Lesson 6 Reflection - Adwords & Keywords

Finally. Adwords time. This is why I took this class:

Videos and Readings:

Get started in three basic steps

Google AdWords Intro - (has a tip on how to view your ads to make sure they are appearing)

Questions for assignment:

• What geographic locations do you want your ad to show in? Why?
• I went with American 
• What devices do you want your ad to show on? Why?
• Did you choose automatic or manual bidding options? Why?
• What is your daily budget? Why?

Other links:

AdWords Beginners Guide

$75 Google AdWords Credit

Google's Policy on Bridge Pages

QUESTIONS I NEED TO RESEARCH MORE:

Automatic Bidding - what are the pros and cons?

How to choose good key words:

1. Use keywords that are 2-3 words long
1. don't make them too generic or too specific
2. Use negative keywords
3. Use Keyword Tool

Choosing & Organizing Keywords

I'm a little scatterbrained on this. I manage to come up with a big list of keywords but need to get better at organizing them by products and also by themes.

The following links were the links for the reading. I will probably want to reference this a few more times to get the gist of it and make sure I know what I am doing.

Readings:

How Keywords Work

Watch How to Choose the Right Keywords

How to Build the Best Keyword List

Exculde Keywords from your Campaign

Keywords

Again, I need to review list building to make sure I'm not over doing it or overlooking something. One thing in particular to research is broad vs specific. 

Lesson 5 Reflection - Legal Structure, Licenses, & Taxes

I spent a lot of time this week working on my website and less time on learning the legal structures. I was even late on a discussion board. Totally slipped my mind but I did go through and read it afterward and really go a lot out of it. Big things to take away:

 Make sure you have a good lawyer and a good accountant. They are worth their weight when you need them.

 Here are some links that I liked about Legal Structure:

Readings:

HG.org Legal Business Structures

Legal Structure and DBAs: Idahobizhelp.org

Idaho Secretary of State Business Entities

eHow — Do I need a Busicess License for and Online Business?

Business Wizard

Nolo.com Sales Tax on the Internet

Idaho Sales Tax Info

Idaho Sales Tax FAQ

New Tax Deductions for Small Business

Lesson 4 Reflection - Site Design & Payments

This week we focused on Site Design and Credit Card Payments:

With as many websites as I have designed, I still feel like it is very important to plan the site before just jumping in and throwing it together. The lesson recommended finding similar sites and identifying similar elements that will be important for your website. This is very helpful in gaining new ideas and getting me out of the same old pattern.

Web reading for Site Design:

Web Wiz Guide to designing a web site

8 Tips for Designing a Great Website

Basic ecommerce web site design and development

This is a Great COLOR selector TOOL:

Color Scheme Designer

My fall back favorite tool for picking a domain name:
bustaname.com

As far as Credit Card Payments, Brother Poole mentioned last week that he hadn't used any Wordpress plugins for shopping carts. He has always hard coded http://www.1shoppingcart.com/

I won't be using a shopping cart or accepting payments on my wheatgrass site just yet as it will be an affiliate site but hopefully in the future I an start selling product myself.

Good week. Now I got to get focus and get my website built!

Lesson 3 Reflection - Building a Site & Hosting

Website Builder rather than a CMS

Though I typically use wordpress for my sites, I may want to look into a Site Builder in the future to quickly test out an idea without committing to a full setup including database, domain name, etc. 

(Note from Brother Poole re: Domain Names:

It used to be that having your keyword in your domain was very valuable.  However, during an update to the Google algorithm, they have really stopped taking this into account.  They look at other items and give it much less weight. 

 

I believe that the most important item is to make sure that the domain matches what you business is.  This is not always possible but it is nice when you can.  For example, ExtremeRunningShoes.com vs JeffsBlog.com.  They could both be blogs about running shoes but the first one is much more likely to stick in someone's memory or to convince them to visit your website.)

Here are some site builders to look at for other future ventures (factor in the fact that they provide hosting):
Weebly.com
Wix.com
Webstarts.com
Google sites - for collaborative sites like forums and intranets
Godaddy's website tonight
Bluevoda.com - downloadable builder


HOSTING

I've been using Godaddy for a long time. might be time to check into a new host. This website ranks the top ten hosts (godaddy isn't even on the list):
http://www.top10hostinglist.com/

Domains:
domainsbot.com helps you figure out a good domain name.
A lot like that other site I used to use but forgot what it was...