Red Light Camera Might Expand in Los Angeles

by nate on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 | Automotive, News, Tech/Gadget | No Comments

Ever watch the movie “eagle eye”, where all your activities got recorded? It might happen soon in LA. Well, just kidding, not that extreme, but those wreckless drivers or those who love to speed, be aware!

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for traffic cameras to be modified to also catch speeders, part of an effort to raise $300 million in fines to help close the state’s budget shortfall.

Los Angeles officials have voiced mixed reactions but taken no formal action on the proposal.

As for red light cameras, critics contend that the safety benefits have been overstated and that the cameras chiefly are used to fatten government coffers. Those complaints have grown louder as red light ticket fines have climbed sharply in recent years. They now total more than $500 in Los Angeles County when traffic school fees are included.

But LAPD officials and some experts say photo enforcement reduces potentially serious red-light-running accidents, changes driver behavior for the better and frees up patrol officers for other tasks.

And after struggling with construction delays and start-up and early operating expenses, Los Angeles’ red light cameras have begun producing a sorely needed revenue surplus at a time when city programs and payrolls are being slashed.

Beyond payments of about $2 million to the city’s camera vendor and $1.2 million for Police Department costs, the city’s 32 camera-equipped intersections generated $6.4 million in net revenue in 2009, said LAPD Sgt. Matthew MacWillie, who oversees the program. The LAPD issues about 3,600 photo enforcement tickets a month, records show.

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Advertiser Guide to Google Adwords

by wildcherry on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 | Life, Tips | No Comments

There are several tricks to advertising on Google Adwords that unless you know them, it becomes almost impossible to turn a profit on your advertising.

Tips #1 - Only bid on exact match keywords

Google Adwords has a few different ‘keyword matching options’ available. When a keyword is placed in brackets like this: [keyword], it is called an ‘exact match.’ This means that only when someone enters that EXACT keyword phrase will your ad appear. It might occur to you that by limiting your keyword(s) to only exact match, you are eliminating all those people that may be searching for the phrase “cheap widgets” or even “widget” singular, since only the keyword “widgets” plural is an exact match. Believe me, this is exactly what you want. Sure, it will take extra time to create an adgroup within the Google Adwords system for each keyword phrase you want to bid on, but you will know with 100% certainty which keyword(s) are converting into sales this way. If you do NOT use the exact match option in Google Adwords, then there is absolutely no way to know which keyword(s) are resulting in sales on your site.

Tips#2 - Bid to be in position #2 or 3

When someone searches on Google for your keyword, the first page of search results are going to reach the most people. What you want to do is position your ad in one of the top 3 spots. You don’t want position #1 necessarily, because that position costs the most and doesn’t give you much more benefit than being in position 2 or 3. You pay less for these spots than position 1 and gain most of the benefit.

By being in one of these top spots, your ad gets a higher ‘click-thru rate’ (CTR). This is good is because the Google Adwords system actually rewards you for having an ad with a high CTR by charging you less per click! Google Adwords exists to make money for Google. If they have two companies advertising for the same keyword, and your ad pulls a 10% CTR and your competitor’s ad for the same keyword pulls a 5% CTR, then Google Adwords makes more money from your ad. Google Adwords rewards you for this higher CTR by charging you less per click than your competitor!

Tips #3 - Negatively qualify your ads

Admittedly, the problem with having an ad that has a great CTR is that it gets a lot of clicks! Unless your traffic converts into sales, it’s hard to turn a profit on your Google Adwords ads. The key is to put words in the ad that DISCOURAGE people from clicking on the ad unless they ‘pre-qualified’ to convert to a sale. For example, if you have site that sells widgets that cost $10.00 each, then put something in one of the lines of text in your ad like ‘Widgets cost only $10.00.’ The only catch is that if your ad isn’t getting a very good CTR in the first place, then a negative qualifier is only going to reduce your CTR.

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