Account Management

Google AdWords is a key player in search engine marketing that can very effectively help your business thrive, but it can also hurt your business if you do not manage your account correctly.  When creating an AdWords account, you are presented with Ad Groups and campaigns that you can easily manage and tailor to you target audience.  An AdWords campaign might not be the most complex type of campaign, but organization and maintenance is very important.  You need to make sure that your keywords are relevant to what your business is about so that every click you get matters.  You do not want to be paying for unwanted clicks.  Keeping up with your campaigns will help minimize errors.

AdWords is key in getting your company name out there and is also one of the cheaper methods of advertising because you pay what you want to pay.  Granted, the more you pay for clicks could end up increasing your Ad Rank, but increasing the quality of your website also plays a factor.  The more people that visit and stay on your website will factor in with your search engine ranking.  The biggest aspect of AdWords that I took from this class session is that maintenance is key.  Keep your campaigns relevant and reap the rewards.

Website Optimization

There is far more that needs to e done to a business's website than just search engine optimization in order to make it perform at its peak.  Website optimization is a key factor in creating a fully functional and effective website.  Website optimization deals with a number of things such as search engine rankings, lead conversions, customer acquisitions, customer delight, and customer experience.  It is extremely important to focus on the content of your website as better content will drive more traffic through to your website.  Here are some key takeaways from Hubspot about optimizing your website:

Sure, having a good search engine ranking will boost traffic, but quality content will keep people on your website and keep them coming back for more.  If people think your site is too complicated or cluttered, they won't bother with it.  It's all about simplicity and ease of use nowadays.  Make your website easy on the eyes and easy on the brain.  Efficiency is key.  Also, make sure your website fits in with the audience you are trying to gain business from.  The internet is a powerful tool and it can either make or break your business.

Inbound Marketing

The video we watched in class about Hubspot and their inbound marketing strategy was very relevant and useful to our class.  Inbound marketing is a new technique of marketing that can be very useful for businesses today and the way people use the internet and choose which companies to conduct business with.  Classic marketing techniques are becoming more and more outdated as technology continues to rapidly advance.  Businesses are moving away from cold-calling, spam email, and interruptive ads as consumers are less likely to respond to these methods of marketing.  People are tired of getting ads shoved in their faces.

Inbound marketing is more about attracting the consumer instead of pushing ads onto them.  For example, people hate when they click on something thinking that it will take them to what they want to see but then are bombarded with unrelated ads that ultimately make them turn away from the original thing they wanted to see.  Inbound marketing gets rid of this and directs people right to what they want to be directed towards.  This instills trust between the consumer and the company which ultimately turns into more business for that particular company.

Introduction to AdWords

This week of class we learned about Google AdWords and how it works.  AdWords is a very effective method to advertise your business as people are online and using Google now more than ever.  Everyone uses Google to search for things and AdWords helps your company stand out from the crowd.  The way AdWords works is you set certain key words that you think people will type when searching for a business like the one you have and then Google displays your business in the search results based off of certain criteria, such as Ad Rank and CTR, or click through rate.

Based on your scores in Ad Rank and CTR, Google places your business higher or lower in the search results.  Also, you can pay for better positioning in the results instead of having just organic results, meaning the normal results that every website gets when they are searched for on Google.  You can pay per click to achieve higher positioning on Google.  You can also track how well your ads are doing and see how many times people visit your website and you can adjust your ad based off your results.  AdWords is a great way to build awareness of your brand and create traffic on your website.