Hello! The semester has finally come to an end and it's so strange to think that the GOMC challenge as well as my digital marketing class are coming to a close. I have learned a great deal in the past 15 weeks of lectures, projects, as well as research. The class has not only aided in my personal growth in business skills but it has helped me understand digital business and different marketing strategies.
The first skill I have acquired is a decent understanding of how Google Analytics as well as AdWords. Through the class reading, I can say that I learned the basics for how to run it but with some more practice, I would feel more confident in using my skills in a workplace setting or even for my own personal use. The idea of digital marketing being such a viral idea and so important to a company's growth make learned all the skill that I have so much more important for the future and for my career goals. Perhaps with more skill and research on the topic, I could pursue a career using digital marketing and the tools we got to use throughout the course.
A second very simple but difficult task I believe I only further improved was my ability to write business papers. I am in creative writing so naturally, the more words the better. But with all the writing and the papers we did as a group, I learned how to weed out the unnecessary details and just add what was truly needed. The class and the exercises helped strengthen my writing and my firm points in the projects we did. It only further aided me for the future and for any writing my future career would require.
The last major thing I learned is about my interest in digital marketing. I love the Internet, I will be quite honest and say that my generation loves the Internet and its accessibility. Being able to understand it and how it would benefit businesses like this only has shown me that I could have potential interest in going into digital marketing or work with Google Analytics or AdWords. I also know that at some point in the future, an employer of mine will require me to use these tools and being able to understand them only has helped me prepare for that.
Overall, this class was beneficial in helping me learn more about the Internet business world as well as what I could possibly pursue as a career or what my job would entail.
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Monday, March 23, 2015
Webmaster and Digital Marketing Tools
One of the tools we have been discussing and researching as a class aside from Google Analytics as a whole now includes Google Webmaster Academy, which has allowed us as students to attain more knowledge about how our client can best benefit from doing a few of the things that Webmaster suggests for better accessibility.
One of the first things that stuck out to me is making sure that the site is website optimal, which would be beneficial for our client as she already is mobile accessible by most smart phones. In order to be mobile accessible, it's imperative for the client to make sure videos are playable, photos are visible and if they are not they have the proper alternate text for them, and that colors coordinate to those that appear on cell phones when mobile users access her site. In order to target more customers, fine tuning the ways in which users access the site.
The last thing that really stuck with me that could be beneficial for the client happens to be the process of creating a site map. This would be beneficial for her in order to make the website cleaner, easier to use, and definitely more aesthetically pleasing. Having a site map would help our client with making sure that not only is her mobile accessibility is as good as it can be, but also ensuring that online users are able to navigate efficiently.
Resources:
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/the_dawn_of_marketings_new_golden_age?cid=other-eml-nsl-mip-mck-oth-1503
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6001245?hl=en&ref_topic=4631146
One of the first things that stuck out to me is making sure that the site is website optimal, which would be beneficial for our client as she already is mobile accessible by most smart phones. In order to be mobile accessible, it's imperative for the client to make sure videos are playable, photos are visible and if they are not they have the proper alternate text for them, and that colors coordinate to those that appear on cell phones when mobile users access her site. In order to target more customers, fine tuning the ways in which users access the site.
The last thing that really stuck with me that could be beneficial for the client happens to be the process of creating a site map. This would be beneficial for her in order to make the website cleaner, easier to use, and definitely more aesthetically pleasing. Having a site map would help our client with making sure that not only is her mobile accessibility is as good as it can be, but also ensuring that online users are able to navigate efficiently.
Resources:
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/the_dawn_of_marketings_new_golden_age?cid=other-eml-nsl-mip-mck-oth-1503
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6001245?hl=en&ref_topic=4631146
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Business Experimentation
Over the past few weeks, we have been learning more and more in class about AdWords and Google Analytics. We've studied the ins and outs of how Analytics works, what it can track, as well as how we can access it ourselves. We're also planning on finishing up our pre-campaign proposals for the next week so we can begin to prepare for our challenge with Google. It is a very exciting time for our class as we prepare to participate in GOMC 2015.
Two readings we have had to complete recently were on the aspects of experimentation and how businesses are able to do this manageably and efficiently. Prototypes were discussed as well as test groups, both of which are used for electronics and other industries alike. I found it interesting that there were so many ideas, strategies, and methods for going about how to test different products and services. Mainly, I thought it was interesting that all three methods--simulation, prototypes, and test groups--could be used across many business sectors and industries.
Two readings we have had to complete recently were on the aspects of experimentation and how businesses are able to do this manageably and efficiently. Prototypes were discussed as well as test groups, both of which are used for electronics and other industries alike. I found it interesting that there were so many ideas, strategies, and methods for going about how to test different products and services. Mainly, I thought it was interesting that all three methods--simulation, prototypes, and test groups--could be used across many business sectors and industries.
retrieved from: http://www.nastypixel.com/prototype/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/keyboard04.jpg
I found prototypes to be the most common due to the nature of many electronics companies. Simulation would be the most common when it came to services or products like video games, but I don't think it would work quite well for a new desk chair idea that was being drawn up. Test groups were also very unique in the fact that it resembled a psychology setting, because they would be able to manipulate and test the factors that went into the new idea. All three of these were interesting because it showed how different ideas and methods that have been seen in other areas of my experience could be applied to business.
I do have a few questions regarding what sorts of examples companies like our clients' companies could provide as far as models of experimentation. It would be interesting to try and create prototypes of what GiftBug would like to see for their website and it would also be interesting to simulate what one of Rock More Sales seminars would be like. That mainly is my only question, how it could be applied to what we are doing and working towards currently.
As far as our client's AdWords program, I think it would be interesting to experiment first with primary keywords, the ones we assume would get more clicks for our client's webpage. But then we could also alternate a second ad with secondary keywords, ones that we don't think will generate clicks as much due to their lack of commonality with the webpage or for other reasons. Seeing how our client's webpage ads would fare with specialized versus general ads would be an interesting experiment to see how general or how specialized we need to make these ads to get clicks.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Search Engine Marketing Tools and Google Visit
Wednesday this week, our digital marketing took a class field trip to Google Pittsburgh and we took a tour of their offices. Google Pittsburgh was an interesting visit and much like the internship, Google keeps a diverse set up and expectation for their employees. Of all the things we learned about on our visit, I think the most interesting happened to be of how the employees can plan their work schedule around what they feel could help them be most productive. It's innovative and forward thinking as opposed to the typical office setting that most people experience in their jobs.
As far as search engine tools that could be of use for our GOMC project, I looked into Google Adwords as well as another website called Moz. Google Adwords Keyword Planner was especially helpful considering that was something we haven't talked about too much after our visit with Google or in class. Google Adwords allows you to set a budget and plan your advertising, whereas Keyword Planner allows you to look up search keywords historically and plan for words that could potentially lead customers or searchers to your website. I found it to be especially helpful and I think it is something that our group could use for our client, most definitely to be used for planning for our client's advertising and digital marketing campaigns.
Moz was an interesting website to navigate and research because like Google Adwords, they deal with digital marketing in its entirety, but you can use a lot of their tools to see ranking, keywords that could be useful, as well as other social media platforms. Everything is located in one place and they do offer a free trial, which I believe could be of use to us as well since everything is centralized in one place for us to see and use for our client once we do begin our GOMC project.
It's important, especially after the Google visit and seeing what they do on a daily basis and the type of work they produce, that we are eager to learn more about search engine marketing. It will be the basis for what our clients have to offer as far as how they get their online traffic. I do have more questions about how Moz and other websites work so efficiently to help clients with their digital marketing needs, so hopefully those will further be answered through the use of these tools and through the work we produce with GOMC.
As far as search engine tools that could be of use for our GOMC project, I looked into Google Adwords as well as another website called Moz. Google Adwords Keyword Planner was especially helpful considering that was something we haven't talked about too much after our visit with Google or in class. Google Adwords allows you to set a budget and plan your advertising, whereas Keyword Planner allows you to look up search keywords historically and plan for words that could potentially lead customers or searchers to your website. I found it to be especially helpful and I think it is something that our group could use for our client, most definitely to be used for planning for our client's advertising and digital marketing campaigns.
retrieved from: http://www.vapartners.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/MOZ.jpg
Moz was an interesting website to navigate and research because like Google Adwords, they deal with digital marketing in its entirety, but you can use a lot of their tools to see ranking, keywords that could be useful, as well as other social media platforms. Everything is located in one place and they do offer a free trial, which I believe could be of use to us as well since everything is centralized in one place for us to see and use for our client once we do begin our GOMC project.
It's important, especially after the Google visit and seeing what they do on a daily basis and the type of work they produce, that we are eager to learn more about search engine marketing. It will be the basis for what our clients have to offer as far as how they get their online traffic. I do have more questions about how Moz and other websites work so efficiently to help clients with their digital marketing needs, so hopefully those will further be answered through the use of these tools and through the work we produce with GOMC.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Meeting the Clients and Missing Friday
Hello!
Due to being absent and on the road for hockey with my fellow classmate, I am writing a make up blog post to describe what I learned about the material that will be discussed this Friday while I am on my way to Oswego, New York for a hockey weekend. After reading the Stukent chapter 2 and researching a little bit about search engines, there are a few things that I have learned about.
In Stukent Chapter 2, PageRanks was discussed as a way to rank different websites and their keywords. The basis of this method is that the more backlinks that are connected to your website, the higher the page rank of your website. I found this tool particularly interesting because it's free and it's the perfect way for us and our clients to see where there websites rank amongst competitors, others, and potential competitors.
As for the GOMC online course we reviewed, we discussed more search engine ideas and methods for making sure your website gets the attention and marketing it needs. It showed us more of the same ideas that were present within the Stukent marketing book. Many of the ideas I knew, but some of them were relatively new to me and I was happy to have learned more about how Google came to be.
As for class Wednesday, we met our clients finally and learned more about the goals of what we hope to improve for them. It is exciting to set goals, get a good idea of what we are going to be doing for our clients, and also to learn more about different techniques they know work well and ones that don't work well. I hope from hearing from my classmates to learn more about what is to come on Friday's class.
Due to being absent and on the road for hockey with my fellow classmate, I am writing a make up blog post to describe what I learned about the material that will be discussed this Friday while I am on my way to Oswego, New York for a hockey weekend. After reading the Stukent chapter 2 and researching a little bit about search engines, there are a few things that I have learned about.
In Stukent Chapter 2, PageRanks was discussed as a way to rank different websites and their keywords. The basis of this method is that the more backlinks that are connected to your website, the higher the page rank of your website. I found this tool particularly interesting because it's free and it's the perfect way for us and our clients to see where there websites rank amongst competitors, others, and potential competitors.
As for the GOMC online course we reviewed, we discussed more search engine ideas and methods for making sure your website gets the attention and marketing it needs. It showed us more of the same ideas that were present within the Stukent marketing book. Many of the ideas I knew, but some of them were relatively new to me and I was happy to have learned more about how Google came to be.
As for class Wednesday, we met our clients finally and learned more about the goals of what we hope to improve for them. It is exciting to set goals, get a good idea of what we are going to be doing for our clients, and also to learn more about different techniques they know work well and ones that don't work well. I hope from hearing from my classmates to learn more about what is to come on Friday's class.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Week 2: Introduction to Google Advertising Tools
For this week's research in Digital Marketing, we have started to discuss our specific clients and ways in which we could help them both within the realm of the competition as well as with other Google tools. A few of the tools we have discussed are Google Trends, Think with Google, and then Global Market Finder.
Google Trends is an easy way to see what people are searching for most frequently in order to get a precise way to learn how to tailor advertising initiatives towards the potential and current target markets. Think With Google is insight into different businesses and current issues going on in different industries. On this website, you can search industries, platforms, creative outlets, as well as look at different products. Global Market Finder is a way that our clients and we can use what we have discovered through Google Trends and Think With Google in order to search for new ways to reach other audiences and grow the current audiences through keywords.
For our clients, these will be extremely helpful in increasing traffic on their websites. All of these tools are more things to consider when deciding the best mechanisms for our clients to use for advertising and getting their products/services seen more often than currently. It's important for us as students to use this prior to going into the business world too, because having these tools understood and practiced will make us more useful for an employer to hire us. Since the last post, I have learned more about the Internet and the way both searchers and marketers can use it to their advantage through IP addresses and HTML programming. There are several tools that marketers and searchers alike can use to make the Internet the most beneficial to them.
My focus when learning about tools that Google offers and other sources for digital marketing are as to what limitations they posess and just how refined search engines can become for users to find what they are looking for out of a product or service provided by a company. It is something that interests me regarding the limitations of these tools and just how advanced you can tailor these advertising mechanisms for your advantage as a marketer.
Google Trends is an easy way to see what people are searching for most frequently in order to get a precise way to learn how to tailor advertising initiatives towards the potential and current target markets. Think With Google is insight into different businesses and current issues going on in different industries. On this website, you can search industries, platforms, creative outlets, as well as look at different products. Global Market Finder is a way that our clients and we can use what we have discovered through Google Trends and Think With Google in order to search for new ways to reach other audiences and grow the current audiences through keywords.
For our clients, these will be extremely helpful in increasing traffic on their websites. All of these tools are more things to consider when deciding the best mechanisms for our clients to use for advertising and getting their products/services seen more often than currently. It's important for us as students to use this prior to going into the business world too, because having these tools understood and practiced will make us more useful for an employer to hire us. Since the last post, I have learned more about the Internet and the way both searchers and marketers can use it to their advantage through IP addresses and HTML programming. There are several tools that marketers and searchers alike can use to make the Internet the most beneficial to them.
My focus when learning about tools that Google offers and other sources for digital marketing are as to what limitations they posess and just how refined search engines can become for users to find what they are looking for out of a product or service provided by a company. It is something that interests me regarding the limitations of these tools and just how advanced you can tailor these advertising mechanisms for your advantage as a marketer.
retrieved from: http://aaftl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/2014_ThinkWithGoogle.jpg
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Hello!
Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Marie Soukup and I am a junior at Chatham University. I am intending to graduate in the spring of 2016 with a BFA in Creative Writing and International Business, both areas of study that will hopefully propel me into a profession working with social media platforms or the entertainment industry.
Currently, I am enrolled in Digital Marketing which is taught by Professor Rachel Chung. I am looking forward to the Google Online Marketing Challenge, which I learned about in our first assignment thus far. Overall, we are being assigned to come up with a strategic marketing plan online for a business of our choice. Using AdWords and other Google utilities, we will work within a budget to allow our client to experience the best possible growth online for their products and services to reach their customers or potential target markets.
I am looking forward to learning more about the budgets, the businesses we have to choose from, as well as what the entire challenge will entail once we all embark on this journey this semester. It will be interesting to learn about how Google works with AdWords and social media platforms in order to optimize their client's satisfaction and their performance with advertising and marketing their companies.
It will be my pleasure to keep this blog updated regularly throughout the semester and in the coming assignments, I will only further what I have started to learn about in this post and this week and be able to describe more about what the GOMC tasks really provide as far as training for us as students.
Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Marie Soukup and I am a junior at Chatham University. I am intending to graduate in the spring of 2016 with a BFA in Creative Writing and International Business, both areas of study that will hopefully propel me into a profession working with social media platforms or the entertainment industry.
Currently, I am enrolled in Digital Marketing which is taught by Professor Rachel Chung. I am looking forward to the Google Online Marketing Challenge, which I learned about in our first assignment thus far. Overall, we are being assigned to come up with a strategic marketing plan online for a business of our choice. Using AdWords and other Google utilities, we will work within a budget to allow our client to experience the best possible growth online for their products and services to reach their customers or potential target markets.
I am looking forward to learning more about the budgets, the businesses we have to choose from, as well as what the entire challenge will entail once we all embark on this journey this semester. It will be interesting to learn about how Google works with AdWords and social media platforms in order to optimize their client's satisfaction and their performance with advertising and marketing their companies.
It will be my pleasure to keep this blog updated regularly throughout the semester and in the coming assignments, I will only further what I have started to learn about in this post and this week and be able to describe more about what the GOMC tasks really provide as far as training for us as students.
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