Ranking, Link Building & Google Analytics

This journey has come to an end and what great experience was it.

As our last assignment, we went through Google Analytics and all its data.
It was really amazing to see how much information Google can gather from all over the world.

I understood that, if I would like to make a market investigation, Google Analytics, it is a great tool with which I could start my research.

The fundamental parts of all the skills I learn during this semester are condensed in a word: Strategy!

Like for one of these lasts assignments, we had to plan our "Link Building Strategy".
As every good strategy, there are some questions that could help us set the best plan:

• Who?
• When?
• What?
• How?
• Where will the links be gathered?

A good plan, not only life will be easier, but the business will be busted and the result will come easily.

Of course, this doesn't mean that it will be like a piece of cake, but, when we know what is the best thing to do it, all our efforts will be focused on that and we will achieve our goals.

Social Media for SEO & Social Networking

As I wrote in the pasts pots, this class had thought me so much.

This week I had the opportunity to see things from another point of view.

One video, among all the other videos and reading I had to study for this week, caught my attention.
In this video, the girl went through several rules everyone how want to really take advantage of media, as to follow.

One point, in particular, made me ponder on what I am really doing.
She was speaking about our customers and she teaching about the need to know them, not only their age or gender, but she emphasized the importance to understand where they like to hang out, what kind of food they like, and so on.

Most of these aspects probably will be not correlated to our field, but, in order to better understand needs and to be able to offer the items/service they will buy, we must know them as we know our friends. 

Landing Page Optimization & Basic SEO

One of my favorite taglines is from Oscar De La Hoya: “There is always space for improvement, no matter how long you’ve been in the business.”

To me, this quote isn't only related to the business field, but it can be applied in every aspect of our lives: sport, arts, social relationships and so on.

As this class approaches the end, I am still trying to improve what I create at 10 weeks ago.

This made me reflect on the importance of everyday strive to perfection.
Don't prove me wrong, I do not wish to be presumptuous, but I think that, if I wont to achieve the best result, I have to do my best and always find a way to improve what I am doing.

I know perfection isn't something that belongs to this world, but, I feel that if I don't try to achieve it, the result would be mediocre.

For this reason, this week we found other ways to improve our web site, studying tips and follows suggestions from experts.

ROI & Optimizing Ad Performance

Like I wrote in response to one of my classmate, to be honest, at the beginning of this semester I thought that this class would be a piece of cake, but, more I go deep in this class, more I humble my self and I realize that little things are the ones that count the most.

This time, I had to go through all my keywords.
I learned that a little change of a word can help me become more visible to viewers because I can better match users' needs.

Thanks to that, I received my first contact information. Not sure this will lead to something, but it helped me understand the importance of the little things, even in this kind of business.

Also, when you have too many keywords that are not useful to your business, but they are still used to google to show your ads, you are wasting money. So, the process of improving the ads is something that must be done at least weekly.

Relevance & Quality Score

Google Analytics: what a great tool!

Next week I will be starting my Google campaign, and this week I had the opportunity to improve my Adds.

In order to get the maximum from my investment, I studied how fundamentals are Relevance and Quality Score.

The Add I created to receive a Quality Score based on the keywords I chose.

This result helps me understand if there are some potential problem I have to look at and fixed, in order to take advantage of the Add I created.

Many are the factors that influence the score, so, the result is just a signal that I should change something.
Sometimes the result will depend only on the words I used on my add.
Others, the issue could be the users’ experiences on my leading page.

If this page doesn’t exactly reflect the add the user clicked on, I will receive bad feedback.

Every tool is useful to improve my add and get more viewers on my page.

Ads

More I go into the course, and more I understand the importance of a good planning strategy.

 

At first, I thought it was easy to create an advertising to promote my website and the items viewers can find in it. But so many are the information I would like to share and so few the character I can use, that sometimes I believe what I write will be not enough to cut their attention.

 

Thank Google and its tools I started to use last week, life is e a little bit easier.
Of course, the character I can use are still few, but I already know what keywords are more efficient for my business.

 

In addition to that, Google gives its users to create 3 different versions of the same ad. Doing that I can see, based on the keyword’s indicators, which version will cut more viewers while they are doing their research.

Google Ads & Keywords

Finally I understood how it is possible to have your website showing at the first place, while you search something on google.

Before I had the chance to start a Google Ads Camping, I knew I could use Google to make my website more visible, but I didn't have idea how it works.

Keywords are the key!

Google Ads is really a powerful tool. It combain so many datas that, when you enter a word or phrase inherent to your website, Google tells you how much that words/phrase is relevant.
So, you can link to your website as many words/phrases you want, but you must choose the ones are related to what is your website about. otherwise you will make the users only confused if they search for dessert recipe and find your web site how sells clothing.

Of course, everything has a cost, but, even in this aspects, Google is a powerful tool because it gives you the opportunity to set a budget plan, with which you decide how much you are willing to spend for that campaign.

Legal Structure

In the last assignment I discover how complicated can be to deal with laws, especially when you try to be as simple as possible.

I had the opportunity to learn more about legal issues in US, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that, even in America, create a small business isn’t not the easiest things to do.

In Italy, where I leave, open a little business isn’t cheap at all, even if you are not going to make any money.

So, because I am not under American laws, I had to pay attention to the Italian ones.

I wasn’t willing to pay any money to the Government for something that, probably, it will end in 8 weeks.

I searched between the different options, and I found out about affiliation.

This particularly from of business doesn’t require you to open any kind of Company, speaking only about Italy.
Amazon has a great affiliation program. So, I decide to create a web site, where all the items I mentioned and posted are linked to a page in Amazon.it, where the viewer will be able to buy the good they looked on my website.

Site Design

As I try to create an appealing website, I understand I can be a little picky sometimes.

This week we worked on the design of our websites.

It was really interesting to search for inspiration and, find website that works. Because internet is full of website, find some good examples could take a long time, or more if you are picky.

Something I learned is that I must find my way. This mean that I cannot take simply a template and change what is write in the paragraphs and titles.

A website how works, is successful not only because it has a good design, but also because the structure, colors, menu and pages are created based on customers. They need to be able to find what they are searching for, without spending a long time.

Some pages a website must have are:

1. Home page

2. Contact us

3. Pages about the items or services they are selling

Also, they could have:

4. FAQ’s

5. About us (a presentation of the web site, can be included on the home page)

There are also other many pages we could insert in a web site, as long as they are going to be helpful and not too much.

Site Builder & Hosting

This was one of that week in which you understand that if you thought you already know a good part of the subject, you was wrong.

Since I began this course, I decided that I was going to do my best to take the maximum out of the teachings, tips and advices I would had received.
Finally I discovered that, more research I make, more ideas, information and possibilities came to my mind.

At one point I had to much information and I couldn't make a decision

So, I had to go back and understand what was my purpose with this assignment.

Our goals form this week was:

1) Choose a site builder

2) Choose a Host


Once I have a look at the different site builder, I choose Wix.com because its many options and cost.

About the Host, I believe that Aruba.it is the best because the basic options' package included in the subscription.

Probably, if I was good at coding or on using Dreamweaver, I was going to build a web site and host it on Aruba.

Affiliate or Drop Shipping?

This was an interesting week: I had the chance to learn something I believe to know already.

This week, in my assignments for Web Business class, I had to search, understand and finally choose the best solution from Drop Shipping or Affiliation for my business.

After several research (there are an infinitive number of Company that offers you this kind of solutions) I decided to affiliate my business to Amazon.

What does it mean? It means that, on my website, when I will create some outfit, I can add a link to Amazon, directly on the page where my customers can buy the pant, shoes, shirt and or whatever items I putted on.

Every time someone will click on the link that goes directly to the website where the customer will buy something, I will receive a percentage on the transition.

By the way, I believe that, if I had more money to invest in the business, would be more advantageous to go for a Drop Shipping. This because, if I can buy goods from wholesalers, I will have more profit selling them directly from my website.

MKT_250 - Week 02:Reflection

This semester I chose to follow the MKT 250 "Web Business Creation" from BYU-I Online courses,

Before to start the semester I thought this class was going to be an easy one and I will pass it without any kind of problems.

This semester I discovered I had overestimated my skills or I maybe didn't take seriously this class, because is 3h30 in the morning and I have little more than 4 hours to finish the assignment.

For this class, we had to create our own business. During this week we had the opportunity to face a situation where we had to take some decision about our new business.