Facebook Instant Articles

Facebook Instant Articles has been around for almost three years. Since launching with several partners in 2015, more than 10,000 publishers now use the format worldwide. And according to Facebook, Instant Articles “pays out more than $1 million per day to publishers via Facebook Audience Network.”

Did you catch that? Over $1 million dollars. Per day.

Keep reading to see if Instant Articles is a good fit for you or your publishing company. Continue reading… “Facebook Instant Articles”

Why you need StatCounter if you use Google Adwords

Author and publisher Ian Lamont has used StatCounter since 2006 to help monitor his blogs and publishing websites. He recently used StatCounter to identify suspicious click fraud activity associated with a Google AdWords campaign. We invited him to tell his story.

 

Digital advertising fraud is a big deal, siphoning off billions from advertisers each year. However, mobile and online ad fraud is not just an issue for big-box retailers, Hollywood movie studios, auto manufacturers, and other giant companies which depend on digital advertising to drive sales. Small businesses can also get cheated, and may not even know it. Even worse, the tools provided on Google’s popular AdWords service are wholly inadequate to detect the problem, and are actually likely to increase the likelihood of becoming a victim. In the following post, I will describe how I used StatCounter to detect suspicious clicks on a new AdWords campaign for a new book, and the steps I am taking to limit fraud on all of my Google AdWords campaigns in the future.

Continue reading… “Why you need StatCounter if you use Google Adwords”

Google’s Fred Algorithm Update – 5 Steps to Take Now!

If you have any questions or are worried about how the new Fred update may have affected your website traffic, feel free to contact us for a complimentary consultation with one of our experts.

Google is always tight-lipped about the changes they make to their algorithm, however, the change on March 7th/8th was large enough for many website owners and digital marketing firms to notice substantial changes in traffic and rankings. This new algorithm update, simply known as “Fred”, is believed to primarily target websites with low-quality content and backlinks. Often, these two factors occur simultaneously and on websites that have utilized SEO companies to quickly build low-quality content and backlinks.

Google has confirmed the Fred algorithm update, but they were weary of giving too much information about it. The only clue given to website owners was that Fred targeted websites that were not abiding by the webmaster guidelines. Based on our research here at StatCounter, we have determined that sites with low-quality content and unnatural backlinks, purely meant to drive revenue have been the most hurt by this update.

Here are five things you can do right now to see if you were affected and start recovering any lost rankings and traffic

Continue reading… “Google’s Fred Algorithm Update – 5 Steps to Take Now!”