Keywords and Important concepts associated with them

After completing this week's reading material I found the concept of keywords to be very interesting and a concept I feel should be reviewed thoroughly. Keywords are the important words that develop key phrases and thus produce the results when a person runs a search on the internet. The type of keywords or phrases that the searcher inputs determines what results are provided to them and if they are successful in finding the items they are looking for. The search technique combined with the proper keyword usage by the webpage is the essential technique that completes all search queries. As it is simply put in our text this week "keywords are the foundation of search". This puts in perspective how important keywords are for not only the customer, but also the company who is providing the products. The four main categories you should be aware of when picking a key word as a website owner includes: search volume, competition, propensity to convert, and value per conversation. Choosing keywords is similar to many other aspects of business; research is the key to success. After you have done the proper research and develop the words or phrases you would like use to get users to your site, you want to then review those words again for any errors. Finding any errors in a keyword or phrase is critical for your website and page views because this could end up costing you lots of money with no results. Keywords are a concept from this week that I know will be on my mind throughout the course and should be a top priority in everyone else’s project as well.

One of the other important concepts I would like to talk about from this week, which goes along with the first concept, is optimization of the content listed on your website to ensure it goes well with your key phrases. The whole point to your keywords or phrases is to use proper words to pull in the audience you believe will want to purchase your products. Your entire webpage needs to include good content in order for it to be optimized accordingly. As our reading from this week shows us, it’s important that your key phrases are included in the majority the following areas of your webpage including: title tag, header tag, body content, bold, URL, Meta tags and description, as well as anchored text and domain name. Because content is the most important part of your website you also want to optimize your graphics or pictures that are being viewed. The most important part of this concept that hit home with me was that "search engines cannot see images". I thought this was such an important thing to mention because including the correct keywords within the images allows them to have a much greater chance of being viewed compared to not having keywords. As you can see there are many aspects to consider in terms of keywords or phrases when developing your page. It’s important that the website designer uses proper techniques to get the most out of both their keywords and website.

The skill set I found to be of utmost importance this week was understanding emerging trends and having a greater idea of where and how search engine optimization will be used in the future. Having the ability to be particularly skilled in optimizing your data to match the future of search engine optimization will be the difference between success and failure for many companies webpage’s. I believe with the appropriate use of this skill companies will be able to be better prepared for future trends such as localization, personalized search, usage data, and real time search. These four current trends are just the beginning of the curve ball that will be thrown at companies looking to have successful webpage’s in the future. In order to further develop your skills in search engine optimization there are some important tools that can be used to attempt to master this trade, an example of one of those tools is Google Webmasters which makes sure your webpage is indexed properly. I wanted to talk about this type of skill set this week because of how important it will be both now and in the future. I believe this will be a skill set that many employers will expect employees to both understand and master before entering a position for their company.

Reflecting on my personal learning journey this week I was once again blown away by the amount of new terms and techniques presented in the material. Although there was a lot of new information this week, I have found I am slowly putting together some missing pieces of the puzzle that I once before didn't understand. This week I found a lot of the material to be a challenge because it was new to me; similar to the prior week, this took time for me to understand. Although it was challenging at first, it is rewarding to see the terms start to interlink which develops a greater understanding of them for me. As I previously mentioned, my big take away from this week was how even pictures can be affected by the use of keywords. Was anyone else impressed and shocked by the amount of influence keywords and their uses can have for a company? Also has anyone had experience with keywords and their effects on an organization they have worked for? I look forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts on search engine optimization and the use of keywords.

Web Analytics 101

The first concept I would like to discuss from this week are key performance indicators or KPI for short. Key performance indicators are what organizations use to develop goals and track their success at obtaining these goals. An example of key performance indicators would be an increase of people viewing your website or blog. If you are attempting to attract a new audience and after monitoring those who view your webpage you notice you have this is a great indication that your key performance indicators are on the right track. This concept is very important to success as you need to be able to evaluate your progress towards your goals. After all how can you tell you are heading in the right direction without key performance indicators? This concept is very important to digital marketing in the global marketing place because of the way global marketing is continually changing and therefore needs to be continually monitored. I believe this concept has strong validity within global marketing and should be well concentrated on no matter the type of marketing you are looking to complete.

The next concept I would mention is the collecting of web analytics data. Collecting this data is an important aspect of evaluating your key performance indicators. There are two main types of collecting web data: log-file analysis and page tagging. The main difference between these two types is that log-file will collect clicks or data directly from the site while page tagging sends JavaScript code to a third party website where the data is gathered and collected which will then create page tags. Why this concept is so important is because it provides companies with the ability to monitor more efficiently. Using key performance indicators is pointless if you are unable to collect valid data, which is why web analytics is so important in the collection. When looking at the differences between these two collection models I would caution the reader to understand they both serve their purposes. Log-file analysis seems to be the more accurate efficient system of the two, which provides it the ability to collect data accurately and quick. Page tagging as noted in our book makes it easier to capture lots of information especially for those companies that are not running their own web server. There are some differences between the two types that readers should be aware of and understand before using depending on an organization’s needs.

The most important skill I have learned from this week is the introduction to how you develop adgroup and adwords that go along with our GOMC  project. Adgroups are essentially a collection of adwords or keywords that are grouped together based on certain topics and search criteria. I found this skill to be most important from this week because it was something completely new to me and was a challenge for both me and my group to develop. When going into your Google account to set up your keywords you quickly run into a maze of terms both positive and negative. Understanding the difference in negative and positive keywords when setting up your ads is crucial in determining the success of your ads and the amount of money spent on them. I thought this skill was most important to me this week because of its crucial nature. It can literally make or break your Google ads that your develop. No matter how good your ad is if you are not bidding correctly and efficiently on proper keywords your success and money will disappear quickly. Did anyone else find the keywords and adgroups challenging to develop this week?

This week was a challenge for me in many different aspects. I ran into terms that I have never heard of along with online processes that I had never seen before. Taking the material provided in both our reading and videos this week and using it to understand the importance of web content was a major factor in the choosing of our adgroups and adwords. Before starting this class I did not understand how the ads presented on Google were developed, let alone that people were getting charged each time someone clicked on them. Reflecting on the course so far I have to say it’s, to this point, still challenging me more than I anticipated. I believe so far both the skills and concepts we have discussed in this course will be able to provide me and my classmates with a much better understanding of global marketing and how it can influence each of our organizations.