Ranking & Google Analytics

So many things taught this week! But, oh! have they been useful to me. If only I told you how helpful learning about these things has been at work. I’m happy I’ve been given the opportunity to learn about business marketing, it’s been amazing!

Now, let’s talk business. Ranking. What are ranking and linking? Basically, it’s a way to get other pages to link your page to their website, for example, blogs. This linking helps your business get known by simply having others helping you out. And if you’re interested in learning more about this topic, click here.

Analytics has never been my number one favorite “celebrity,” As a matter of fact, I dislike it, especially when you have to do everything by hand and use Excel (Ewww!) But, I like Google Analytics. As I was doing the assignment and playing around Google Analytics I found it quite interesting and fun. But, of course, everything can be interesting and fun once you get the hang of it. But it was! and I was able to get the hang of it (pat in the back.) So, what is Google Analytics and what do you get out of it? Google Analytics is a way for you to follow up on your websites incoming traffic. You can get weekly, daily, and monthly reports offered by Google that helps you to get to know your visitors, helps you to measure the results of individual campaigns in real-time, compare the data to previous periods, and so much more. And if you’re interested in knowing more about it, watch this useful video that explains it all.

 

Almost the Finale

The end is almost near and I can’t thank my professor enough for teaching us amazing things about social media and building a business webpage. There are so many things to be learned and so little time to consume everything in. Thankfully, I have been able to save every link of every lesson that has helped me understand social media more.

This week I was able to learn more about SEO and how it helps in bringing more visitors to any social media platform. I was also able to learn about the power of social networking and how it can help you in growing your business as you connect with other companies or people who are willing to work with you or sponsor your product.

On another note, I have always wanted to learn the tips on how I can create a social media marketing plan every year. So, I watched this video created by Kimberly Ann Jimenez that thoroughly explains the strategic steps on how I/we can get our social media plan up and running for our business in order to improve our clicks and visitors.

I’ll leave another link here that explains 5 free social media marketing tools given by experts that can also help you to have a successful social media platform for your business.

 

Landing Page Optimization & SEO

Sometimes we don’t realize how impactful it can be when we change words or keywords on our website that can increase our clicks. In a nutshell, that is what I learned this week.

First, we need to understand what Landing page, website optimization, and SEO are.

In digital marketing, a landing page is a standalone web page, created specifically for the purposes of a marketing or advertising campaign. It’s where a visitor “lands” when they have clicked on a Google AdWords ad or similar. Landing pages are designed with a single focused objective – known as a Call to Action (CTA).

A website optimization is a process of making changes to your website so that it will appear higher in search engine results pages. Based on a number of factors, search engines evaluate your website’s relevance and readability before assigning it a position or ranking on the search engine results page. The more relevance the search engines determine your website has for a given search, the higher the website will rank.

Being able to learn about these principles helps every business owner understand how their website can increase their clicks.

Starting Ads

This week, we learned about ROI, conversion tracking, starting an AdWords campaign, and optimizing ad performance. It was a busy but exciting week. Learning about all these principles made me like Google Adwords even more. The tips and tricks for creating an ad, how to generate money with your ad, and how important it is to choose the right words for an ad are crucial. Especially when money is already involved because nobody wants their money to go to waste.

Let’s start off with conversion tracking and ROI. What are they? Conversion tracking is a free tool that shows you what happens after a customer interacts with your ads — whether they purchased a product, signed up for your newsletter, called your business, or downloaded your app. And when you have already signed in your Google Adwords and created an ad, you can see and track how well your ads are doing. ROI is the ratio of your net profit to your costs. It’s typically the most important measurement for an advertiser because it’s based on your specific advertising goals and shows the real effect your advertising efforts have on your business. Knowing your ROI helps you evaluate whether the money you’re spending on AdWords advertising is going to a good cause: healthy profits for your business.

How do you start an AdWords campaign? I found this cool website on the Entrepreneur website. Take a look at it.

Optimizing Ad performance is all about what to do and what not to do when you create your ad. If you click on this website and this website it can help you to improve your ads.

 

Google Analytics

A long long time ago in a not so far away land, I took an analytics class. This analytics class was not what I was expecting. It was boring and so not cool. Especially when I had to use excel to figure out some stuff. I did although learn a little about Google Analytics, but it was a quick overview of it, so I didn’t really learn how to use it. Now, I understand how to properly use it and how useful Google Analytics is for an online business.

One of the most important lessons taught in this lesson was how to install or set up Google Analytics on my website. I did this by logging into my Google Analytics account and linking my account to my website. When I linked the accounts it gave me an ID number that I would be able to use and paste it into a code (here is the link for the code). Learning how to navigate through Google Analytics is quite easy, you just have to navigate through everything and Google something if you don’t understand something.

Relevance and quality scores were never something I considered. But, after learning about them, it makes a lot of sense how their role plays in online businesses. You have to have relevance when choosing the right words or keywords for your ads. Through Google analytics, you figure out the quality of your words and keywords depending on how many people you’re reaching. If the quality of your ad is four or less, you’re doing something wrong and it is best you change something.

In conclusion, Google analytics is great.  You know who your customers are, what they like, what they don’t like, where they’re located, what devices they use, their gender and many other things. Through it, you can know what direction your business is going to.

Ads and Ad Groups

This weeks lesson was short, but a whole lot to learn from–We learned about Google ads and ad groups! It was interesting to learn how specific and detailed you have to be when you create an ad. Before creating a Google ad, I was used to creating a marketing ad–more of a photoshop, design, and print ad. But, after this lesson, I am more aware of why Google ads are unique.

First of all, you must take notice of the policies Google has before publishing your Google ad. Policies such as:

• Prohibited Content
• Prohibited practices
• Restricted content
• and editorial and technical

are important to review. We don’t want to get in trouble for something we didn’t know we couldn’t do. If you’re interested in reading more of Googles AdWord policies, click on this link.

I also learned tips and tricks on how you can build up your keyword list. Tips such as, think as your customer and select specific keywords to target specific customers are a few of many tips that can help you reach your customers. Click here to know more about these amazing tricks.

In a nutshell, Google ads are awesome. If you learn to target the right people and use the correct words and keywords, you will have hundreds and thousands of visitors at your website.

 

More Keywords!

The power of keywords is incredible. It’s crazy what one word can do to your online business. It can bring hundreds and thousands of people to your page. But, having clicks is not always the most important. By using keywords, we want the public to not only click on your page but actually buy something from your page that they like; that’s the whole point of it. And the secret of choosing the right keywords all comes down to getting to know your audience and how they think.

This week, I was to think of 20 keywords I would use when people searched for phone covers (my online business). I was then to choose if that keyword would be “broad” or “exact” –Broad match lets a keyword trigger your ad to show whenever someone searches for that phrase, similar phrases, singular or plural forms, misspellings, synonyms, stemming (such as floor and flooring), related searches, and other relevant variations. And exact match allows you to show your ad when a searcher types the exact word or phrase you are bidding on.– There are numerous options for phone cover keywords. I tried to get the keywords I think the public uses the most. I also learned how important it is to get to know your audience first. Who will you be targeting? both men and women? or only men or only women? what ages? what nationality? do they speak English? where are they located? what country? what are there interests? where do they live? what’s their income? etc. Your target audience will determine the outcome of your keywords. It really does make a difference. It’s also important to not make your target audience too broad or too small, you want to target those that matter to you.

In conclusion, finding your target audience and using keywords that your target audience would use is a talent. And if we would only get to know the public interests first before our own, we would have thousands of clicks and sales on our online business. Keywords are powerful.

 

Licenses & Taxes

This weeks lesson was extra special. We were taught about licenses and taxes, woohoo!–said no one ever. Licenses and taxes are probably the most boring and painful when creating a business. On the bright side, it lets your business function normal and correctly. I was asked to research the types of licenses and taxes I would need to pay for my online business. And because I would begin as a sole proprietor, not much paperwork would be done for licensing, but I would have to pay taxes, which It all depends on your state’s sales tax.

Licenses I will need:

I will first need a general business license or permit. This license is required by the city or county where I would be in to legally operate my business. Being a general license, I may have to renew it each year. If my business is operating under a name other than mine (which it is) and if I am a sole proprietor (I am) I will need to obtain a DBA (Doing Business As) also known as, “Assumed Name” license or registration.

In addition to obtaining required licenses and permits, I will need to be mindful of tax law obligations. Salt Lake’s sales tax is 6.85% meaning that I will have to collect, report and pay the taxes to the state because I sell a tangible good. I would also need to register with my state and local taxing authorities and obtain a sales tax permit. And, if I plan to sell my product to customers in different states, I will need to seek help from an accounting professional. It is also recommended that I obtain and Employer Identification Number (EIN) issued by the IRS. Only if my business structure is under a corporation or partnership—this would be necessary when or if I have employees.  [i]

[i] https://www.bizfilings.com/toolkit/research-topics/staying-compliant/do-i-need-a-business-license-for-an-online-business

Site Design & Card Payments

Site design and card payments, two important factors when having an online business. Choosing the right design for your website is crucial. The way you decide to organize your information and “pay” buttons and products should be important for you and for your customer. The public is picky, and if they don’t like the way you have your products listed or if the colors don’t fit your brand, it’s likely that they will not return to your website again unless you have awesome products nobody has. So, how do you choose the right design for your site? Easy. Choose the right colors, choose the best layout, and organize your information and pictures. Make everything easy to find and make it simple; simplicity is always the best way to go. Simplicity equals more.

Now that we know how to get the best site design, it’s important to get the card payments up and running. Payments are the ones that will earn you money, so it’s important we create/add the correct card payments. When we have card payments we have to gain the trust of the customer by demonstrating that we (company) have a strong security policy or demonstrate in some way why we care about them and their security. Card payments can sometimes be tricky. You have to make sure you’re doing things right. Nobody likes their money to be stolen and an online business never wants to be known as the “business with sucky card payment security”– you can lose a lot of customers because of that.

In conclusion, site design and card payments are both crucial for an online business. They both help in bringing more customers and are two of the reasons online businesses make revenue.

Choosing a Site Builder

This week I learned how to choose the right site builder for my business. And to be honest, I think it all comes down to personal preference. There are great site builders out there that cover your specific needs. If you want something that is easy and basic, try Wix or Weebly. If you want something that is a little more technical, try WordPress or Squarespace. And if you know your HTML and would much rather build your own website, go for it.

When we’re deciding on which site builder to choose from, unless you know your stuff, many of us choose a site builder depending on their awesome templates, like me. We don’t often think about their host options and how much they charge for it, or if they offer Google Adwords. Before, I hadn’t realized how much I had to think about choosing a site builder or if I wanted to have a host separately or jointed. They’re small but significant things like this that make your business webpage more professional and well made.

Now that I mentioned hosting, I also learned the difference between having a host separately and jointed. After much thought and research, I concluded that having a host separate from your site builder is better than having it jointed. The reasons behind it are, when you have a separate host you’re able to be more flexible with your website. Whereas a jointed host, you’re basically following the hosting rules your site builder has. And if you ever feel like changing your page name, you can’t. Having a jointed host is for those who don’t necessarily want to expand; they want to remain small. But with a separate host, you come and go as you please.