Keyword Planning

For our fourth individual assignment, we were given four search engine optimization tools to explore, and are required to discuss two. This is not the area that I am really interested in, or good at. I find all of these things quite confusing, hopefully writing it out helps me understand. 

The tools we were asked to explore are all tools that one can use for search engine optimization, and are mainly for keyword planning and site mapping. I am only going to discuss a couple of the tools, for the sake of not repeating myself.

I learned a little bit more about the Google Keyword Planner that comes with AdWords, and took a look at how AdWords actually works. This will be especially helpful for the Google Online Marketing Challenge we will begin competing in next month. AdWords Keyword Planner takes your keywords and tells you how many advertisers are using that keyword, and the probability of your advertisement/page ranking high enough to make an impression. AdWords also asks for your daily budget (how much will you spend in a day on advertisements?) and tells you how many impressions and clicks you can expect to have in a day. With a budget of $1.00 a day, one could have over 103 impressions, and more than 11 clicks. Before this week, I was confused as to what the difference between an impression and a click was, and I'm sure if one is not familiar with online marketing - it should be explained: an impression is when a person sees and reads the advertisement (aka, it shows up on somebody's Google Search results page when they search for a keyword you have designated as relevant), a click is when somebody physically clicks on the advertisement and goes to explore the web page. The Google Keyword Planner does take in to account that AdWords makes Google money, and tends to choose the keywords that will benefit Google the most. To find other keywords there are a couple of other tools (the ones I was given the option to explore):
Moz.com: SEO Software, Tools, and Resources for Better Marketing
Uber Suggest: keyword brainstorming/suggestion tool

The other most interesting and important tool I explored was Screaming Frog, which is a desktop program that "spiders" all of a websites' elements in a way that is easy to use for search engine optimization. Screaming Frog organizes all of the material and makes it easy to look through and analyze every page, link, image, URL, script, CSS, and app. This tool is especially helpful for finding duplicate pages on a medium or large site with lots of pages, as duplicate pages can detriment a page's search engine ranking (this, I did not know!). Screaming Frog also allows one to export the information to Excel, so as to have a form of the information that can be shared with others. This could help my team immensely with search engine optimization, because the our client's website is complex and well developed already.

The most important thing I have learned from this assignment is what to do with AdWords, how to use AdWords better, and how to find the keywords that will work the best to search engine optimize our client's website (and my blog).

Of course it is a good thing to have great keywords, and use them to have your site rank better in Google's index, but don't forget that there are consequences for overloading your site with keywords. "Keyword stuffing" as it is called, is a black-hat marketing technique, will have your page marked as spam and earn you a lower ranking in Google's index (quick recap: black-hat techniques are the techniques that are not approved or seen as cheating the system by the search engine). Before I go, here's a funny for this short reminder about keyword stuffing:

Who likes turkey without gravy anyways? Image from: https://www.seo.com/blog/keyword-stuffing/

Is working at Google really like the movie, "The Internship"?

So much has happened in the last week, I will have to flood this blog with posts tonight! I have another post due before class tomorrow, and I am planning to write another about the guest speaker we had in one of my other classes - I am super excited about that one too! Hopefully there will be time to write everything tonight, in between studying for a Spanish exam. This post is also really long because I love the Google office and really, really would like to work there... gotta get my internship in order. Sorry in advance! But seriously, if you ever have the chance to visit a Google office, go. The Pittsburgh office is apparently considered relatively conservative compared to the rest, but awesome nonetheless.

Perhaps you have seen the movie, "The Internship"; where two best friends in their late 30's/early 40's or so get an internship at the Google headquarters, and realize how awesome it would be to work at Google - three meals a day provided, snacks, you can work wherever you want as long as you get your stuff done, a really cool office with all kinds of themes and innovations. I can now confirm with you, that "Yes. The Google offices are that cool."
Yesterday, our Digital Marketing class had a field trip to the Google Pittsburgh office in Bakery Square, where we were joined by the clients we will be working with and a few guests from Chatham. The closer we got to getting inside the building, the more excited I got. I was really excited - I had heard good things, and I had seen "The Internship". I was hoping it would be like the headquarters in California that were used to film the movie. We gathered in the main lobby and took the elevator up to the seventh floor, where we were given visitor tags and briefed on the security protocols (unfortunately for everyone, photos are not allowed). The first thing one sees when walking in to the offices is a games room (what a great start, right?) and micro kitchen. The Pittsburgh headquarters has quite a few micro kitchens, two cafeterias, office space for 300 people, and much more spread out over four floors of the Bakery Square office building.
The building is very unique and each floor is themed: there is a Kennywood themed floor, a tunnel and outdoor areas of Pittsburgh themed floor, and a Nabisco themed floor (the building was once a Nabisco factory). Nabisco is the company that makes Triscuit crackers, Ritz crackers, etc. and each room on the Nabisco floor is named after a Nabisco product, each room of the Kennywood floor is named after a ride at Kennywood, and the Pittsburgh floor had rooms named after parks, tunnels, and landmarks in Pittsburgh. One of the best features of the whole tour was the cargo net lounge, which is a cargo net suspended above some of the office space, with pillows. When we went by, there were Google employees seated comfortably in the net with laptops propped up on pillows, working. That's the beauty of Google - you can work anywhere in the building and make your own day as long as you get your work done. We were walking past the language support office space and were pleasantly surprised to see an adorable French Bulldog wagging her tail at us a we passed. You can also bring your dog to work as long as you have proven that they are a safe animal to have around. The cafeteria has a hydroponic spice garden, an outdoor summer garden and beehive, and a heated chicken coop outside with laying hens. Not only is Google innovative, they are trying to be more friendly to the earth, and promoting healthy diets among their employees. The micro kitchens were filled with healthy snacks like dried fruits and açai berries, fresh fruit, and various healthy snacks. The kitchens have feature chefs every once in a while, and serve a delicious spread which we unfortunately were too late in the afternoon to experience.
After our tour, we attended a private presentation on Search Engine Optimization, and were able to network and have a question and answer session with experts at Google. My questions about link farming were answered and I got to find out for myself what Google is really like. The visit to Google gave me hope that I can someday have an office job (I am not the type of person that easily sits still and does the same thing all day, in the same cubicle, with the same people, every day) and that I would like it.

Sometimes I miss classes - No big deal!

Due to the nature of competitive hockey, my team is forced to travel all over the northeastern United States to play against opponents in our conference. We are doing well this year, and recently broke the program record for wins in a season (we are 7-6 overall and one spot out of playoffs). This weekend we travel to Oswego, New York to play against SUNY (State University of New York) Oswego Lakers. We travel by bus, around seven or eight hours on Friday, in order to play on Friday night, so I will be missing all of my Friday classes. To make up for our absence, Dr. Chung has instructed my teammate, classmate, and good friend Marie and I to write an extra blog post this week. The topic of the blog post must be about what the class is supposed to go over during the session that we miss.

This time, we are missing a discussion on how search engines work. We were asked to take a course on "the Search Landscape" (it's videos and easy listening - a man with a British accent narrates! Click the link to see for yourself), read chapter 2 of our online textbook from Stukent, and take a quiz afterwards. The course content includes the history and evolvement of search engines and the "search ecosystem". Also included are the trends of search and audience behaviours and insights, and the implications of search for marketers.

The reading from chapter 2 of the Stukent textbook explained how Google works and provides the basic PageRank formula used to calculate the website's popularity, as well as how a search engine calculates the relevance of a webpage to a certain keyword. For instance, the keywords that show up at the top of a webpage give the webpage a higher PageRank score as opposed to the words at the bottom. It is also important to know the difference between a webpage and a website: a website can have thousands of pages (webpages).

Also included in the reading for chapter 2 were two important Google updates: Google Panda and Google Penguin. Both updates include changes to the google search algorithm to try to make the experience of using Google Search better. The Panda update helps to filter out websites with thin content and lower relevance from the top of the search results page and show the more relevant results at the top of the page while the Penguin update aims to decrease the rankings of pages that use black-hat search engine optimization techniques. Search engine optimization was also explained a little bit, but will be covered a little bit more in Chapters 3 and 4. Search engine optimization is a very important thing to have knowledge about if you would like to have a good online presence, and would like to avoid black-hat techniques.

Google Panda and Google Penguin are updates to Google's search algorithm that improve the overall search experience for everyone, except the black-hatters, that is. Image from: http://giselleaguiar.com/social-media-training/understanding-googles-panda-penguin-hummingbird-seo/

I'll admit that just like many others, I have very little previous knowledge of how search engines work and this is a lot to take in at once. Who knew search engines had rules for the sites that end up on the search results? I can't wait to learn more about search engine optimization and to start working with our client for the Google Online Marketing Challenge.

Week 2: Market Research Tools - Courtesy of Google

Google has a lot of cool features, and all you need is an account. It's incredible how many different things you get when you sign up for a Google account: a YouTube channel, Google+ page, GMail account, Google Drive, a blog (just like this one), your own calendar... and it's all free and hosted on the world wide web, easily accessible from any computer with an internet browser and a local area connection-

- okay, enough nerding out over the awesomeness of Google - let's get to the details. This week, we have been asked to explore three market research tools: Google Trends, Think with Google, and Global Market Finder. All three are affiliated with Google, and completely free. We also selected our teams for the Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC) this week, and are beginning to work on researching about the businesses we will be working with.

Google is a large part of what we are currently learning in BUS213: Digital Marketing in the Global Marketplace. Image from: http://p1.pichost.me/i/55/1790280.jpg

Google Trends is a portion of Google dedicated to search trends around the world at given times during the year. In this article by Christopher Ingraham in the Washington Post, the trends for the search term "hangover cure" are explored for the entire year. It turns out that "Thirsty Thursday" may not be as prevalent in North American culture as one might think, and that everyone seems to like one last "kick at the can" before they pledge a New Year's Resolution of sobriety. Google Trends will likely prove to be a useful tool for identifying when to run advertisements on Google AdWords for our team during the GOMC, and which keywords to use in coding/scripting for websites and other online projects.

Think with Google is a site chock full of creative insights and research on a huge variety of subjects, designed with businesspeople and marketers in mind. The subjects vary from automotive and retail, to advertising and tech, and everything in between. Think with Google provides information and cases of where technologies are used to reach people, and shows us many different creative and innovative ways to reach people through technology. My favourite part of the Think with Google page is the Creative Gallery, which combines creativity and technology into fun things, like StylePit's digital lookbook. It's basically a BuzzFeed for techies!

The third tool to be explored is the Global Market Finder. The Global Market Finder is a search engine for keywords in different countries and regions. If you need help finding out where you should run an advertisement, or if it's a good idea to try and sell in a certain country, the Global Market Finder can really help you out. You put in where you are, where you would like to analyze, or the G20 countries, and then whatever keywords you would like. For instance, I searched the keyword "hockey" in the G20, and I was given a list of countries where there is a market for "hockey" advertisements, the number of local monthly searches for "hockey", a recommended bid price if I was wanting to run an advertisement, and what there is for competition in that country.

This semester I will find out which of Think with Google, Google Trends, and the Global Market Finder will help the most with marketing for our client, as well as learn of, and how to use some more helpful marketing tools. Hopefully I will also have time to explore more on the Think with Google page!

New Semester, New Challenges: The Google Online Marketing Challenge

Hello!

Let me introduce myself:

My name is Katrina, and I am a junior at Chatham University where I am studying to complete my Bachelor of Arts in International Business with a minor in Environmental Policy. I also play for Chatham's NCAA Division III Ice Hockey team, and travel around the northeastern United States to play against other NCAA schools.

This week is the first week of classes for the Spring 2015 semester at Chatham, where I am enrolled in one of the special topics courses at Chatham University: Digital Marketing in a Global Environment, which will be taught by Professor Rachel Chung, Ph.D. In this course Dr. Chung will teach us about advertising platforms, search engines, and analytics platforms. As students, we will also compete in the Google Online Marketing Challenge, which will make use of the skills and principles we are to learn. For our first assignment, we are to create a blog (this is the blog) to write about assigned topics and gather followers. This week, we were given the task of reading over the Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC) Guidelines, as well as the Pre-Course Preparations for the GOMC.

Digital Marketing techniques make use of all kinds of digital platforms.
Source: http://www.techvibes.com/blog/the-new-realities-of-digital-marketing-2014-06-30

There are a few things to take away from this reading material, the guidelines page we were to read includes the competition process for the GOMC: how to enter, the rules and guidelines, and what the competition entails and includes resources such as the Digital Marketing Course provided by Google (which is further explained below). It is important to know all of the rules and regulations of a competition not only to make sure you follow the rules and know and meet all the deadlines, but also to make sure you are eligible to participate.

The Pre-Course Preparations reading is part of the Google Digital Marketing Course and serves to help us understand what we must do before the competition starts. To compete, each student must have a Google account and know the importance of having an online presence in the marketing world. It is important to have an online presence as a marketer for the sake of connecting with more potential, valuable customers, as well as to use social networks and e-commerce to help a business flourish.

I have already learned new things this week, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. By the end of this course, I'll be an expert (well, not quite an expert; but I'll be much closer!). I wonder, just how many viewers/subscribers could I have by the end of this? How will my teammates and I fare overall in the Google Online Marketing Challenge?