Week 13 Reflection

I cannot believe it is week 13.  Every week it seems there is so much to learn and it is fascinating all that there is still to know and find out behind a web business.  This week as we dived further into Google Analytics, I was excited to get to understand more behind the data.  I had looked into my own account over the past few weeks, but had not gotten to understand very much.  So this week I was very appreciative of this assignment. 
The first part of the week as we logged onto WooRank to see our scores, I was excited to see my score in the 50's and only a handful of red marks to work on improving.  Now for the work on each of those items to increase my WooRank score before next week. 
This class has really increased my knowledge and understanding of running an online business.  It is definitely more work than I had originally thought.  However, it also can be quite fun.  And I loved learning more and more each week to help me be a better business owner.  Or even just a blog owner without making money, I know many of the things I learned this semester will be put to great use. 

Week 12 Reflection

As the semester is dwindling down, the learning continues.  This week I continued to track my progression through Google Ads.  I was amazed at the increase in impressions, clicks and click through rates due to small changes I would make.  Pausing or deleting a bunch of my keywords that were rating poorly, proved to be a smart move. 
We studied about social media networking this week.  Although I am not ready to start my own real business at this time, I feel better prepared to network it online when the time comes.  As an "oldie", I am a user of Facebook.  I find that this platform is a great tool for a business owner.  Not only Facebook, but Instagram, Twitter and others.  I know when the times comes for me to start my business, I will want to seek the most popular platforms for my ideal customer, and market my business on those. 

Week 11 Reflection

This week was all about optimization.  Making sure that my landing pages for my ads were appropriate for each ad and would help increase my conversion rates.  Also about how I can increase my SEO optimization.  I really have come to love the tools within Google Ads.  Viewing reports about all of my keywords has helped me see which ones are doing well and which ones I should delete or edit.  Since viewing the reports, I have deleted or paused many keywords that were either receiving zero impressions or very few.  I have been excited to see my conversions, clicks and conversions rise.  Having a low budget, I did not think I would receive very much on this, but I have received over 3,000 impressions and I am very excited about that.  This makes me want to try to do a real website business in some frame once I am done with school.  It takes a lot more time than just this class, and I want to put in my full effort.  I am grateful for each of the things I have learned and I know that this course has helped me learn a lot for the technology that continues to grow in leaps and bounds every day. 

Week 10 Reflections

This week as we learned about ROI and optimizing ad performance, I was thoroughly excited about my website and ads performance.  I am not making any money, but I do have a lot of impressions and clicks.  So this got me realizing that I can increase my conversion rates if I continue trying to improve my keywords and ads.  I do realize that as an Amazon Affiliate, I can make money and have high conversions if I work to gain traction and constantly post on my blog.  I think if I try and maintain the site on a daily basis, I could make this work as a business and eventually make some money.  I just do not know if I have the drive to post a new recipe and a link to a product every single day.  As I continue to watch and track the performance of my ads and keywords, I will be able to understand more and improve the stats.  What I loved most was when I found where I could see what all of my traffic was actually searching for.  There is where I can figure out if there are any words I should create as negative keywords.  So I can prevent traffic that should not see my ad from seeing it and wasting my money. 

Week 9 Reflections

This week was all about Google Analytics and connecting it to our Google Ads account.  I am still unsure of how this is all going to work with my blog and being an Amazon affiliate.  But I am excited to learn the two products as we go through the remaining weeks of the semester. 
As I created my website on GoDaddy's site, there was a setting in there to connect Google Analytics.  So, this actually made it really easy for me to do that part.  Now understanding the whole process and the reports will be a whole other ordeal.  But it will be interesting to see where in the world I get traffic from and what pages on my website are more popular than the others.  I think this next week as we activate our Ad Campaigns in Google Ads, it will be interesting and frightening to see how it all ends up working out. 

Week 8 Reflections

Just another week of B250.  Yet, this week was something different.  This week we learned a lot more about Google Ad Words.  I know there is still so much more of this to learn and understand.  For now, I have a semi-good ad created, with many keywords and phrases to drive traffic to my site.  I am not too sure how well an ad to a blog will actually work, but I am hopeful that it will drive a few visitors at least. 
I am enjoying learning how the keywords work within the ad and pages of my site.  I had not thought about my readers clicking on my ad and what page they would be led to.  So I am glad that the load page was discussed this week.  I know have my ad leading visitors straight to my blog page.  I know that is much better than leading them to the main page where they then have to click to get to the recipe of the day/week/month. 
I also have realized that in order to guide more traffic to me, I should probably enter in a lot more recipes.  That is a lot longer of a process than I thought it would take.  I wish I had entered in my recipes onto a Word document years ago. 
I wonder if most blogs actually buy ads for their blogs?  I know that there are many bloggers out there in the world who have been able to make a living from this hobby.  It just sounds so out there, that I can't imagine it being possible.  This experience is starting to show me the ways that it can be possible with time and effort. 

Week 7 Reflections

Google Ad Words, I had no clue what this was until this semester.  This week I definitely learned a lot more about it.  Yet, I still have a lot to learn as I do not fully understand it all.  I realize that I will learn more about it over the next couple of weeks. 
This week I created an Ad Campaign for my recipe blog.  I had to contemplate good keywords to use for the campaign.  What words or phrases would allow searchers to click on my website?  What is not too broad or too specific for my site?  As a blog of different kinds of recipes, I realize that I can include many words and phrases to return results for many searches.  If I was a user and trying to look for new recipes, I would search for many terms like, "dinner recipes", "family recipes", or "chicken breast recipes".  Those are not too specific or too broad that they would be results for many people who are looking for what I am offering.  I hope to be able to learn more about how to understand the aspects within Google AdWords soon too, as there are many parts that confused me as I was looking within the AdWords site of my campaign.