Get $100* credit and expert help choosing keywords when you come back to AdWords

I received this email from Google offering a $100 credit to come back to AdWords. I decided to investigate. It was legitimate offer but there’s a catch. I have to spend $25 to redeem the $100. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it.

My past experience with spending a small amount of money, plus Google’s introductory offer of $75, is that I achieved no sales result. Google ended up with my money and because it is their own service, it ended up costing them nothing (I don’t advertise on third party sites so they don’t pay any third party commission). A win to Google and a loss for me.

If you’ve never tried advertising on Google and have the hours you need to invest in learning how Google Adwords works, then trying Google Adwords isn’t a bad thing. For me however I prefer to put my advertising dollar where I know I’ll get a return.

The JustLocal advertising service I run offers a money back guarantee. That beats Google’s offer.

I’d have no problems advertising on Google if it gave me a return, but so far there’s been no return and that experience has put me off.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au
Helping local businesses with low cost local advertising.
Guaranteed to work or your money back.

Click Frenzy servers appear to not be handling the load.

Not really interested in purchasing but I was interested in seeing how the technology held up.




Not a good start. In Internet Explorer 10 you receive the message "This page can't be displayed".

Hopefully things will start working. Good on them for getting the retailers going and putting some spark back into the market.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 if you require help with your computer.
No problem too small.

UPDATE: Just after 8:30pm and I managed to display the following. At least in the virtual crush people aren't getting hurt, frustrated, but not hurt.

 



UPDATE: 10:30pm. Click Frenzy site still unstable but here is a technique which may help others. Some of the individual companies advertising have the same specials available on their site. Check the image of Click Frenzy for a logo or name and then search for the business. For example www.oo.com.au lists their Click Frenzy specials. Doing this you can bypass the Click Frenzy site and go direct to the participating site if they're advertising the same special. Be careful however as some sites aren't promoting the Click Frenzy specials.

Here is a list of sites which I'll keep checking and adding sites in case it helps others.

www.oo.com.au
www.supercycle.com.au
www.justfitness.com.au
www.biasboating.com.au (Hard to identify specials.)
www.completehealth.com.au (Scrolling message for code "FRENZY" for 15% off.)
http://dicksmith.com.au/clickfrenzy/t/
www.addictedtoaudio.com.au/Click-Frenzy
www.annexproducts.com/pages/clickfrenzy
www.wireless1.com.au

UPDATE: 11:30pm. The Click Frenzy site now appears to have stabilised. The normal nightly peak for internet use is around 11pm and since we are now after that time we should be able to expect the Click Frenzy servers (or cloud services) should handle the load. Although tomorrow as they say, is another day.

Government spends many millions advertising on Google and then complains when Google only pays $74,176 in tax.

I read articles over time where Australian politicians complain that large multinational companies use tax minimisation strategies to reduce their tax liability in Australia.

 

For example it is estimated that Google earns around $2 billion in revenue a year from Australian advertisers and yet only paid a little over $74,000 in tax.

Google Australia declared a loss of $3.9 million last year, and paid just $74,176 in Australian tax... Read More

The politicians have a very simple solution. Redirect the millions of dollars (and if that figure of $2 billion a year is correct we could be talking about hundreds of millions spent by government and government agencies) to local businesses.

When Google wants to promote itself you can see their advertisements around everywhere and they’re not generally using the Google service. Letter drops I receive regularly in the post. Signs at Southern Cross station. A $300 million dollar deal (reportedly) with Mozilla (Firefox) to send 15-25% of internet search traffic Google’s way. If Google are using other advertising media to get their message across isn’t that perhaps what the government should also be using.

The best thing with not using Google is the government avoids click fraud which is estimated to a be a multi-billion dollar problem for Google. Click fraud is when people or organisations have a site and generate income from either their own activity of the activity of others such as clicking on ads on their site and not clicks by potential customers. I’ve been told of ordinary people doing this type of activity so you can only imagine how much activity is occurring due to organised crime.

If the government isn’t happy the solution is easy. Don’t advertise on Google. Google will quickly come around and pay a fair and reasonable amount of tax if that happens, and if they don’t, the government is putting their advertising dollar in to assist the local economy by supporting local advertising services. To me that’s a win either way.

My own tests of paid Google advertising is it didn’t yield any result. Those I’ve spoken to, with the exception one person, have had a similar experience. That person when I last heard, had suspended their Google advertising.

- Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for help with your computer problem.
Servicing Templestowe, Doncaster, Eltham and the surrounding area.

New site for The Preferred Australian English spellcheck dictionary

Recently Google changed their algorithm which significantly impacted the position of the Australian English spellcheck dictionary in the Google search results. From number one position to nowhere to be found. In essence traffic to the site dropped 80% overnight. This should be a warning for anyone who puts a lot of time and money into obtaining a position in Google. All your time, energy and money could be wasted overnight by decisions Google makes in terms of generating traffic to your site.

The preferred Australian English spellcheck dictionary is the only free service available to Australians to assist them with using the preferred Australian English spelling. Over a thousand people a week used the site and Google simply changed their algorithm making the page almost impossible to find. The original page will remain (www.justlocal.com.au/clients/oooau), but in addition, you can now find the main page at www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au.

 

The site www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au will become the main site for my dictionary work.

 

You can still find the main page if searching (“Australian Dictionary”) using Bing, where the site is positioned in first position and in Yahoo where the site is positioned second. My apologies for any inconvenience. What Google does is outside of my control.

I hope you find my work to be of assistance.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au   

MyAnswers: Free eBooks for Android, PC and Apple iOS users.

The following MyAnswers solution 2282 is now available:

Free eBooks for Android, PC and Apple users. Recently I helped a couple of customers who had purchased low cost Android tablets from Aldi. The surprise was that in order to get free eBooks from the Android Playstore, they needed to supply a credit card and they weren't happy to do that. This solution shows you how to obtain tens of thousands of free eBooks for Android tablets (and other devices) without providing your credit card details.

Click here to obtain the solution.

Click here for related solutions.

Kelvin Eldridge
MyAnswers
(An Online Connections service.)

Skype free unlimited worldwide telephone calls for a month.

Just read on the internet about Skype’s offer of free unlimited calls for a month. This offer can only be redeemed on the 15^th of November 2012. It is now after 9am on the 16^th in Melbourne Australia so if this offer is valid and applies to Australia, then you need to act quickly.

Free worldwide calls for a month... Read More

You need to subscribe to the service for one month. I’ve found these offers often encourage people to sign up and then they forget so they keep getting charged. Make sure you record the date for the end of the trial or set a reminder in your calendar a day or two before the trial is up if you wish to cancel.

In my case I have $13.02 credit. Don’t know what will happen to this credit. Hopefully I won’t lose it, but since I want to test if this offer is legitimate and works in Australia I’ll take a hit for the team. The amount normally charged for the plan for a month is $13.49.

Enjoy,

- Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for help with your computer problem.
Servicing Templestowe, Doncaster, Eltham and the surrounding area.

UPDATE: Confirmation of free trial by Skype. This appears to be working. Now for a test call. Local call went through with no charge. Successful test. Note. The call quality was good but there was a delay at the start such that the person didn’t hear my introduction when I called them. I heard their response.

Alert: Telstra - You have received a new message

<<< photo missing >>>



I received three emails this morning to different email addresses all pretending to be from Telstra with the message:

"You have received a picture message from mobile number +61
To save this picture, please save attached file."

There is an attached zip file most likely some form of malware.

You should delete these emails.


Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 if you require help with your computer.
No problem too small.

Alert: Richard Person Doggonit Obedience blog spamming

Another blog spammer today. Doggonit Obedience blog spammed my blog with a comment today. I expect overseas countries to blog spam but it is disappointing when Australian businesses resort to posting links in other sites just to promote their own.

 

Richard Person please check who you are using for internet marketing and drop them. They are blog spamming others and that is damaging your reputation. I wouldn’t use a business that has no respect for others and I suggest others not to use such businesses.

 

There are more ethical ways to market your business. Please use them.

 

Kelvin Eldridge

www.JustLocal.com.au

Dog Training Melbourne - Herding Dog Training with dog trainer Charlie Brincat

With the beautiful weather over the weekend I couldn’t help feeling an unusual and fun activity many dogs and their owners may have missed on the weekend, was the opportunity to participate in herding dog training. Herding dog trainer Charlie Brincat runs classes on weekends subject to weather and you couldn’t have had nicer weather than this weekend.

Check out Herding Dog Training videos produced by Charlie on his site www.herdingdogtraining.com.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au