Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Reflection on Google Analytics Fundamentals and Platform Principles



I'm impressed that I can learn a lot just from a web site. The course of Google Analytics Fundamentals and Platform Principles Has introduced many useful tools to me. The tracking code is the most useful thing to my client I think. In the page of the course, there are videos, texts, and some quiz. They can help me understand the course. As being an international student, I may not catch all the words in the video because of my imperfect English. So I'm so happy to find a text of each video. In the video, the man show me Google analytics by picture and example. So they are quite easy to be remembered. Both Fundamentals and Platform Principles are helpful. Now I know how to put a tracking code into a page to collect data. The video taught me that step by step. I wish I can have more opportunities to have these kind of course.

When I was doing the Final assessment, I did meet some problem. Such as the the question about dimensions. What I understanded was different from the right answer. I read and listened for several times. Finally, I got the right answers. I'm surprised that the questions are not just a test. They can help us to get the right answer and understand the right meanings or content. Although the certification is just a picture, It means a lot to me. The course is interesting. All the videos are long, but I never think they are bored. Colorful picture an vivid example made me focus on the whole course .




Wednesday, March 5, 2014

BUS572-4

Concept1 Keyword Contextual Targeting

Keyword Contextual Targeting is that your ad, in the right context, using keyword cues. We want it work. So we need the keyword contextual targeting matches our ad with relevant sites based on keywords we chose. For our client-Irma Freeman, they have a lot of thing to do. Because we found that many of their websites don't have the keyword. Maybe they want the website to be unique, so they use different word to describe the activities. Fortunately, we had a good communication. After discussion, our client to put the keyword in most of their sites. But we are still embarrassed with that they don't have a single page for each activity. we can't match our ad to final destination.

Concept2 Remarketing

Remarketing is that generating even more conversions, but at the same CPA. It can bring lost users back to your site. For our client, what they provided is classes or service. So they have a high competition. When customers search the activities on Google. They will open several website and choose the one they like best. Based on the choosing, our client may lose some customers. So remarketing is what they need. I think our client's website is still not good. Since they don't have a single page for each activity. The customer may leave the site, if they can't find what they need. 96% of people visit a website and leave without completing the actions marketers want them to take. The disadvantage of our client's website may even get a higher persentage of losing customers. So remarketing is the really important one.

Skill

In the assignment of this week, we learned a lot from GOMC Digital Marketing Course. I'm so impressed that there are six ways to develop our ad. The six ways are related to each other. So effectively using the six ways of display offering will help us to make a good ad for our client. For the 5th way--keyword contextual targeting, we need a good cooperation between our team and our client. If they can make a single page for each activity and add the keyword to each title, I believe our ad will be more efficient. As we see, some of the six ways is about targeting. So target may be very important for us. That is our job. Target customer and target link we want to show to them are the two key point.

conclusion

This week, the GOMC competition started. Finally we have the chance to test our ad. We learned a lot from this class, such as how to use keyword planner, A/B testing, how to make the group of ad, and the measure to improve our ad. I hope we can create a good ad for our client. But there are still some problem like seasonal activities, poor website, limited fund. That's why we need to choose the best keywords, and link to the correct site. For next class, I hope we can learn how to effectively use the data we got.


Picture reference:

https://www.google.com/partners/#p_content;idtf=kgQAAAAAAACShM;

http://blog.kontera.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/fusing-search-and-display-advertising.gif

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

BUS572-3

Concept1 Optimizing Content for Key Phrase

First, we should understand the importance of optimizing content for key phrase. Because the content is the most important part of your Web site. This is what we did for this week. We talked with our client and discuss with her about which Adwords we will use. We did find some good word, But they didn't appeared in our client's website. I'm happy that we had a good communication. And our client will add the key phrase to her website. She will even put some of them in the title. It will be more friendly to the search engine user. For optimizing content, there's not only words but also the images. The image might be more meaningful. And how to make the images optimized with the relevant keywords. Luckily, our client has many unique picture. They can change it easily.



Concept2 Competitor analysis

As the analysis said," Find out who is linking to your competitors and which noncompeting sites are ranking highly for your key phrase." These two point are really important. Two weeks ago, we tried to find the Geo-target of our client. We did it thanks to google map. It is easy to find her competitor in the google map. But this is not enough. Based on the development of internet, more and more customers tried to find a Yoga center or dance center by internet. So finding how many people link to her competitors' website would be helpful to set a key word strategy.



Skill

These two weeks, our team tried to design a A/B testing. Sometimes, we are confused with some questions, like which word is better. A/B testing might the best way to solved this kind of question. For our team, we are confused with the adword "Do it yourself". Since our client has a DIY class. And "do it yourself" is the full name. It is friendly to the search user who are trying to find a DIY class. But some people they don't know DIY. So "make it yourself" might be better for them. Because they can easily know that the class is about making or creating. So I believe using A/B testing will help us to solve this problem. We can find which word works better.



Conclusion

We really learn a lot from the assignment of this week. Sometimes it is hard to reach all the goal we set. Because our client won't edit the website by herself. So some of our plan might not work. But we are happy that they can add the key phrase to the description section of the website. It the most important part in our plan. In the next week, I want to learn more about how to set up the keyword strategy for seasonable product or service.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-05/goal-no-dot-1-for-youtube-compete-with-tv

This link is about how youtube set a advertising strategy. It's a good e-marketing.

Question: Is the high search rate a good thing? Although the keyword which has a high search rate has more customers, it also has more competitors.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

BUS572-2

Concept1 Tracking and collecting data

To set up the keywords, we need several information. Log-file analysis and page tagging are the most important tools. The log-files are very accurate. They can record every click. So it can test keywords and advertisement we set and tell us how many people are interested in our advertisement. Another tool is page tagging. This tool can track the people who open the picture or vedio. For my client, she has a lot of unique picture. My favorite is the DIY toy car. Irma Freeman Center help people to create what they want. If we track the picture, we can know how many people want to do some DIY. It is really helpful for us to choose the keywords.



Concept2 Key takeaways

After setting the keywords, we should do some test about the keywords. Whether the keywords are effective depends on people's behavior. Optimize user experience can demonstrate ways to influence user behavior so that more successful outcomes are achieved. There 4 ways to test: Listening labs, A/B split testing, Multivariate testing and One-page analytics. 


Skill

The assignment of these two weeks is really meaningful. We discussed about the keyword. Setting the keywords is not as easily as we think. Especially the negative keywords. Another importance skill I got is set the client's target. We check all the products and service she supplies. And finally, we found that there is no class for the senior generation. For the Geo-target, we used google map to check her competitor and her location. We found there are more Yoga center and dance center on its south. But there is almost zero competitor on the north. It can be her target area.

http://schurpf.com/6-ways-to-geo-target/

This might be helpful to find target.

Conclusion

The assignment of this week focus more on the group work. For finding keywords and setting target, we use brainstorm method. To make the advertisement, we tried to find a lot of attractive words. It's really great to sit with my group. I hope I can see more examples of data analysis in the next two weeks. Especially the process of collecting data.

Question: Some words like "Yoga classes" has a high Avg. monthly click, some words like "Yoga classes pittsburgh" has a lower Avg. monthly click, but it is more accurate to get the search result, because it set the search location. Which one is better to be the keyword?



Wednesday, January 22, 2014

BUS572-1

Concept1 SEO

To talk about the search engine marketing (SEM). The first part is search engine optimization (SEO). SEO can help us to improve the web site's ranking in the natural search results. My team's client is The Irma Freeman Center for Imagination.It is an arts and green energy community center with a mission to enrich and diversify the local community by building positive experiences in a multicultural, progressive setting. Based on the development of internet, online search is the most convenient way to find her website. So the keyword is the most important point. User always use the words which he thinks are relevant to his search. To remove technical barriers, we must find a common word which can set key phrases easily.


Concept2 PPC

Pay-per-click advertising is advertising on search engines where the advertiser pays only for each click on their advertisement. I can consider this kind of Ads as a industry. Nowadays, it is hard for our life to get rid of internet. PPC advertising use the space of website effectively. For my client, it is a good way to attract more  people. But they are not a big company. Their budget is so limited. So the first mission is to find a good place to put their advertisement at the reasonable price. I just realized that, In China, the user of microblog can't get any money from the advertisement on their homepage. I think it's time to make a change. If the user can get money from the advertisement. It will attract more people to use it.



Skills

The team work is a really good way to learn some thing from the market. The two tools professor suggested,  Real-Time Insights Finder and Global Market Finder, are really helpful. They help us to find a words' search frequency in different area. So we can easily find the market demand. it will help us to make a strategy and choose a key word. I'm really impressive that the blog can be a good place to put advertisement. It is what our client want. 

This link shows the power of internet:

http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2004-11-21/the-online-ad-surge

Reflection:

I learned a lot on these two weeks. I hope I can see more example of good keywords or search Ads.  Group work is a good way to learn from each other. An sample analysis can be helpful to our project. I can't wait to see how our project work for our client. Next session, I hope I can learn how to get more information from the tools and how to estimate the result of choose a new keyword.