Search Engine Optimization Book

SEO BOOK

bid trapping (bidding 1 cent underneath your competitor) and various other functions.

The best part of bid management software is that good bid management software can allow you to dynamically change the bid price from price per click to other metrics such cost per action or ROI.

If you get big into pay per click search engines and are managing multiple accounts it is worth the money to use a bid management program to help save time and money. Currently three market leaders in this field are

BidRank

(downloadable software),

Keyword Max

(hosted software application), and

Atlas OnePoint

(hosted software application)

. Overture also recently created their own bid management tool by the name of

Overture Search Optimizer

.

Fraud Prevention Software:

Most major pay per click search engines have fraud protection built into their system to protect the value of click prices. You should use your server logs to validate clicks if you are running a large campaign. Generally due to time overlaps and differences in reporting it is considered acceptable to have an error up to 10%.

If your error is much larger than that be sure to notify the search engine.

If you have a good log file analyzer and understand how to use it then you have no need for a fraud prevention tool, but these tools make it quick and easy to spot potential fraud.

If you believe your competitors are clicking your ads or you are investing heavily in a competitive market you will want to take a look at additional fraud protection.

Two of the current leaders in the PPC fraud prevention software market are

Who’sClickingWho

and KeywordMax

Click Auditor

. They both keep track of clicks from IP addresses over time. Even if a competitor only clicks on your ads every few days it still adds up over time. This software allows you to accumulate the evidence you need to reverse charges and potentially file a lawsuit.

Google Adwords

Google AdWords gets it’s own extremely long section because it is exceptionally more complicated than other PPC search engines.

Google vs. Overture:

Google AdWords and Overture are in a battle for search distribution. One or both of these PPC delivers ads on nearly every major search engine or portal.

Google Bid Prices vs. Click Costs:

119