Week 13 - Post 12 - Ranking, Link Building & Google Analytics

 This was an interesting but frustrating week. Luckily, I was confused early and finished up the week interested. All in all, I’m still not certain I understand link building. I mean, I get the concept and purpose, but I’m not sure the details and technical solutions are locked into my head yet. I found several good articles on Yoast and Moz so I’ll need to go back and review them. Also, I love the website auditing tool we used to check the SEO for landing pages. I've got that book marked for future use.

The most interesting part of the week were the Google Analytics exercises and quiz. If there has been a frustration in this class for me, it’s that all of the videos are from 2017. Google Ads and Analytics have both progressed and updated since then. If you get stuck, the videos aren’t very helpful (more in Google Ads than in Google Analytics). I spent more time on up to date support sites and Reddit boards than in the instructional materials. 

I wish I’d know the final project was going to be a video though. It’s not like a quality 3 minute video is easy to put together, I would have started preparing a couple weeks ago but the assignment was locked until recently.

Overall, this has been a great final couple of weeks. Google Analytics is very interesting - I wish we’d spent more time with it. It feels like we should only be halfway through the class, not in the last week.

One more week!

Week 12 - Post 11 - Social Media for SEO & Social Networking

 This week has been pretty interesting over all. I’ve become a believer that Social media marketing, in some industries, is more effective than Google. I feel this way for two reasons. 

First, social marketing platforms like Facebook provide targeted Ad placement based on interests, not direct searches. For example - let's say someone is interested in building PCs. They interact with posts about PC builds and comment on posts about it, but they aren’t actually ready to pull the trigger yet. They’ll still see my Ads because Facebook will present them. Will that inspire them to browse? Perhaps. In this case Facebook is more proactive than Google.

Second, Social media platforms provide a captive audience for businesses. People go to Google to look for things. They go to social media to hang out and spend much more time than on Google's search page. This is another important metric. It means that the odds a potential customer will see my ad multiple times increases because they are engaged with the page (and content) more often and for longer periods of time.

Google is a great tool, but it is pretty dependent on a specific action (searching) by a customer. Social media marketing (especially YouTube - which we haven’t really talked about in this course) is more natural and less dependent on specific actions from a customer. 

If I were to create a new business (especially web based sales or affiliate marketing) I’d start with Facebook and Instagram and then consider Google as a second option.

Week 11 - Post 10 - Page Optimization and SEO

 When I look at my current web page in the light of page optimization and SEO, two things come to mind. First, my web page isn’t hurting me for my current business model. Second, my web page stinks for the business model I want to move too. With that said, I’ve been doing some serious upgrades with several more to come. 

First, I do have several good things happening on my site. I have a listing of current projects and testimonials from former clients. I also have a current generation design that loads fast and clearly illustrates what industries we are in. The site also looks just as good on mobile as it does on desktop.

However, to optimize the site for SEO and improve my landing pages, I’ve made several corrections with more to come. First, I’ve broken out the services performed menu to three distinct sub pages and made sure my keywords and Ads are specific to those three pages. Also, my page titles weren’t bad before, but they are stronger and more clear now. The pictures and graphics on my site will be next. I need to make them actionable and have Alt text or captions for each that lead to a call to action.

Some of these changes are done, with others one the way. One reason I can’t do it all right now is because I’m not the sole owner and needed to consult with my partner about expanding our services provided.  He agrees but wants to talk through a couple of things first. That conversation is happening Sunday night. Also, I plan on moving the site to a WordPress solution so I have a little more control over site behavior and more template options to work with. Wix is great, but I’d like something a little more polished. Finally, I need to get the site into better shape before I start a full blown advertising campaign after this class is over. 

The first few weeks of this class were a little slow, but these last few weeks have been really great for getting into how to market a business on the internet. It’s been a great class so far.

Week 10 - Post 9 - ROI and Ad Optimization

This was an interesting week because I had an issue with Google Ads that I didn’t expect. Right beforeI turned on my campaign, Chrome froze up on me. It happens sometimes, but I didn’t recognize it was happening and , somehow, I moved my Ad group and Campaign status to “Removed”. 

I’m still a novice at Google Ads, so when I got my session backup and logged in, I suddenly couldn’t see anything in my campaign dashboard. I could see Keywords in the planner, but don’t from the required screen. It took me a few minutes to figure out what I’d done. Then the panic set in. But, a testament to this class is that we’ve been in and out of Google Ads so much that I was able to quickly recreate my campaign from scratch. Luckily, I take screenshots and Text backups of every school project I do. 20 years in IT develop those kinds of habits. 

Anyway, I was able to rebuild my campaign in just a few minutes by making the same selections, pasting in my keywords, creating the Ad group, and then the Ads, and then starting the campaign.

So - ROI and Ad Optimization. Since I’m using Google Ads with my company website - I think my numbers will be fairly low. Just because what I do isn’t a high demand service. But I still plan on using these skills in more ways in the coming years. My wife and I are putting together a plan to start an affiliate marketing site together and following the process laid out by the class. 

I also think I’ll be tweaking my keywords and writing more Ads in the next week (#11). My current Ad is average at best and I did some snooping on competitors (who don’t have any Google Ads that I can find) and noticed what keywords led me to their sites. So, I have some ideas on what to improve.

I didn’t realize the Ads campaign would only run for 2-3 weeks. I would have expected it to run longer, but there is a cost associated with it, so I understand. I just hope I can get enough traffic to make the exercise meaningful.

Week 9 - Post 8 - Quality Score and future plans

 At the beginning of the week, I was worried about how I would be able to pass this class. I had struggles with affiliate marketing and Google Ads. However, after appealing to Bro. Luke and reassessing my plan, this class is really coming together. No, I won’t be starting keyboardkingdom.store, which is a little disappointing. But I am going to improve my current company’s web site  and learn the skills I need to develop an affiliate and drop shipping company during 2022. Very exciting!

At first, I wasn’t sure I saw the value in a Google Ads quality score. It seemed like “easy mode”, but I think I misunderstood it. The key is to understand the components of the quality score and to make sure I’m optimizing at the component level. There’s no quick fix and, to be honest, why would I want one. Focusing on keyword relevance, and consistency of message is important when trying to gain customers. It will be especially important in an affiliate marketing and drop shipping scenario.

I still have some catching up to do though. The CritTech website needs to be updated and I need to improve my Ads. I’ll probably have three Ads when it’s all said and done. But I need to call out “Owner’s Engineer” and  “Prudency Reviews” as separate items. In my industry, that would confuse people and we provide both services, but not to the same clients.

I’m glad I’ll be able to use Critical Technologies Consulting as the business for this class. It adds a sense of real value to it for me that didn’t exist when I was planning a 4 week company.

Week 9 - Post 7 - Ads and the proper order of things

 I’m getting the hang of Ads with help from YouTube and the Google help section. The school materials are outdated so they aren’t a great deal of help when navigating the application. Unfortunately I’ve got a significant issue with Google Ads. Early this week, my Google Ads account was suspended for violating the counterfeit goods policy. I had to submit an appeal, plead ignorant to the policy and explain that I am attempting to set up an affiliate marketing program.

Since I haven’t received my agreement for affiliate marketing with Logitech yet from Impact, Google said I will remain suspended until I get it and re apply. In other words… I’m stuck waiting on Impact. I submitted a request for an update on the status of my application, but was given a 10 day window for their response, which extends into next Thursday. In other words…. I’m stuck for a bit.

For the sake of the class, I may have to drop everything and start over, which is ok because I know what I’d do if I needed to put things together all over again, but I really wanted to get this affiliate marketing plan developed because I have plans to actually create an affiliate marketing site in the future. It seems the right way to do it is to set up a website, start by reviewing products and build a social media following, and then deploy the affiliate Marketing cookies to the site.

Anyway - Google Ads was becoming more familiar and I was getting the concept and ideas around how to use it before everything went sideways. I still think I’d be a bit more successful by using Facebook and Instagram as the primary marketing strategy, but I think that’s just because of the nature of the products I’m choosing to market and my own personal shopping habits.

W7 - Post 6 - Google Ads

 This week has been all about creating the Google Ads plan for the next few weeks. I can’t say I’m looking forward to this part of the class, but only because I wish we weren’t rushing. This part of the class - web marketing - is what I’ve been looking forward to! 

I do wish we could replace some of the sections of this class with more relevant material. I’m getting my certificate in entrepreneurialism and this is the third time I've had to start a 4 week business for a class.  Why not try something new? Start a blog and use social media marketing to promote it? I think there are a lot of opportunities we’re missing by focusing on Google, and not on effective social media platforms like Twitter, TikTok, FaceBook, and Instagram. The algorithms used by those platforms are designed around identifying interests and pushing ads even when the potential clients aren’t actively shopping.  

Anyway, the Google Ads platform is a good way to advertise, provided your prospective clients are searching for products in Google or YouTube. The idea of keyword groups seems a little heavy if you’re only running one business, I can really see the value of those groups if you’re offering multiple product lines, etc. But I'm interested to learn more about them and how to use them effectively. I also want to see how Google's process is different from other web marketing platforms. I love that I’m going through this at Christmas time too.

I still haven’t heard anything back from Logitech on my affiliate marketing application and it’s been a few weeks. Every time I go to the Impact site, it says my application is still under review. If I have to change over to an advertising model and grab customers by writing reviews, I am capable of doing it, but I’m worried I won’t have the time.

On to week 8!