I read this article in Finance Tech News about phishing related to Google Adwords and thought it was worth sharing and a good reminder of how important it is to be protective of your logins and passwords for on-line transactions.

New phishing scam: Google Adwords

June 30, 2008 by Valerie Helmbreck

If your organization buys Google Adwords, you’ll want to be on the lookout for a sinister phishing scam that’s making the rounds.

Online criminals are targeting Google Adwords users, trying to steal Internet traffic and gain access to business and individual banking details.

According to the latest research from Bigmouthmedia, the volume of ‘phishing’ emails designed to trick customers into handing over Adwords account login details has increased rapidly in the last six months. Analysis of traffic stats for April reveals a rise of 240% on the monthly average for 2007.

Although Web users are familiar with fraudulent emails seeking usernames and passwords for online banking facilities, Google Phishing’s something of a new twist in the phishing game. Victims are targeted not only for the details that would leave them open to identity theft, but they get double socked: Their Adwords traffic gets hijacked to the thief’s site.

Experts observe that the sudden spike is evidence of Google’s rising significance, with organized online crime now targeting the search giant in much the same manner as it would attack a major bank or software company.

Remember, whenever you get a link to an e-mail asking you to update credit card or bank information, you should NOT click it, no matter how real it looks or whose email address the notice appears to come from.

If you worry that the alert might be real, call the company that supposedly sent the email and ask.

As a testament to Beacon’s web marketing services, several companies renewed or expanded their contracts with Beacon for the upcoming year.  This includes companies like Vecoplan, Burton&Burton, Apex Analytix and the Data Recovery Group.

In addition, Beacon performed a comprehensive Google Analytics and Web Marketing Audit for SITA, the world’s leading specialist in air transport communications and information technology (IT) solutions in over 200 countries.

I love the search suggestion feature in Google.  A thought balloon pops up overhead and you type something in. The suggestions come at you wholesale and in bulk, ballooning up underneath with a supply of keywords.  Supplied with them wholesale, balloons of keyword thoughts are distributed in a drop down list.

What it is  (from Google):
As you type, Google Suggest communicates with Google and comes back with the suggestions we show. If you’re signed in to your Google Account and have Web History enabled, suggestions are drawn from searches you’ve done, searches done by users all over the world, sites in our search index, and ads in our advertising network.

Since the end of  January,  Bing has  search suggestion too.  Here is what Bing says about their search suggestion feature:

Our research shows that approximately 45% of search queries result in either a user conducting an immediate re-query, or abandoning the page altogether.  We at Bing are continually improving the performance of autosuggest to reduce these problems. In fact, we recently incorporated breaking news and hot trending queries within autosuggest. Updated every 15 minutes, trending queries balance timeliness and relevance to connect you with the most prominent or topical events happening now.

Let’s take a look at a popular searches for the query “where to” in Google:

Now let’s take a look at Bing’s search suggestion:

-

What conclusions can we draw by comparing the two?

• Bing has an older and more conservative demographic.
• Google users are tech-savvy and live in the moment.

64 popular – and not so popular – web marketing strategies (click on the bracket for the full field).  What is your Final Four?

-EW

What’s the latest buzz in the interactive world?  Two years ago, the world went crazy for Twitter after it was introduced at South By Southwest Interactive.  This week, according to NPR, the newest competitors for this “latest and greatest” space may be Gowalla and Foursquare.

The two companies are very similar and represent themselves in the following ways on their websites:

• Gowalla– “The easiest way to share places you go with friends”
• Foursquare– “Check-in, Find Your Friends, Unlock Your City.  Foursquare on your phone gives you & your friends new ways of exploring your city. Earn points & unlock badges for discovering new things.”

Basically, these two mobile apps allow you to broadcast to your friends your current location.  In addition, to add a “gaming” aspect to the app, you can earn virtual points by earning the most points in one locations.

Aside from the obvious “cool” factor, how can these new players in the social media space help your business?  How about broadcasting your location at a competitive industrial show so visitors can more easily find your booth?  Perhaps your CEO is the keynote speaker at a prestigious event?  What about broadcasting a regional sales reps location so that prospects can contact quickly and easily?

Let Beacon help you navigate this and all the other social networking opportunities to turn socializing into sales for your company!

What is Page Rank?

Page Rank (“PR”) is a numerical value from 1 to 10 that Google assigns to every page of your site.  The reason this number is so important is that it is one of the single biggest clues to figuring out what Google really thinks of your site. Sites with a PR of 1 to 3 are questionable, PR 4 to 6 are trustworthy and authoritative, and PR’s 7 and above are seen as real authorities. Many factors go into this number, like the age of the domain, a site’s content, and a site’s inbound links.

But why does a high Page Rank really matter? A high Page Rank means Google trusts you. And the more Google trusts you, the more traffic and better rankings it will give you. And who doesn’t want that?

The Need to Control the Flow of Page Rank

Now that we understand what Page Rank is, we need to understand how best to use your site’s Page Rank.

Page Rank flows through your site like water through a spout. Your homepage has the highest Page Rank because it’s usually the oldest page and the one with the most inbound links. Your homepage is the big bucket. From here, Google cascades Page Rank throughout your site, so that a homepage of 8 will have subsequent pages at 7. Your PR 7 page then passes rank to the pages below it, which will be a PR 6, and so on.

However, like any bucket, the pressure with which water escapes becomes weaker as the number of spouts increase. And this holds true for Page Rank too at every level, not just the homepage. The more pages to flow rank to, the weaker the flow (power) will be. Therefore, you must find a way to only give Page Rank to your most important pages. This will ensure that Google directs web traffic to your best pages with the highest probability of making a visitor buy (or take your goal action).

Page Rank Sculpting

Just like humans, links are the way search engines find things on the web. Thus, you can control the flow of Page Rank by controlling your site’s links. You can do this through two main methods:

1. THE BEST METHOD: Limit the number of links on all pages.
2. Add an invisible note onto links that tells Google not count them, known as “No Follow.” (You do this on the HTML side.)

Although limiting links is the best method, sometimes you a required to have a link to a page on your site that you don’t want to give Page Rank too. This is when (and only when) No Follow should be used.

The links to limit or No Follow vary from site to site. However, as a rule, links to pages that do not sell but MUST be linked to on your site, like your “About Us” page, “Contact Us” form, or “Privacy Policy” should have No Follow on them. The easiest way to figure out if a link should be removed or No Follow’ed is by asking yourself this question:  If, from a search engine, someone were to land on the page being linked to, would they be able to buy or be funneled through a buying process? If the answer is “No”, then remove or No Follow the page’s links. Remember, be cut-throat. Go through and consider all links, including headers, footers, navigation, and in-text links. If the link does not sell, remove or No Follow it.

This completes our Page Rank Sculpting tutorial. Follow the above process and you’ll be on your way to better and more qualified traffic (and conversions) in no time!

Beacon is proud to announce the launch of the redesigned Montgomery Family Law website.  The client is a small father/son family law attorney office in Cary, NC.  Not only had the client grown tired of its outdated website, but they were also unhappy with its visibility in the search engines & hosting situation.  Now, along with the newly designed website (under Cascade Server CMS), Beacon also provides hosting services and search engine marketing for them.

A Testimonial from Charles Montgomery:
“Our general reaction to your team’s work is that it has been excellent — organized, timely, and informed.  Thanks for a great performance. (You can quote me on this!)”

Social Media… It seems to be one of the buzz words that online marketers love to throw around.   What does it really mean and is it really important for your business?   I started out in the business in SEO several years ago before the phrase “social media” really existed and my goals were about getting more qualified visitors to a website where they would interact with the content.

Before there were social media giants like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter people would generally start their web experience at a search engine.   These served as the best portal to access information online so people “congregated” there.   What these new social media websites provide is another portal to the web where users interact with networks of people they know.    Several aspects of our daily lives are being digitally organized so we interact with the web in such a way that it consistently provides information that is more relevant to our daily lives than when we just search for a specific piece of information.

Promotions have always been a popular way for businesses of all sizes to attract fans. Whether it’s a sweepstakes or a contest, these tools offer an opportunity to create a buzz and encourage fan interaction.  In an effort to protect users from fake contests, difficult to understand stipulations, and illegal practices, Facebook has instated its own set of guidelines governing all promotions taking place on the site. The new regulations went into effect on December 22, 2009. Facebook states that it can “modify these Promotion Guidelines at any time without notice to you. You will subject [sic] to the most current version of these Promotion Guidelines then in effect.”  This approach was apparent when the initial guidelines came out. Many businesses were and still are not aware these rules exist nor will they hear of any changes if and when they occur. Since violators can have their Pages disabled without warning, it is important to stay on top of the latest Facebook developments and terms to ensure compliance.

Some of the most important changes include requiring written permission from Facebook before launching a promotion. Approval may take up to a week and usually requires thousands of dollars in advertising on Facebook. This drastically reduces the opportunities for small businesses to run perfectly legitimate promotions on Facebook. However, you do not need permission from Facebook if you plan to run a promotion completely outside Facebook or using a 3^rd party application within a tab or box. This method assumes that your promotion will not make use of any Facebook applications such as the wall, status updates, Facebook video, Facebook photos, static FBML, etc. It also means contacting winners cannot happen through Facebook.  You must also disclose that your promotion is in no way sponsored or endorsed by Facebook and that participants are providing their information to you and not Facebook.

Be sure to read the guidelines thoroughly before starting every new promotion to become familiar with the latest regulations. They can be found at http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php. You must adhere to any local regulations that apply as well so do your homework on the laws governing promotions in your area.  You may also want to enlist the help of a Web Marketing Agency if applicable or possible. Experience and expertise with Facebook can make a big difference in the successful implementation of your promotion. Even a small business can usually consult with an agency and gain valuable information and insight before starting a Facebook promotion.

Even though a title tag is just one small piece of a webpage, it is still one of the most important factors in a search engine’s algorithm to achieve the organic rankings you desire.  Despite your flashing lights and the sales copy for your site’s pages, the tag will pull visitors to your page.  It should be short but send a clear message.

If you update the content on your pages, don’t forget about the title tags!  These 65-70 characters are what actually appear on the search engine result pages (SERPs), so revising them will bring more clicks to your site.  Therefore, make sure that the search engines are indexing your revised pages correctly.

Here at Beacon Technologies, we often here customers ask, “Is it okay to include our company name in our title tags?”  I always answer yes unless you are completely ubiquitous in your market.  For Kleenex, I would say no, but for any highly competitive market, we would strongly recommend doing so.  Publicize your brand name!  However, make sure you add some strong keywords along with your name.

If you are not sure what keywords to use, take some time with the Keyword Tool from Google- http://www.google.com/sktool.  This gizmo is an awesome timesaver because it pulls its recommendations from actual Google search queries!

Finally, avoid any superfluous characters, such as ampersands, and never duplicate title tags throughout your site.  Additionally, don’t ever surpass 65-70 character spaces, or else the “…” will get you.

When looking for a quick fix to gain more exposure, remember your title tags!