing existing clients: Although lead scoring is fundamentally used for scoring prospects, it can also be used with the existing clients for deciding how ready they are for an up-sell or cross-sell. You may send educating and relevant content to them informing them about your extra services and products to determine which clients are engaging with your content and are ready for an up-sell or cross-sell.

· Re-engaging the inactive clients: Make use of the marketing automation platform for setting up custom triggers that are capable of identifying inactive users. If a contact has not been engaged with your website in a while, your marketing automation platform can send an email to this inactive user with offers of a free trial or early access to the newer products, etc. for re-engaging the inactive customers.

3. Refining content marketing: You can conduct a content audit and fill up the gap in the information by using innovative and informative content ideas that are useful and engaging to the audience. Your content can be fueled by using marketing automation for delivering the right content to your clients as per their stage in the purchasing process.

4. Generating digital marketing content: For reaching out to your audience at this juncture you need to up-lift your digital marketing footprints. The following resources can be used for enhancing your lead generation efforts.

· Webinars.
· Virtual events.
· Videos.
· Chatbots.
· Podcasts.

5. Target the cold calls by using your digital marketing team: You can always use the conventional sales-driven cold calls for your internet marketing efforts. Larger companies and family-owned businesses have managed to generate leads by using this method for several years and it works. While working with the digital marketing teams ask them to re-adjust the cold calls for a more focused campaign than just replacing them. If this is implemented properly, you can target the clients well rather than using the usual hit-and-miss method.

6. Develop a digital marketing plan that performs: Customer funnel is a sure way of putting the digital products to use during the buying process of the customers. The conventional call center practices and upper funnel activities aim at the audience to draw them in. The lower-funnel activities on the other hand encourage retention and engagement. Here are the things you need to look at for the revamped digital marketing efforts.

· Creating awareness and branding.
· Keyword research.
· Using PPC ads, SEO, and re-targeting.
· Get the customer’s attention.
· Achieve conversions.

7. Leverage the increased use of the internet in your favor: People from across the world are suddenly finding themselves thrust into a work-from-home environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many businesses are facing this challenge as the work-from-home conditions make reaching the decision-maker all that more difficult. There are outsourced sales teams available these days and the call centers of various organizations are armed with different digital marketing tactics. You can find greater use of the internet in the form of LinkedIn, Facebook, content marketing by using blog posts, multi-touch email cadence, and development of search scripts by using traffic data and keyword research. You can use your CRM software to keep the call center representatives updated with information.

All the internet marketing teams are trying to make sense of this new world order. They are trying to adapt to the changing environment and boost their digital marketing efforts by using the methods listed above to come out of the crisis all guns blazing. If you are in the need of assistance with your internet marketing efforts in the Clearwater, FL area get in touch with I SEO U Company.

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1. Using social media to connect with your customers: Everyone is dealing with the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on their lives. Whether they test positive or not is another matter. When everyone is locked at home it is time to show empathy for others. Most people are using social media for connecting as they are stuck at home and trying to stay connected with the rest of the world. Social media can provide support, education, understanding, and resources and they are a powerful medium if used properly.

2. Ensure that your business is found online: It is a fact that more and more people can be found online than walking on the sidewalk. Search traffic has raised a great deal in the past few weeks and will continue to rise as we go along. Everyone is glued to the PCs and cell phones waiting for updates from the community. Online shopping is one of the favorite pastimes for people at the moment. Your products are more likely to be considered online than ever before. You may use SEO strategies to climb to the top of SERPs. Your business needs to be found online and it is not the time to go into a shell.

3. Stay ahead of the competition: SEO is extremely useful to raise organic traffic to your site and move past the competition. You must be making constant efforts to climb to the top of SERPs by using strategic SEO tactics. If you fail to optimize your site and the content daily you will end up losing valuable ground in terms of search results pages and revenues.

4. Never become a victim of panic moves: If you have acquired a closet full of toilet paper at home you are one of the people who flocked the stores as soon as the COVID-19 hysteria began. This is certainly not the way to react in case of implementation of internet marketing strategies. You should never be making panic moves. Always use metrics for analyzing all the data available before making informed decisions.

5. Be ready for pivoting as a business and let your customers know: In the current fluid situation your business also needs to stay fluid. These are the times when you must find ways of connecting with your clients like never before. It keeps you relevant during the period when the business is impacted due to people staying at home. For instance, many restaurants are shutting down as customers are not dining out. In this case, you need to ensure that you are offering a home delivery service. The same pivoting may be the way to go for other businesses as well such as gyms, dentists, and grocery.

It is the truth that these are challenging times for everyone concerned. But, keep in mind that businesses can yet flourish if you are willing to use newer methods and not cut back too heavily on internet marketing efforts. However, do not get overwhelmed by the things you need for internet marketing efforts. If you need professional help in Clearwater, FL region, get in touch with I SEO U Company and allow the experts to guide you in achieving the best SERP results.

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Local SEO tips

1. Improve the internal linking structure: Even though it is ideal to have external links pointing to your website, you can also adjust the internal linking structure to boost your local SEO ranking. What is the relevance of internal linking? Well, it does these things,

• Provides support to site navigation.
• Assists with information architecture along with site hierarchy.
• A better distribution of page authority and ranking power among the pages.

2. Optimize for customer goals and interests: The golden rule for SEO in 2020 will be to optimize for customer interests. The BERT algorithm update by Google has placed a greater interest in the intent of the search. Therefore you need to concentrate on the goals and interests of people. You must write content that addresses the pain points and points them to the solutions to the problem. Your business also needs to have a multifaceted and multichannel marketing strategy for reaching people for several touchpoints.

3. Develop local content: As Google keeps on getting smarter, it means that content creators can write truly for the users and not for search engines. Although writing about general topics is likely to attract wider crowds, many times it is more significant to concentrate on the local news to attract the local audience. Be the authority for the industry by getting involved in the promotion of local industry gatherings, employees, news, etc. on your blog. Envisage top of the funnel content that goes beyond what your business is selling.

4. Make sure that the site is mobile phone friendly: Mobile phone search and local search go hand in hand. Nine out of ten users conduct the local searches on their mobile phones. Some common ways of using your website in the mobile phone environment are to look up the reviews, find location directions, and finding out contact information. Make this simple for your prospects by making your website mobile phone friendly.

5. Develop powerful customer reviews: When a recent survey was conducted it was established that most of people believe that reviews are responsible for affecting the local ranking in Google. They help shape up the reputation of your brand, drive sales, and affect the conversions. It is a powerful local SEO lever that cannot be ignored by the local marketers. Your local SEO strategy will be missing a key component if you are not taking into account the customer reviews. It is one of the more significant things you will need to build the brand expertise, authority, and trustworthiness in Google’s eyes. All this is not possible without customer reviews.

Although there is the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, several local SEO marketing strategies remain effective. These include emphasizing organic assets, content creation, website optimization, and local SEO. You need to try and place your brand in a good place for embracing changes, improving your organic presence, and find new ways to have your products and services in front of the targeted customers. You can also get help from professionals available at I SEO U if your business needs any assistance with your website, SEO, internet, and social media marketing.

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1. Post the content your target audience is looking for at the moment: Although your organization may be in a survival mode at the moment you will need results quickly. If you cannot spend much on PPC you need to focus on content marketing and SEO. For achieving quick results the best idea is improving the existing content to cater to the potential clients right now. This is working well at the moment.

2. Keyword research: Get the content items that are performing well and check which queries they are ranking for. Use the data you can get from Google Trends, Google Search Console, Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, Scout Suggest, etc. Collect all these queries and analyze how they are performing and split them into queries that are ranking on page 1, queries that are ranking on page 2, and queries that are ranking on pages lower than the first two.

3. Improve the existing content: When you take into consideration the first-page ranking content, you will find that just some minor tweaks are required to move up a few spots or win featured snippets. It is a bit tougher for the second-page ranking. You might be required to add certain sections to the existing content or develop a separate page for the same. The targeting queries having specific content can win featured snippets. Add useful FAQs to the content.

4. Create short-form content for the long tail queries: To incorporate lower search volume queries you found out while doing keyword research write short-form content. The independent search volume for these queries is not too high but their combined search volume and lower competition make it worth pursuing.

5. Implement the FAQ Page Schema Markup: This is the time to get creative and mark up the content by using the Schema type FAQ page. It allows you to extend your snippet substantially along with the FAQ box. Remember, Google is quick to pick up the implementation of the markup so this will get you results fast. This implementation is not too difficult however, if you do not wish to write JSON-LD code by yourself you can use a tool for it.

6. Create new and more relevant content: If you can create new and more relevant content it means there are more chances that it gets picked up and drives traffic to your website quickly. Some companies have created a big list of tools that offer specific COVID-19 SEO deals. Invest in creating content that your target customers will look for even after the pandemic is in control. The content will not lead to a surge immediately but you will observe a consistent growth with this kind of content when you are maintaining it well. This type of investment will start to deliver ROI later on. Normally this work will create the content of the types, statistics, resource pages, glossaries, tools, and eBooks.

As you can imagine the SEO tactics will change and what was once acceptable will not be the same. In the event, you are not certain about the SEO strategies you need to adopt, get in touch with professionals such as I SEO U.

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Many companies understood that it can take quite a lot of time – months, even years – to reap the rewards, as well as the investments put into an effective SEO campaign. On the other hand, some of them finally figured out that search engine optimization can bring some great results, now that many businesses moved online, and decided to take action.

If you are into the second category, then you are in the right place. We have identified a few tactics, which you can use right now and prepare your website for the post-coronavirus world!

Let’s see what you can do.

See what you are already ranking for

This is the right time to go through your content and find all those queries you are already ranking for. And you have a plethora of tools you can use, like Google Trends, SEMrush, Moz, Ahrefs, and many others.

As for how you should do this, opt for a simple method, by splitting the queries into queries with Page 1 rankings, with Page 2 rankings, as well as queries that you rank for below the second page of Google. This would be more than just an excellent starting point.

Work on your already existing content

There is no need to produce new content, especially now, when the coronavirus left many writers without any trace of inspiration. But there’s no need to worry. After all, you do have a lot of content on your website.

You will find out that even a few tweaks to your content will move you up a few spots or, why not, even bring you a featured snippet!

Things are slightly different for second-page rankings, as you will probably need to add a few more sections to your content, but hey, all this work is part of a good SEO strategy.

Write some short-form content, using long-tail queries

During the research we have talked about earlier, you have most likely come across a few low-search-volume queries, resembling some questions. Ok, now those are great for SEO and you are going to take advantage of them!
We know, their individual search volumes are not exactly high, but by combining their search volume and low competition, you have some queries really worth pursuing. Therefore, you should start by incorporating them into a few fresh short-form articles, which can bring some amazing results!

It does not seem that difficult to step up your SEO game a bit. So stop wasting time and do it right now!

On the other hand, if you do not have the time or the resources in your team, let us handle it! Schedule a call with I SEO U today and see how we can take your website’s SEO to the next level, preparing your business for the post-coronavirus world!

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