PC World Sell Sat Navs

Well why wouldn’t they says you? They’re one of the biggest consumer electronics suppliers in Ireland after all. I happened across this Google Adwords ad today – check out the first ad:

This ad looks like it’s for PC World doesn’t it?

So you couldn’t really be blamed for thinking that PC World are selling Sat Navs, could you? I mean here’s the ad copy:
Headline: PC World Sat Navs
Copy: Want a new GPS or sat nav? Enter to win a €500 voucher for PC World.
Display URL: PCWorld.prizeclub.ie/Sat-Nav

Here’s the landing page:

Landing page for apparent PC World ad.

Hello premium rate competitionsubscription. Here are the small print details:

PrizeClub.ie – One free entry per mobile. One Gadget, Travel and Voucher winner every month. Winners choose from all offers advertised. Special draws also held throughout year. Next draw closes July 31st 18s+.FIRST PLAY FREE. Thereafter you can increase your chances of winning by answering the question sent every 4 days, cost €2/msg received. Subscription service. To unsubscribe send stop to 50150. Ts&Cs apply. SP InkRed PO Box 7761, Blackrock, Dublin. 01 4888 999. You may receive free promotional msgs unless you opt out, text OUT to 57052.

OK. They’re up front I suppose, if you understand what a subscription service is. It looks like a free draw, but it’s really a subscription to receive SMS messages at €2 per message. I hate this kind of stuff, but I wonder how PC World feel about their brand being used here in what some may opine is a deceptive nature?

Here’s the website of the Premium provider behind this, InkRed.ie:

Not much to see on inkred.ie – what could they be hiding from?

You could also be excused for thinking maybe they have something to hide
Hopefully this type of approach will become a thing of the past, and hopefully someone over at PC World might object to the use of the mark in a fashion that might confuse their customers.

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Well worth a read to see what impact Ireland’s moves is having on the UK banking market, and, from an SEO-perspective, what people are searching for:

• irish banks
• anglo irish banks
• irish banks interest rates
• allied irish banks
• allied irish banks gb
• irish banks in uk
• list of irish banks
• irish banks in trouble
• deposit money irish banks
• irish banks at risk

AIB look to be doing very nicely according to those stats, and it’s unusual that people search for their full name rather than the acronym. Maybe AIB don’t use ‘AIB’ in the UK?

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The enquiries I receive

Sometimes the most interesting outcomes come from the business enquiries that aren’t really business enquiries. This post came about because I received an enquiry from someone asking me to look a their website. I get a lot of these requests – some genuine, some competitor intelligence, and some where a site owner is not 100% that their current SEO provider is applying best practice techniques. In the latter case, site owners most often are looking for third party validation of their current SEO strategy to sooth any fears they have. More about this in a second.

Specialisation is good… most of the time

My academic background comes from the economics discipline. Economic theory generally recommends that specialisation is a good thing. Indeed, I would say that SEO is quite a specialised area. But what about SEO companies that focus in the main part on just one particular niche? Does this create more problems than it solves?

The case of the [city] widget

The following case came about from email communication with someone who contacted me to check their site. It quickly became apparent that their enquiry fell into the third category I mentioned above – validating a current SEO campaign/strategy.

In order to maintain confidence I wont be naming names, and I’m only going to say that consumption of the product or service offered by the enquirer is geographically dependant. There is a large number of suppliers of what I’m going to refer to as “[city] widgets”, and the niche is highly competitive. Very often ‘[city1] widget’ is not a substitue for ‘[city2] widget’, although some substitution may occur where the user is location elastic.

The specialised SEO company

After looking over the website in question I found, what in my opinion, could be very dangerous utilisation of a particular technique (I’ll be writing about that shortly). So I made my opinion known to the enquirer and asked them to contact their SEO provider and seek some further clarification.

Follow-up correspondence contained some interesting information from the SEO about the technique used and why it was ‘perfectly safe’, but, more relevant to this post, why the SEO provider was initially chosen by the enquirer to promote their site.

It turns out that the SEO company is question are very much a ‘Sectoral-based’ SEO provider. That is, they are very active in one particular niche.

Why would you choose one SEO provider to promote your ‘[city] widget’ over another?

It’s more than common to use track record when selecting a supplier for a good or service. Proven track record is often a very good indication of future performance. In this particular case track record was indeed a strong criterion. I paraphrase:

seen as they represent our three main competitors, and those competitor sites all rank on page #1 for “[city] widget”, our site should do so also by the end of the year

For me that opens a real can of worms.

Is it ethical to represent competing sites?

In this case it appears that the SEO company in question represents lot of sites selling [city] widgets. They also happen to market software that enables the purchase of ‘[city] widgets’ which I’m sure is a very strong supporting factor. And, in fairness, the competitor sites mentioned do rank well for ‘ widgets [city]‘ (the order there represents the more likely search query).

So what’s the big issue? Well, in cases where [city] is different there really is no conflict. But in the case of representing multiple sites from the same [city], can one SEO company ethically represent multiple direct competitors? I’m sure arguments can be made for and against, but I take issue with one provider promoting multiple competing sites. Why?

Well there are only 10 spots available on page #1 of the SERPs. And we know very well that the real action is in the top 3 spots. So how does a provider representing 4 websites all targeting that same honey-pot phrase “widgets [city]” do so ethically? A number of questions arise:

1. Are all clients aware that their SEO provider is also promoting their direct competition? Are NDA’s involved?
2. Will each client site be promoted equally? If so, how?
3. Is the SEO company being paid a performance-related bonus/retainer? If so, is it similar for each client site? If so, could the provider profit by rotating resources to make each site rank highest for a short period of time?
4. Is the same internal individual responsible for actually working on each of the competing client sites? If so is data from any of the client sites being used in the promotion of competing sites?
5. If the SEO company has multiple employees, and client sites are assigned to different team members/teams what steps are taken to ‘wall’ information?
6. Most importantly for me, are client expectations being properly set? Is each client aware of how much traffic each position in the SERPs will receive? Are newer clients of the competing group aware that they may never attain number #1 position as older clients may have an ageing benefit both on- and off-site?

Those are just a few questions that come to my mind when a single SEO provider is promoting multiple competing websites. I’m not saying that promoting multiple competitors has to be unethical, but I do have the view that doing so opens up a whole new set of issues that make it wholly more likely to end up being unethical.

The can of worms gets even ‘wormier’

So I’ve stated my view that providing SEO for competing websites can be unethical. But there is another dimension to this can of worms that really grinds my gears – PPC. Let’s imagine that the SEO provider is a full service SEM company.

What happens when, as with many websites in this niche, PPC is used to promote the sites in question? And now consider what if the same provider of SEO also manages the PPC campaigns for the competing sites?

PPC is a very different beast in general to SEO. For a start PPC usually is managed under a % fee structure – the management firm usually gets a % of the total spend.

Now I’m no PPC expert, but I do know that PPC uses a modified auction system. Bidders can set their maximum bid, and all other things being equal, the highest bidder has their ad display above all others.

Let’s pause for a second and add back into the mix the fact that PPC management companies generally receive a % payment based on total spend. Now suppose that the same company is managing 4 separate accounts, all targeting a similar set of keywords, and all demanding results.

Personally I would be more than a little anxious that it might be very easy to manipulate the spend of all 4 accounts for reasons not entirely in the clients best interests.

We’re sorry, but the maximum bid keeps increasing…

For instance, it could become advantageous to have clients bidding directly against each other in a bidding match where there is only one winner – the management company (although the PPC engine wont ever be on the losing side either).

I can picture explanations being sent to clients explaining that the maximum bid is increasing incrementally, and that in order to attain better results a higher spend is required.

Higher spend = higher management fee.

I think you can quickly see that conflicts of interest could become all the more problematic.

Am I generalising?

The above of course is simply my own opinion. Again, I must state that the above case doesn’t necessarily mean that the SEM company in question is acting unethically. But in my view when one company promotes multiple competing sites there is an over-riding need for clients to have oversight which requires knowledge of the ‘bigger picture’, and for the provider to be absolutely transparent in order to maintain ethical standards.

Just my view. What do you think?

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If you are one of the many people who rely on Adwords to bring visitors to your site you really need to read this fantastic guide to optimising your PPC campaigns.

Possibly the best post to date from Dave. I saw this late on Wednesday night but haven’t had a chance to point at it till now.

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How about the clever use of (presumably) ASCII in the third ad:

What are the bets that third ad gets a higher CTR than the two above?

Google again…

Now we all know Google. Google has changed the way we interact on a daily basis. We use their Search Engine more than any other. They supply us with lots of great free services. And they act as the ad broker of choice on the Internet.

While some people may find it curious that I don’t block Google ads (it’s relatively easy to do you know), the main reason for not doing so is to see what’s being advertised and to whom.

Adwords

Adwords is a great way for any site to get noticed. The system is cheap, reliable and trust-worthy. However, Adwords only leads the horse to the water. That’s all you’re paying for.

So what happens when the horse doesn’t drink? Google gets paid and you’re out of pocket. So how often do you check to see what keywords are performing? Not just on clickthroughs, but on conversions? If you don’t check these things your practically throwing away your money. Let me explain by going back to John.

I was reading John’s post and noticed the ad block after his post:

It got me curious. What were they offering and why target John’s site? So as a curious individual I clicked on the ad:

You see I clicked on an ad for

Presentation Skills
Natural, effective and interesting presentations at all levels

I liked the strong copy and was interested in how it related to John’s site. And here’s the big problem. The landing page I hit makes no reference that I can see to ‘Presentation Skills’. In fact, at an Internet glance it seems like the site in question is in the call/contact centre business. There’s no relevance.

When I click on an ad for ‘Presentation Skills’ (assuming that it’s going to be advice or products) and land on your site you have about 5 seconds of my time to give me what I’m looking for.

After those 5 seconds have elapsed I’m back with John again.

And that’s why landing page theme is the most important factor for conversion. You can have the best copy and design in the world, but if it’s off-theme you’ve just lost a prospect.

(As an aside: It seems to me that there could be quite a market for SEM (Adwords etc.) optimisers here in Ireland. For more on this subject see this discussion.)

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