W13 Reflection: Ranking, Link Building & Google Analytics

I never realized how much work and effort can go into making a website pop up in search results on Google. After the last few weeks, and seeing how much thought and effort can be required to help my content show up when people search for those keywords, I am learning to appreciate how complicated it can be to have a web business. Since I already have another web business, I was able to add the Google Analytics tracking tag to the website and starting tracking the data associated with my website visitors and what keywords offer the most conversions. I can see how it would be helpful to remove keywords for which I never receive conversions, because people are obviously searching for something different than what I offer when they use those specific keywords. I know that starting this new web business and learning to understand the data I am tracking is mostly about time and patience, but I sometimes wish I could just push the fast forward button to make things go a little more quickly.

W12 Reflection: Social Media for SEO & Social Networking

While the focus this week was all about social media and search engine optimization, what I learned about the most this week is balance. My kids are on spring break from school this week, so I had to manage my time a little more carefully so that I could accomplish all of my school work, but still spend quality time with them. I'm afraid I didn't do as well at it as I could have and tended to get frustrated with them, especially when they would start to argue and complain. I have another opportunity next week to do a little better, though. I need to remember that even though I'm working toward earning my degree while managing my own business, my main job is being a mother, and that means making time to make memories with my kids. I only have them at home for a few short years, and I need to make the most of that time. It won't hurt if I put a pause on my school work to play a game with them or take them to the park. I need to work on saying "Yes" more rather than always putting it off until later.

W11 Reflection: Landing Page Optimization & Basic SEO

One of the most important things I discovered this week was that I hadn't properly set up my Google Tag Manager. I didn't realize that you had to hit the publish button to make all your tracking tags go live, so I hadn't actually been tracking my conversion data. I got that figured out and things are finally working properly there. It was so interesting to learn about search engine optimization and how to make your website do better in searches. I need to work on getting all my pictures set up with alternate text and descriptions that include the most important keywords. That way, when people pin or share my images, the keywords will be included and will eventually lead people back to my site. I also finally had my first two email subscribers today, so that was kind of exciting. I am planning to get a couple more posts published in the next few days, so hopefully the variety of content will help to attract more visitors to my site.

W10 Reflection: ROI & Optimizing Ad Performance

This was an exciting week because I finally launched my Google Ads campaign and started getting some actual clicks from the ads I've created. While I do think this is a valuable learning experience, I think that launching a campaign a few months from now may be a better business move simply because I have such limited content available on my blog website. I need to create more content so that people can come to my site and stay awhile to browse. Right now there just isn't much content for browsing, so people may feel let down by what they see. I do think that the content I've already created has great value, and if people are specifically looking for a knitted hat pattern, or a tutorial to create a Disney autograph book, then they will be happy with what they find. I have so many great ideas for things to add, and I just need more time to be able to create the posts and set everything up. It's all coming along nicely and I think this could become a decent business, in time.

W09 Reflection: Relevance & Quality Score

This week, as I learned about Google Analytics, I realized what a great resource it will be for my website. Learning more about the people who visit my site, which pages they navigate to, and how long they stay, will help me to improve my content offerings, tailor my posts to fit more with the needs of my target demographic, and make my business better. I am excited about the capability to track file downloads, subscriptions, and clicks on affiliate links, because those are the metrics that will show whether my target market are actually interested in what I am sharing. I realize that it may take some time to build a following, and it will probably be best to let it grow naturally and as I have more content available for browsing. Integrating analytics and google ads into my site was surprisingly easy, and I hope that using them successfully will be just as easy.

W08 Reflection: Ads

I am so excited to be learning more about Google Ads and how to create successful ad campaigns. It seems like it will be a useful skill for building a business and getting a little more exposure and website visitors. I anticipate that one of the major challenges will be understanding my target market enough that I can anticipate what keywords and search phrases they will be most likely to use when searching for the kind of content that I offer. It might be helpful to talk to people who fit my target market and ask them what kinds of words they would use to try to find the content on my blog, and then I could use their answers as keywords in my ad. I also think that it will be something that I tweak as I learn more and figure out what is successful and what isn't. I am interested to figure out more about the negative keywords, as well, since those could also help filter out the people who may not be looking for exactly what I offer.

W07 Reflection: Google Ads & Keywords

One of the main things I learned during this lesson is how little I know about keywords and search engine optimization. I think it might be fairly challenging to find the right keywords and phrases to generation traffic to my site that will be reaching the right audience. I'm still not totally sure whether I should be directing people to my blog homepage with general keywords related to the overall content of my site, or to specific posts with more detailed keywords that are relevant just to that specific post. Perhaps having a mix would be helpful, but I need to learn more about how the ads will work and which method would be more beneficial. It will be a learning process to find out what kinds of posts appeal most and generate clicks from my target audience. I have lots of neat ideas that I want to share, but if no one is interested in reading them, then it isn't really worth the investment of time to create the content.

W06 Reflection: Legal Structure

Learning about legal structure this week was very interesting. I was amazed at the complexity of certain business structures, and that was just for my own state of Idaho. I'm sure other states may have even more complex rules and regulations for certain types of businesses. An online affiliate marketing business is pretty straightforward and uncomplicated, since I won't actually be selling and shipping products myself. For businesses that do sell a product or service, they would have to get set up for charging sales tax and then paying that sales tax to the state. All business owners have to pay income tax on their earnings, though the method can vary greatly depending on whether you are a sole proprietory, LLC, or corporation. I really appreciate the discussion boards to read the points of view of other students. Most of the time, I haven't thought of every idea and angle, so it's helpful to discuss our ideas and learn together. I can also see this type of learning as a benefit to having a business partner or board of directors.

W05 Reflection: Site Design

This week I researched a bit about website design and checked out a couple of my favorite blogs to look at similarities, what appeals to me, and how they use photos, links, and social media. I seem to be drawn toward sites with a simple background, usually white, with prominent, clear, and attractive photography. I like pops of color with a cohesive theme, so everything seems to coordinate and compliment each other. I want to employ those ideas into my own website. For this project, I will probably include a homepage that has an introduction with a photo, a blog page to display posts, a shop, and a contact page. In the future, I wonder if it would be better for the reader to land first on the blog post page and be able to navigate to whichever page they want, or just to read the most recent posts. Having the menu at the top seems like the best place, and including a search bar is also a useful tool. I am still figuring out how to best integrate affiliate links and want to research more about what kinds of things I can promote.

W04 Reflection: Site Builder & Hosting

This week I chose to use Bluehost as the host for my website. The purchase price was a little bit higher than I expected because I didn't want to pay for 2 or 3 years at a time, and so the monthly price was a little bit higher. It included a domain name and integrates well with Wordpress.org. I've spent quite a bit of time over the last couple of days building my website, including a little bit of branding and design. I haven't found the templates extremely easy to work with, though it could be because everything is just so new to me. I will take more time to play around with it and explore the capabilities of the site. I've already signed up to be an affiliate with Amazon and I'm trying to decide whether I should also get another affiliate. I'm excited to learn more about how to make an online business successful and I hope to learn a lot of new techniques.

W03 Reflection: Sourcing the Product

My eyes were really opened to the various business opportunities this week. Being introduced to the idea of drop shipping made me realize how vast the world of business really is. I have several ideas for things that might do well in a drop shipping business, though I haven't decided whether that is the route I will go for my online business this semester. I also learned a lot about affiliate marketing, which I've been kind of leaning toward for my online business. I think, if done well, affiliate marketing could be very effective, especially for monetizing a blog with great content. I have so many ideas for posts I could create for a blog and how to create affiliate links for it. I do think that it may take longer to realize great profits from affiliate marketing, but it seems like it could be something that might snowball and eventually do very well. I’ll just have to put in the work and effort to make it successful.

W02 Reflection: Choosing a Business

I am so excited about everything I'm going to learn in my Web Business Creation class this semester! My mind has been racing with a couple of different options for online business opportunities that I could pursue, and the tools I've discovered this week will be so helpful it my future endeavors. The keyword planner through GoogleAds seems like it will be a fantastic resource. I also love reading the posts of my classmates on the discussion boards because it shows me how much I can learn from having mentors from different backgrounds and interest. Their perspective can be so different from mine, and we can each be correct.
This week I also found out that I can use my existing online business as my advanced internship, rather than needing to go out and find an internship outside my home. I am so excited to use an internship to build my business and branch out into areas of marketing, product design and development, and further building my brand. I believe that the concepts I learn in this class will be a valuable base for launching into my internship in a future semester. And that is what I feel is most important, using these classes to apply the concepts to my real life, and building a better business.