I get calls several times per week with people offering services like special offers to get me a spot in Adwords for a fixed price with unlimited clicks or a permanent top place in the next Google or just general SEO work. It made me start thinking about making a scam calculator. This would be kind of like the SEO tools that look for back links, number of pages in Google, age of site, DMOZ listing, number of Diggs and Stumbles, etc. I was thinking I could see where they rank for their business' main keyword, count how many times their business is referenced and how many times those reference included the term scam, grab their Better Business Bureau rating, check the site age, site traffic, and check for presence of a phone number, look for country of origin or if they have a private registration. So I'd input a domain name and a keyword and would get back a bunch of data and maybe calculate some humorous scam value. Do you have any check you do on potential service providers? So far Googling SEO companies is telling and checking a ratio of scam references is good but there has to be more good checks.
I just use Spyfu, backlinkwatch and the firefox plugin called SEOHAWK for checking backlinks etc...although, it doesn't do the scam test
I use SpyFu and plug ins from SEO Book and SEO Gator for my SEO checks. Some of them can help tip off a scam.
Now there's a potential script/software waiting to be developed and...you can make a fortune!....are you up for the challenge???
Well, I could stop "paying" for the Adwords account I use at work today and we'd do one million dollars less business next month. There has always been a business case for paid advertising as well as non-paid advertising.
Now that's a BIG statement...then sure you would know some SUCCESSFUL TIPS & STRATEGIES that you can share with us novice/newbies...would you?
Sure, here's a few: Use Adwords conversion tracking. Use Google Analytics including Goals and Funnels. Run multiple ads per group and rotate evenly and weed out low performers (Google rotates on best CTR not best conversion). Bid on your own brand/site name. Bid on your competitors name. Include a keyword in your display URL. Use Adwords filtering to find high conversion terms that you have a low Avg. Postion on and raise those bids. If you use coupon codes, place them in your ads. Consider using day parting. If you have a strong competitor, block your ads from showing in their city. Be careful using keyword insertion, it can be high CTR with low conversion. Place your keywords at the start of the ad title, the end of the first line of ad copy and at the begining of the second line of the ad copy. Test trademark symbols in your ad copy. The primary tip is to test and watch your cost per conversion.