Justin

For the SEO and Link building assignment, I created a blog post desciribing why I love and chose to attent James Madison University.  This post was designed to give insight to future students and share my experience as I graduated high school and began college.

The first thing i did for this assignment was put love JMU in the title and also throughout the entire blog post.  By doing this, I would be more likely to improve my website. I also used the All in One SEO pack to better optimize my page. By including images and linking them with alt tags, my website improved.

For our MKTG 470 class, we were assigned to do different diagnostic tests on our Love JMU post to see how our website was doing.  From the early diagnostic tests to the most recent, my site has improved.  I also used a program called CrawlerFX. This program shows how well your search engine oprimization is on your site.  By using CrawlerFX, i learned some new ways to increase the traffic to my website.  By combining links that point to my site, my traffic increased. Because my website is relatively new, my crawler score was low.  With these tools, I believe that my website will continue to increase traffic and be more successful in the long run.

Google Webmaster Tools is a valuable service provided by Google which allows you to see an inside view of your website. The tools can be a valuable resource in understanding problems that Google may be having while trying to crawl your website.  Webmaster tools is an efficient way to help your site or blog get more traffic, better visibility and higher rankings for searches.  I believe it would be in the best interest of online marketers to understand and utilize this valuable feature Google has to offer.  Online marketers with websites can now understand the reasons for their successful or unsuccessful advertisements. Using Google Webmaster Tools as a diagnosis to the problems online marketers face with their websites will increase over all performance of advertisement campaigns.

Some of the features that Google Webmaster Tools has to offer include:

-Identifying Crawling issues

-Robots.txt File Generation

-Removing unwanted URLs

-Specifying a Preferred Domain version

-Identifying errors with Onpage Elements

- Get Details of Top Search Terms

-Know how Googlebot Sees your site

-Manage your site links

-Receive Guideline Notification

-Get Back Link Information

-Threat Detection and Cleaning

-Set Preferred Geographical Locations

Using Webmaster Tools for My Website

The top two search queries with the most impressions were the words “jmu” and “love jmu”.  The top keywords that have been searched for are “Justin”, “Marketing”, “Theme”, and “wordpress”.

Crawl Issues:

Identifying crawl issues is important in that it shows you which pages on your site or blog in which Google could not access.  Usually there might be a lot of crawling issues related to a website or blog, depending upon its design and architecture.  Google Webmaster Tools helps you fix these errors by having them show up under potential crawl errors in the dashboard.

In my Internet Marketing class at JMU, a proficient online marketer names Lindsay Crone came in to speak about her insights on working for an online marketing company.  Lindsay is a Creative Editor for The Search Agency. The Search Agency examines company websites to develop strategies and campaigns to best meet their goals. She manages accounts for many different clients. I was fortunate to get some valuable insights on Lindsay’s journey to where she is today in the online marketing industry.

One of the main takeaways I gained from Lindsay was the large and increasing amount of opportunity available for online marketers today.  She explained the young and active work atmosphere in her office.  Everyone was under 30 years old which created a dynamic work environment.  With using Google Adwords, there is always something available for you to do on the job.  There is always a keyword, change in match type, or ad testing to be done.  She explained that in the past year people are watching TV, on their laptops, and on their phone all at the same time.  This creates more opportunity for advertisements which inevitably increases the chances for a need of an online marketer.  I also gained some knowledge on how to have a better chance of attaining a job in online marketing.  Lindsay talked about Googling yourself to see what comes up so that you know what an employer will see if they were to Google your name.  Employers want to know that you are really interested in something about the job so it is important to ask good questions.  It is important to take criticism from your team and be open to learning.  Lindsay believes that people in business who are curious are people who will be more likely to succeed.  If you are someone with a good personality, then online marketing jobs will be able to mold you into the employee they want you to be.  Once you finally got the job and are in your career, dont be cocky but be confident.  As Lindsay concluded her valuable insights, I started to gather some of the tips and interesting regarding online marketing.  Lindsay mentioned that with HTML sites it is important to make them user and engine friendly. Pages with Edu, Gov, and org are worth more. It is important to have original content, keyword density, similar keyword usage, and user and engine friendly sites when dealing with Organic.

I want to thank Lindsay Crone for taking the time to speak with our Internet Marketing class.  Lindsay’s valuable tips and insights to online marketing careers  have positively influenced my intellection on internet marketing.  Email Lindsay for questions regarding online marketing and she will certainly give you valuable information.

RETARGETING:

Retargeting is a term used when networds take “cookies”, or “pixels” for the code that allows them to serve ads to anyone who has previously visited a website, opened an email or exposed to other opportunities where code can be inserted onto the landing page.  Retargeting relies on online tracking which has been around for years. When someone visits a site with online tracking on it, a cookie is placed into that person’s browser.  When the same person visits other sites, the online tracker creates ads related to the previous site viewed.

I believe that retargeting is an easy and effective tool that can be used to generate more revenue for businesses on the internet.  Although retargeting is an effective tool, it is important to take into account the negative aspects viewed by customers who are targeted. The idea of exposing detailed information of the customer is highly unnecessary. Many customers will quickly become worried when they realize they are being “followed”, “tracked.”  It is important to inform customers that they are being tracked.  By having an explanation somewhere on the page for why they are being exposed to multiple ads is necessary.  I believe that retargeting can be an effective tool but should have some variation to it.  Customers should be exposed to not only ads but coupons as well.  This will ease the feeling of being bombarded with advertisements.

There are no major privacy or ethical issues associated with retargeting ads.  There are however, some threats of intrusions into a customers privacy.  As long retargeting is used for advertising purposes only.  I believe that by having an explanation for the ads to the customers, there are no ethical issues.  Customers should also have the choice to turn off this retargeting tool.

Promotional Mix:

Promotional Mix deals with advertising, sales promotion, public relations,and personal selling.  The promotional mix can be used as your “tool box” in regards to how you are communicating with customers.  It is important to integrate research about the potential market you are trying to reach.  Advertising is any paid form of non-personal communication of ideas or products.  Advertising is intended to persuade and inform your potential customers. The important aspects of advertising are the message you are trying to get across and the medium of how you will get it across.  Personal selling is the oral communication with potential buyers of a product in which you have to offer with the intent of making a sale.  Personal selling has a focus of developing a relationship with the potential buyer.  Sales promotion provides the incentives to customers or to the distribution channel to stimulate demand for the product or service offered.  Public relations is the communication of the product and brand by placing information about it in the media.  This information in the media has no cost associated with it.

Integrated Marketing Communications:

Integrated Marketing Communications is the concept that ensures all forms of communications and messages are carefully linked together.

IMC Planning Steps:

1. Setting Goals (Setting your target market and what to do with information)

2. Determine the roles of each element (determining the right tools for the message)

3. Creating the message (create a message that wil resonate with target market)

4. Choose Media (how are you going to communicate with target market?)

5. Evaluate Success (feedback surveys, recall testing)

6. Modify the plan based on success.

Procurement is necessary for businesses to attain resources, which allow  them to operate at optimal levels.  Items bought by businesses can vary from office supplies, staff members, or even specific training programs.

Major Purchasing Philosophies:

1. Reverse Auction- When a buyer puts up a contract and suppliers bid for it. Usually occurs a lot at the adversarial level. Minimal post-sale services are prevalent.

2. Single Source- Contains long term contracts, joint ventures, and strategic alliances. A lot of post-sale services are prevalent. There is a lot of dependency and for the most part is not the most cost effective choice.

3. Preferred source- A mix of the two extremes. There is complex relationship management.  It can depend on certain industries.

Steps of the purchasing process:

The first step is to recognize that there is a need to be met.  When the need is identified it is important to then define the product-type needed.  Detailed specifications need to then be developed so that you can target what the company needs. Then you want to start searching for qualified suppliers.  It is important to research heavily on suppliers for they might become a future partner to the business.  Send out Request for proposals to qualified suppliers. Then you want to evaluate the proposals to see which supplier fits best with the company.  After that it is vital to meet with supplier and discuss an order procedure and other important aspects in signing a deal.  Lastly, after a supplier is chosen, a product performance evaluation is necessary. This will ensure that the company is benefiting and there are no drawbacks.

Correct quality creates value and is very important to the procurement process.  Materials used in the final product should reflect the brand image in which the company wants to exploit. You can create value by buying materials at low costs compared to competitors.