Week 14 - MKTG 349 - Using Columns To Find Specific Performance Data

Columns in your statistics table show you various information on your account.  Your columns vary based on what you have selected to look at.  You can easily choose which stats/columns you want to look at.  This allows you to look at specific data quickly.  Throughout this blog, I will detail the steps on how to add and delete columns to view your data.

After logging in to your AdWords account, click on the campaigns tab.  Next click one of the tabs that appear in the middle of the page such as: campaigns, ad groups, ads, or keywords.  Then click on the columns button above the statistics table.  After clicking on that, click on "modify cloumns" from the drop down menu.  From there, you have to the ability to add and remove specific columns to add to your table.  You can also drag and drop these columns to put them in any order you like.  You also can save this order so you do not have to re-organize it again after logging out.  After saving the data set, you can download it and share it with anybody and/or print it out.

Week 14 - MKTG 348 - Tips From SEO Professionals

I recently read another article on Forbes.com that had 25 tips from SEO professionals.  It was a very interesting read.  It is always great to receive insight from people who have real world experience.  Receiving insight is always beneficial, as we can better prepare ourselves now and in the future.  Since there are 25 tips, I will only share with you certain ones that really stood out to me.  

The first tip was from Bruce Clay, who is considered an industry leader in SEO.  His tip is to blog.  He believe blogging is the awareness channel that leads to micro-conversions.  The second tip that stood out to me was from Joelle Gropper Kaufman.  Kaufman was a CMO at Clarizen Inc. and is now head of partnerships and marketing for BloomReach.  Her tip(s) include: identifying and reducing duplicate pages and content, and making sure your in-linking helps users and search engines find their way around your site, among others.  The final tip that I will share with you is from Julia Rosien, Brand Engineer at Restonic.  Her tip is authenticity.  Rosien notes that the word "authentic" is over used and often misconstrued.  However, she believes that your own thoughts and beliefs are unique and you should be able to express them, authentically, because people want to read about them.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2015/04/13/25-tips-from-seo-professionals/3/

Week 13 - MKTG 348 - The Future of SEO

I recently read an article on Forbes predicting 7 themes of SEO 10 years from now.  While these predictions can be wildly off the mark come 10 years from now.  These prediction were based off of past history with SEO and the ever changing Internet.  The first prediction is that users will rely heavily on specific niche search engines when searching for specific topics.  The second prediction is that embedded online search in apps will be on almost any desktop and mobile application.  While searching on applications is already prevalent, application searching will almost be an everyday activity as data begins to grow and become more embedded into our lives each and every day.  The third prediction is that SEO and social media will further merge together with traditional public relations and marketing practices.

The fourth prediction is that Social Media sites that have every day user functions will outlast others.  The fifth prediction is that technical SEO professionals will find better opportunities with software companies instead of marketing agencies.  The sixth prediction is that users will be more savvy making older online marketing tactics obsolete.  The term "banner blindness" will no longer be effective.  Users do not respond to these banners anymore.  They will evolve and find other methods that will make their marketing tactics more effective.  The last prediction is that SEO will never be a popular professional degree in college.  The reason for this is that there are so many other majors out there that cover SEO and the certifications that come with it.  SEO will never develop into a popular professional degree.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/brentgleeson/2015/04/06/7-bold-statements-about-the-10-year-forecast-for-seo/

Week 13 - MKTG 349 - Evaluating Ad Performance On Search Network

There are many ways to track your performance of your adwords campaign.  A good starting point is to monitor clicks, impression, and click-through-rate (CTR).  You can find these numbers in the accounts statistics table.  There are also many other options to track your ad performance.  The first option is monitoring your actual ad performance.  You can do this by checking on the status of your ad by simply clicking on the status button in your campaign.  Another great method is to check on your average position.  This will tell you where you typically land on a search result list.  The last way you can check your ad performance is through your ad variations.  By checking out each of your ad variations, you can see which ads are performing better than others.

Another great way to track your ad performance is through monitoring your keyword performance.  The first way to monitor your keyword performance is through keyword status.  Keyword status will tell you which keywords are triggering a response to web users.  Another great way to monitor keyword performance is through quality score.  This option is usually disabled, but when enabled, you can see how well your keywords are scoring.  The last way to track keyword performance is through search terms.  This option allows you to see what the users actually searched for when they saw your ad. This is a great way to see what people are searching for and how you can refine certain keywords to fit these search terms, thus increasing your ad performance.

Week 12 - MKTG 348 - Blog Links

John Dodson - http://jdodsoniii.blogspot.com

Francesca Guido - http://francescaseoblog.blogspot.com/

Shannon Oconnell - http://shannonsmarketingblog.blogspot.com/  

Carlos Salinas - http://carlosmarketingblog.blogspot.com/

Ashfaaq Seedat - http://ashmarketingblog.blogspot.com/

Maureen Lepke - http://maureenlepkemarketingblog.blogspot.com/

Cory Evans - http://coryevansmarketing.blogspot.com/

Caitlin Campbell - http://campbellmarketingblog.blogspot.com/  

Kaitlyn Szaflarski - http://kaitlynmarketing.blogspot.com/  

Bruno Gomes - http://brunogomesmarketing.blogspot.com/  

Sumaira Quraishi - http://sumairasmarketingblog.blogspot.com/  

Trevor Walzak - http://trevormarketing1.blogspot.com/

Anthony Phipps - http://phippsmarketingblog.blogspot.com/

Kevin Carroll - http://kc3marketing.blogspot.com/

Tommy DiPonio - http://tommydmarketing.blogspot.com/

Steve Kositzky - http://stevesmktgblog.blogspot.com/

Drew Keil - http://drewkeil.blogspot.com

Week 12 - MKTG 349 - Designing A Mobile Site

When designing a mobile site, there are four best practices.  The first practice is keeping it quick.  Since your design is made for a mobile site, get rid of the large sections of text that will not be legible.  Replace these large sections with bullet points.  Also compress pictures so that that they are not too big for the site as well.  The second practice is making the mobile site easy to purchase something off of it and create the site to make it easy for customers to contact you.  Good ways to do this are: reducing the number of steps it takes to make a transaction, keep forms short, use check boxes, lists, and scroll menus to make data entry a lot easier, and use a click-to-call functionality for a phone numbers.

The third practice is to simplify navigation of your site.  You should minimize scrolling and keep your site vertical.  Organize your menu and make sure each option is properly spread apart so as to not overlap each option.  Create clear, easy to find back and forward buttons for your customers to easily navigate through your site.  And make sure to use seven links or less per page.  The last practice is helping people find and get to your site.  You should include your address or store locator on the landing page.  Include maps and directions and, when possible, a GPS to personalize even more with your customers.  You should also allow customers to check stock at nearby stores.  And finally, make sure your site is being indexed for web search.

Week 11 - MKTG 349 - Tips For Creating Successful Ad Groups

Now that your campaign is all set and ready to go, it is time to create your ad groups.  A simple start is to organize your ad groups into similar themes.  Ad groups contain a set of keywords, ads, and bids that you manage.  We will go into a deeper understanding of these elements that you will be using on Google search or the display network.

Lets start with keywords.  Building a good keyword list can help you show your ads to your target market/audience.  When choosing your keywords you should be in the mind of your audience.  Think about what they are searching for and how they are searching for it.  You should also align your keywords with your goals.  Don't just throw any old keywords out there and hope that your target audience will find it.  You need to look at this as, "what do I want out of this campaign?"  After finding that answer, you will have a few keywords in mind.  Finally you need to group your keywords into themes.  It is crucial for you to group similar keywords together.  Do not just throw together a bunch of keywords that all have different meanings.

The second element that will be discussed in more detail is the ad itself.  There are various forms of ads that you can choose from that will show up in a Google search result.  Choosing the right ad type all depends on what you are trying to advertise.  There are various ad types, they include: text, ad extension, image, WAP mobile, App promotion, video, product listing, and call-only ads.  As you can see there are a lot of ads that you can choose from.  Choosing the right ad that fits what you are trying to do is crucial and will make your ad campaign very successful.

Week 11 - MKTG 348 - SEO - Best Practices For SEO Local

When you are optimizing for a local search engine, there are four practices which you should do.  The first one is to include your clients' websites to local search engines.  There are three site which you should primarily focus on if you want a high rank.  These sites are: Google Local Business Center, Yahoo! Local Merchant, and Ask Business Search.  The second best practice is to submit your clients' listings to popular directories and Internet Yellow Pages.  There are plenty of directories out there to choose from.  Some good directories to start with include: yelp.com, citysquares.com, mojopages.com, and insiderpages.com.  You can also greatly increase your clients' visibility on the web by utilizing Internet Yellow Pages.  Sites like SuperPages.com, Switchboard.com, and Yellowpages.com are good sources to start with.

The third best practice for local SEO is to set your geographic location in Google's Webmasters Tools.  In order to achieve a higher rank on local search results, you must find detailed reporting on your pages' visibility on Google.  Google's Webmasters Tools is a great resource for getting this type of information.  The last best practice for SEO local is to include contact information on your website.  By adding an address in your address tag and a phone number, you are increasing your credibility to the search engines.

Week 9 - MKTG 349 - Making A Profit On Your Campaign

Success in investments usually is measured in profits.  So how can you generate the biggest ROI on your AdWords campaign? There are three stages one must go through in order to start earning a profit and increasing your return on investment.  The three stages are: testing, growth, and maturity.


The first stage, testing, consists of gathering data about your performance and determining which CPC, keyword(s), ad combinations work best.  The main goal in this stage is to establish a profit by comparing your costs to revenues.  The minute you start earning a profit, you are ready to move on to the next stage, growth.


In the growth stage, your priority is to gain more customers all the while generating a profit.  The best way to do this is by increasing your budget, but still leaving your bids and keyword(s) and ad text the same.  If you begin to see a decrease in your profits, revert back to your old strategy, or perhaps even adjust your bids, keywords, and ad text.


The final stage is maturity.  When your costs do not reach your daily budget and you have a profit then you have successfully scaled up to the traffic available.  This means you have successfully matured your AdWords account and are earning exceptional ROI.  Some characteristics in this stage are: your budget is high enough to show at all times, and your daily costs, profits, and sales all fluctuate regularly in correlation with search volume.

Week 9 - MKTG 348 - SEO - On Page Optimization Factors

There are many factors that go into on page optimization.  It is important to have a telephone number and an address on your page.  This helps search engines identify the type of business you are in.  It is important to use what is called geographical qualifiers.  These "qualifiers" are city names, county names, state names, and streets in title tags.  Adding these qualifiers gives your location more prominence on search engines.  There are also many outside factors that improve your on page optimization. 







The first factor is offsite optimization. Offsite optimization is adding anchor texts to incoming links in order to hold local qualifiers.  The second factor is to submit your local business to the big search engines.  The big search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask) have a local business center which is made exclusively for small businesses.  These small companies should submit their business to these search engines and include information such as: address, city, state, and a brief description of you company.  After doing this, the search engines will include your company on local search results for users to view.  The last factor is to take advantage of other search engines such as yellow pages and other directories.  These types of sites receive heavy amounts of web traffic each day looking for companies and information on them.  Good sites to take advantage of are: yelp, yellow pages, local, infousa, citysearch, and superpages.

Week 8 - MKTG 349 - Understand The Landing Page Experience

The landing page experience details how good someone thinks someone's experience has been on a landing page.  There are many ways to improve your landing page experience.  So why does the landing page experience matter?  Tuning up your landing page will increase an overall better experience for your audience. There are three ways to improve your landing pages.  The first one is to include relevant, useful, and original content.  You need to make sure your landing page correlates with the content from your site.

The second way to improve your landing page is through transparency and trustworthiness.  Building trust is key in everything.  So to be trustworthy is crucial in having a great landing page experience.  Your visitors also must be able to find your landing page easily.  Distinguishing yourself from advertisements and explaining to your visitors why you are taking their personal information and what you are doing with it, will build your trustworthiness and make you more transparent.

The final way to improve your landing page experience is to make navigation of your page easy.  If visitors have to search all over the place for your page, you're doing something wrong and the experience will be a bad one.  If your site contains a purchase page, make it quick and easy for people to order the product.  It is important not to have any pop-ups on your page as it will annoy your visitors and could cause them to leave.  Lastly, provide useful information about your product or service that your visitors can read and learn about.

Week 8 - MKTG 348 - SEO - Blog Optimization

It is important that you optimize your blog.  Without optimization your blog will be an enigma an the world wide web.  There are six ways in which you can optimize your blog.  The first way is just by creating simple content.  This is one of the best ways to optimizing your blog.  The second way to optimizing your blog is through search engine submissions.  A great way to do this is by having as much relevant content as you can.  Search engines always prefer bigger websites with lots of content.
Another great way to optimize your blog is through keywords.  Integrating popular keywords in your blog gives you a competitive advantage.  Doing a keyword research will help you understand what your audience is searching for and what keywords they are using.  Another great way to optimize your blog is to optimize your blog template. Make sure your post title shows up on search engines in its entirety.  Also make sure you append you title.  The last way to optimize your blog is to update your blog regularly.  When you update your blog and make changes and add to it, search engines will index these new updates.

So what are the advantages to blog optimization?  First it increases your rankings on search engines, thus facilitating the SEO process.  Optimization also increases your visitors, increase website trafficking.  Essentially, when you optimize your blog, more people will see your blog and you can begin to build up an audience.  The more popular you become, and if you follow the six ways to optimizing your blog, you will be ranked very high on search engines.

Week 8 - MKTG 348 - Hubspot - Importance of Customer Delight

The final methodology in inbound marketing is delight.  It is very important to keep your existing customers happy.  Usually, companies are always looking to attract new customers, and they have their time and energy on these prospective customers.  This leaves the existing customers feeling left out.  The facts show that it is 6-7x more expensive to attract and obtain new customers then it is to keep existing customers.  Only 7% of customers say their customers service experience has been better than their expectations.

These stats show that there is a huge opportunity for companies.  These advantages are not only financial, but also consistency among customers and companies.  It is important to develop relationships with your customers.  Relationships help build trust, and trust is important to creating a great inbound experience.  Inbound experience is built by the people and it is made for the people.

Week 7 - MKTG 349 - Setting A Budget

After setting up your campaign, you need to set up a daily budget.  Base your budget off of your advertising goals and how much you are willing to spend.  The average cost-per-click (CPC) is 10 cents.  So if you are expecting 100 clicks each day, set your budget to $10 per day.  If you are more comfortable budgeting your campaign on a monthly basis, you can calculate how much you will spend per day by dividing your monthly budget by 30.4, the average amount of days in each month.

Now that you know the amount of money you are willing to spend. You need to understand that this budget only applies to one campaign.  You set your budget up through a few steps.  The first step is to click on the campaign tab.  Under this tab, click on the + and select the type of campaign you would like to run.  Under the select campaign setting, scroll down until you find "Budget" and enter your daily budget.  After selecting a daily budget, you are all set and your campaign is ready to run.

Week 7 - MKTG 348 - SEO - Traffic Analysis

Traffic analysis is the act of evaluating referrals from different search engines, which are based on the conversion of traffic keywords.  Visitor traffic analysis aids in optimizing the campaign in greater details in order to increase the return on investment.  There are many ways the visitor traffic analysis can be done.  Some of these parameters include: traffic on keywords, keywords and landing pages, whether the call to action was followed with conversion, qualified traffic, and converted traffic.

With regards to keywords and landing pages, you are trying to figure out which pages are attracting more pages than others and why are certain pages attracting more viewers than others.  With a call to action, marketers are looking to see that certain activities are being done on their sites.  Marketers need to make sure these activities are being done or not, and if they are not being done, why aren't they.  With converted traffic, the whole goal is conversion through sales.  It is crucial to track your sales.  Sales is everything when it comes to SEO and converting your website trafficking into sales.

Week 7 - MKTG 348 - Hubspot - Why The Conversion Process is So Critical

The conversion process is the second step in the inbound marketing methodology.  Conversion allows you to generate leads.  The conversion process turns unknown visitors into real people that you begin to know (a lead).  As a marketer, it is important to create conversion paths.  There are three steps that lead to a successful conversion path.  The first one is a call to action, the second is creating a landing page, and the third one is a thank you page.

How, as a marketer, do you convert the right visitor into leads?  The whole goal in the conversion process is to attract your buyer persona and guide them to the sale.  The best way to guide your buyer persona is through your conversion paths.  The buyers' journey, if you recall, is the awareness, consideration, and the decision.  For each stage in the buyers' journey, you need to have your conversion paths laid out.  By setting up a call to action, creating a landing page, and a thank you page for each step in the buyers' journey you will successfully turn visitors into the right leads.

Week 6 - MKTG 348 - Hubspot - Effectiveness of Email

While the common knowledge of email is that it is obsolete and "old school", the reality is that email is still relevant and growing.  Currently, there are 3.2 billion email accounts.  95% of online consumers use email, and 91% of those consumers check their email accounts at least once a day.  Ironically, email has a longer life span than social media.  In a poll taken, 77% of people prefer email for marketing communications.  And finally, email has a 4,300% return on investment.  76% of marketers say they use email more than they did three years ago.

So now that the numbers prove email is still relevant, how do you use it to help with your inbound marketing strategy.  Email actually works for every stage in the inbound marketing strategy.  Email can be used to attract new visitors, and attract those visitors into leads.  With those leads, you can nurture them into customers, and finally keep your customers happy so they in turn develop into promoters.

Week 6 - MKTG 349 - Successful Text Ads

In order to have successful text ads, you need to have specific, relevant, empowering, and attractive ads.  There are many ways to create successful text ads.  The first one being to highlight what makes you unique.  By pointing out what separates you from everyone else, you are showcasing why you are better than your competition.  You should also include prices, promotions, and exclusives that your are offering.  Another thing you should add to your text ad is to empower your audience.  If you are selling something tell the people what they can purchase.  If they have questions, show them who and how to contact people.

There are many other methods to creating successful advertising.  Including a keyword in your text ad shows relevance to the site and what the audience is looking for.  Appealing to mobile users is another great method that will result in successful text advertising.  Having an easily visible phone number and a location on the ad will cause intrigue.  And finally experimenting with three or four text ads is a great way to know what is and what isn't working.  After a few weeks of experimentation, you will know which keywords work and which ones do not.  From there, you can create one or two ads with the most successful keywords.

Week 6 - MKTG 348 - SEO - Bid Strategy

When it comes to setting up a bid strategy, there are many things to consider.  First, every PPC site basis their bids off of different merits.  Keywords or phrases may be more effective on certain PPC engines.  Depending on which PPC engine you choose, you need to have a distinct strategy for that specific engine.  All engines are all made up differently.  A perfect example of this is Google and Yahoo.  Google takes into consideration past performances and click through rates (CTR).  Yahoo, on the other hand, only takes into consideration how much you are bidding for each campaign.

If you are only concerned with getting the first position on search results, then bidding high on an engine like Yahoo is the way to go.  Offering expensive bids will almost certainly put you at the top.  If you are just trying to reach your target audience, selecting specific keywords that relate to your site will be effective.  While the traffic is less, the competition is not there, so when your target audience enters your keywords or phrases in the search query, your site will show up on the results page.  Another strategy that can be implemented is to bid slightly higher than your competition.  This is a great way to get ahead of your competition without going to the bank.  This strategy has proven to be effective when used properly.

Week 5 - MKTG 349 - Ad Reach

With ad reach, you have the ability to control what cities and states your ad will appear.  You can even compare the number of people who might see your ad in specific areas.  This comparison can help you determine if you even need to control where your ad should be seen and not seen.  To find your reach results, go to settings and click on locations, and from there you can see where your ad was seen.  This is a great way to see, geographically, who's looking at your ads and who is not.  By having this knowledge, you have the ability to shut it down in certain areas, need be.  This lead to a more efficient and effective ad campaign.

Reach is based on an estimation of the number of users seen on Google properties within your specified geographic region.  Reach numbers in adwords may differ in comparison from census population data or any others.  There are many factors that can cause this, including: number of devices being used, number of web browsers, number of temporary users, length of time, cookies, and the search partner or Google Display Network.  Because of these factors altering other data, reach should be used as a guidance tool, and not something that you should base your entire campaign off of.

Week 5 - MKTG 348 - SEO - Tracking Your PPC Campaign

A successful pay-per-click (PPC) campaign depends on optimization.  In order to optimize your PPC properly, you need all the data from your site and analyze it thoroughly.  Analyzing your data thoroughly will help you understand how you are performing on the World Wide Web.  There are many tools out there that will help you track your performance.  Google and Yahoo have great tools that are free to use.  There are a couple of other sites that are side-tracking tools.  These tools are Webside Story's Hitbox Professional or Hitbox Enterprise.  Hitbox allows you to accurately track all of your marketing campaigns with one system (SEO, PPC, organic, email campaigns, marketing campaigns, etc.).

The success of PPC relies on five elements: keyword selection, bidding, landing page, ad copy, and optimizing.  These five elements all go hand in hand.  So if one of these elements is implemented poorly, than the rest of your elements will be as well, leading to a failed PPC campaign.  There needs to be balance in these elements as well.  You cannot focus solely on three of these elements and forgot about the rest.  All need to have equal attention and focus in order to have a successful PPC campaign.

Week 5 - MKTG 348 - HubSpot - Creating Remarkable Content

Content is everything when it comes to attracting viewers to your website.  About 90% of successful SEO is content.  Without remarkable content your website is nothing.  Remarkable content is the solution to a problem.  By understanding the problem, you can come up with a solution.  Therefore, the solution is the remarkable content.  There are two keys in creating remarkable content.  The first key is the buyer persona.  The buyer persona is a fictitious representation of your target customer/audience for your website.  You must know who your buyer persona is in order to know what they are interested in.  If you do not know their interest, how will you create remarkable content?

The second key in creating remarkable content is the buyer's journey.  The buyer's journey is research a buyer goes through before making a purchase.  There are three stages in the buyer's journey: awareness, consideration, and decision.  Throughout the buyer's journey, your content needs to be educational in order to provide your audience with the knowledge they need.  Talk about a specific issue, the root of that problem, and finally, the opportunity at hand.  Content is often described as the honeypot.  It's job is to pull people from one stage of a methodology to the next stage.

Week 4 - MKTG 348 - SEO - Content

When it comes to successful SEO, the most crucial aspect is the content.  Having well-developed content makes your SEO that much better, and is usually the reason your site is successful.  Having good content does not just mean having simple text that is easy to read.  There are various factors that go into your site moving up the ranks of a search engine.  First you need original well written content that is of interest to your target audience.  It crucial that you have content that your audience wants and is looking for.  Without that, you have failed.  Content is everything when it comes to SEO.

Having content is great for SEO, but your content needs to be optimized.  There are four methods that you should take into consideration when optimizing your content: heading tags, special text, inline text links or anchor text, and keyword density.  Having these text and links makes your site more visible when search engines are crawling web pages.  It is important to have specific keywords and tags that your audience might search.  Having the correct keywords and tags will definitely move your site up the search ranks and make you more visible to your target audience.

Week 4 - MKTG 349 - Blending Placements and Keywords

Placements and keywords go hand in hand when it comes to determining where your ad will be seen on Display Networks, and the price you are willing to pay for them.  Editing keywords is exactly how it is displayed, you edit keywords based on what you want.  The placements are determined on how much you bid.  So basically what you are doing with placements and keywords are determining what keywords will trigger your ad, and determining the price of the bid, strengthens your ad placement.

There are other ways to enhance your placements besides increasing your bidding.  You can use a tool called placement targeting.  Placement targeting helps you promote your brand by strategically placing your ad on specific websites or group sites on the Display Network.

AdWords uses a tool called contextual targeting, which is used to find pages in the Display Network with content specific to your keywords.  Contextual targeting is the tool to use when you want to combine optimal keywords and placement targeting.  Contextual targeting refines the targeting of your ads.  This method is great when you are targeting a wide range of content.

Week 4 - MKTG 348 - HubSpot - Social Media And Its Importance On Inbound Marketing

Social Media is perhaps the biggest factor when it comes to effective inbound marketing.  Just about everyone uses some sort of Social Media, and the numbers prove it.  Studies also prove that being active on Social Media improves your marketing strategy.  The first big stat to look at is comparing Facebook and Google.  Users spend 4x more time on Facebook then they do Google.  So while Google is great and is a very powerful too, it may not help with your marketing strategy.  If you are trying to attract viewers, Social Media is the way to do it.  74% of marketers saw an increase in traffic after spending only six hours per week on Social Media.

Statistics prove that Social Media also turns these views into leads.  Social Media just be used in a three step process: obtain viewers, garner leads, and turn those leads into customers.  This three step methodology has proved successful.  When it comes to Facebook, 52% of channel users acquired a customer.  LinkedIn and Company Blog 43% of their users acquired at least one customer.  And when it comes to Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest, 36%, 15%, and 9% of their users acquired a customer, respectively.

Social Media is the new way of doing "business".  Before, in order to gain new leads, salespeople would go out and make cold calls, and many other traditional strategies, in hopes to garner some interest from prospective customers.  If and when they got some interest, they would turn them into leads, and from there do their best to keep these customers happy, and in the loop of what is going on with the company, and other interesting facts and tidbits.  Now with the development of Social Media, you can do all three of these things on Social Media.  It is quicker, cheaper, and more effective.  Once you have your new customers, it is very easy to keep in touch with them without annoying them.  By liking their post or retweeting their tweet, you are showing them your appreciation, and maintaining a solid relationship with them. 

Week 3 - MKTG 349 - Picking The Right Campaign Type

During the set-up process of your campaign, Google asks you to pick a campaign type and a sub-type.  There are three types of campaigns: search network only, display network only, and search network with display select.  These three types of campaigns determine where your ads appear.  The search network only and display network only are Google's main advertising networks.  The search network with display connect is a combination of both networks.  On the search network, ads can be seen on Google searches, shopping, Google maps, groups, and any other Google partner such as AOL.  On display network, ads can be see on websites that show relevant Google ads, videos, apps, basically everywhere.

The search network only campaign works by matching search results page based on words or phrases a person puts in the search engine.  For example, if someone were to search for a new car, a car dealership's ad would show up.  The display network only works by matching your search results to websites and other "non Google" sites.  You also have the ability to narrow in on specific websites, pages, and topics.  If you were to go with the search network with display select, your budget will affect both campaigns and it will have a shared function of both the network and display campaigns.

When it comes to choosing the type of campaign, typically the network only campaign is used for people who want their ads to appear on Google search results, and you are just trying to reach customers looking for your product or service.  The display network is typically used among experienced adword users.  The display network only campaign is designed to reach customers just casually browsing the Internet.  The combination of the network with display select campaign is typically used among beginners.  It is intended for people who want to advertise on Google, but also branch out to other customers who are surfing the web.

Week 3 - MKTG 348 - Search Engine Types and How They Work

When searching for something on Google or Yahoo!, how do they come up with their list of results?  Search engines rank their results based on what a user typed in the search bar.  When it comes to ranking results, there are two categories: crawler based and human powered based.  Web crawling is a program that scans the entire web to come up with webpages for your results.  They do this by evaluating each web page and comparing it to your search.  Crawling takes into account keywords, titles, body pages, etc.  Human powered directories works by humans putting in a description of their site to the search engine.  Say a small company has a website they just created, a worker can create their own description of their site, which the directory will use when a search is being conducted.


Web crawling is more commonly used, especially in the bigger search engines like a Google.  Crawling is made up of three processes: crawl the web, index pages, and search engine software to bring it on home to the users.  Indexing takes place right after the crawling process.  An index is a copy of a web page that is in a database.  Once the web page is indexed, it can be seen in search results.  What is really neat about the index is that if a web page is changed, the indexed page is automatically updated.  The last step in a crawler based search is the search engine itself.  The search engine takes all the indexed pages it received and picks the relevant content that closely matches the search.  The search engine basically picks out the content it believes matches the search and ranks them based on their perceived strength of correlation.

Week 3 - MKTG 348 - Keeping Your Blog Post Consistent With Your Agenda

When it comes to blog posts, it is imperative that you stay on the same subject for the entire post.  You cannot drift off into another subject; save that subject for another post.  There are many reasons to focus on one topic.  One of those reasons is to keep the readers' attention.  If you drift off into another topic, the reader may not enjoy that topic, and will stop leaving.  Another reason to stick to one topic per post is to increase your SEO.

SEO is crucial when it comes to blogs.  Creating solid keywords and meta descriptions will increase your chances of being found on search results.  With regards to SEO, there are five practices that should be implemented when blogging.  The first practice is the keywords.  Your keywords should include your title and any other descriptions of your topic you see fit.  Keywords only allow 55 characters so choose your topics wisely to give you the best chance of being seen.  The second is meta description.  Meta description is your last opportunity to draw in the viewers.  It is 140 characters of your selling your blog to someone.  The description needs to be on the same page as your blog and entice your viewers to click on your link and read your blog.  Another good practice in blogging is to add a picture.  Adding pictures gives your posts eye candy, and it breaks up the reading for your audience.  The picture should be consistent with your topic.  The last two are links and anchor texts and focusing on mobile optimization.  Focusing on mobile optimization allows people to view your blog anywhere on any kind of device.

Week 2 - MKTG 349 - Organizing Campaigns and Ads

In AdWords, there is a three-layer design.  These layers consist of: account, campaign, and ad groups.  In regards to the account, it is associated with an email address, a password, and a billing address.  With campaigns, that has its own budget and settings which the user determines and thus, determines where and when your ad will appear.  The last layer consists of ad groups.  Ad groups include similar ads all bunched together with similar keywords.


The reason people should organize their ads is so other users can easily find that ad.  When bundling your campaigns together, you increase your chances of being seen, and having your ad be clicked on.  These collections of ads is known as the campaign and your campaign ultimately controls your ad groups.  Your campaign controls how much you are willing to spend on clicks/ads, where you want to show your ads, and other settings which alter your ad groups.  The campaigns are structured like so:

Week 2 - MKTG 348 - Website Optimization

This week in class, we watched a video on website optimization.  There are two ways you can optimize a website.  The first method is having a goal in mind and how you want to accomplish this goal.  The second method, and the one that I will go into detail with is understanding web crawling.  Web crawling is a method that browses the entire World Wide Web in order to create a list of search results after entering a search keyword.  Web crawling is a very important aspect in website optimization.  In regard to your own website and making it easy to crawl and understand, there are three methods: design, content/keywords, and formatting the content.  The stronger these three methods are, the stronger your site is and the easier it is to crawl and be towards the top of search results.  In regards to design, hubspot says to focus on cognitive fluency.  All cognitive fluency means is how easy something be processed.  If I were to search for something specific, say red SUVs, I get websites that are selling red SUVs.

The second method to understanding web crawling is content.  When discussing content, the topic of the site falls under this category as well as the description and keywords you include.  You want your site's content to relate to searchers' search results.  The stronger the correlation between your content and the users' search, the better the chance the user will see your website.

The final method to better understanding web crawling is content formatting.  When it comes to formatting your content, you want to include different fonts, with headings and sub-headings.  Your content should also include pictures as eye candy to your viewers, and include short sentences and paragraphs; nothing to long as you do not want to bore your viewers.

Week 1 - MKTG 348 - Inbound Marketing

In class on Thursday, we watched videos on inbound marketing.  The videos were very interesting.  They discussed the differences between traditional marketing and inbound marketing, and how inbound marketing is becoming the new trend.  Inbound marketing is designed to attract consumers, without interrupting them.  Traditional media does just that; they try and set up videos on websites that annoy its viewers and could turn them away from these websites.  Inbound marketing does the complete opposite by setting up a target market, and generating awareness without annoying its target market.

These videos on hubspot were very informative, and give a new twist on marketing.  Up until now, I have really only studied traditional marketing.  This site will help expand my marketing background and gain a better understanding in the field.  Having an expanded background in marketing will help me get a job in the future and succeed.  Hubspot, so far, has really got me thinking into the whole "marketing world", and what could be with all these new strategies like inbound marketing.  Things such as: how effective is it, will it become more effective, and what other strategies will come from inbound marketing.

Week 1 - MKTG 349 - AdWords

Today in class we got an overview of Google's AdWords and how it works.  AdWords is a very powerful tool that allows users to market themselves, their company, and/or a product or service they may have.  AdWords work by offering users the opportunity to advertise through Google's search engine as well as their partnering companies.  This powerful tool seems to be the future of marketing, and falls under the concept of inbound marketing, which is something that I learned in my Marketing 348 class.  The idea behind inbound marketing is to create awareness without interrupting any sort of medium.  For example, when you go on YouTube to watch a video, you typically have to sit through an advertisement before you can watch the video you wanted to see in the first place.  That sort of obnoxious advertising is traditional marketing.

Going back to my Marketing 348 class, there are two types of marketing: Traditional and Inbound.  Both my Marketing 348 and 349 classes seem to focus on Inbound Marketing.  After reading getting an introduction to Adwords and reading through some of the AdWords introductory links, I can really see a parallel between inbound marketing and the AdWords.  The whole idea behind AdWords is to create awareness without creating a nuisance.  AdWords is a great investment for people and businesses looking to create awareness.  I say its an investment because you do have to put money into AdWords.

AdWords charges account users per click, meaning for every time another user sees your ad, and clicks on the link, you get charged a certain amount of money that was previously determined by the account user.  AdWords tracks many other metrics besides clicks, one in particular is CTR, or click through rate.  Click through rate is the tracking of how many people not only saw your ad, but how many actually clicked on the link to view the website.  You can view the CTR through specific keywords, ad groups, and the entire campaign as a whole.  According to the AdWords introductory website a good CTR rate is 1% or higher.