Learning As I Go

I'm realizing after studying about Adwords week after week that I need to make my keywords and ads more specific to the content that is already on my blog. I haven't had any conversion and I believe it's because my ad was way too broad. I have a few blog posts in my head that I need to create so I can make more ad groups to go with my campaign. Once I this content exists it will be easier to ad more relevant keywords to my campaign. Also, after this happens I can create some negative keywords as well. I'm a little at a loss of what those should be, but I know they're important. I also need to find some companies to do affiliate marketing with so I can bring in some potential revenue. I'm in the middle of testing out different sunscreens that I can recommend. One of them is from an organic company  that does drop shipping.

This week I was thankful for good customer service from Bluehost. I used that chat button a lot to help me navigate the Weebly web builder and to find out more about the ad credits that are linked to the package I purchased. Unfortunately those ad credits don't include Adwords. I'm not sure how I overlooked that with my research which is a little disappointing. Anyway, it took a little investigating to add Google analytics to my website, but it was successful. I then customized my goals on my analytics account to help monetize my website better. I set two goals that I think will help me take advantage of this tool. 1. Track how many times an article was shared and 2. Track how long people browsed my site. I think Google Analytics is also a terrific companion to Adwords. Analytics will enable me to know which ads need to be improved and which ones are working based off of the traffic and goals I've set. I always find it rewarding when things work out as they should. After...

So, last week I was feeling a little overwhelmed with Adwords. My blog is about many different ways one can live a little better and I felt like my keywords were all over the place. This week something clicked though when delving deeper into the Adwords Campaign. I was able to separate my blog into different ad groups and use some of the blog titles as the titles in my ads. In order to continue to come up with better ads I need to be adding more content to my blog. I've recently decided to change one of the taps to recipes. I cook for a large family and we eat pretty healthy- and it's affordable! - which is a big deal. Plus, most things taste lovely so I feel like this is one way I could help people live a little better. I'm already thinking up ads in my head to get people to click on my links. I think last week I was overwhelmed with how I would make money on my blog by people clicking on my links, and this week I was able to set that worry aside and focus on my blog con...

This week we delved deeper in Adwords and keywords. Keywords are tricky for me because my web business is a blog and I've only posted a few different things on it, which makes choosing keywords kind of hard. I want to branch into affiliate marketing and drop shipping, but I'm not quite there yet. I believe once I've chosen something to sell, that is linked to my content, keywords will become a little easier. I found this article helpful https://www.seo.com/blog/best-keyword-research-method-ever-for-blogs/ in choosing keywords. I'm not sure if I understood it completely, but it may come in handy.  I want to find out exactly how Adwords charges you. I'm a little confused about my budget of $2 a day, and how much they'll deduct for clicks. Is Adwords just something you pay for,for advertising, or can you make money from them as well? I better start researching... many things. Like better keywords for my blog -including negative key words. 

I found the previous lessons on drop shipping, affiliate marketing, and using a wholesaler compelling. Learning about these things opened up possibilities I hadn't considered for my blog. When creating my blog this week I began looking into affiliates and drop shipping companies, but realized I had to have a tax id number and an established business (meaning you've filed all the necessary paperwork with your city and state) before I can start the application process.  This week it was nice to learn about the behind the scenes in business. Scenes I hadn't contemplated before, like income tax, sales tax, acquiring a DBA, and which licenses I needed. Utah makes it pretty simple with their one stop business registration stop.  The following website is one I'll need to refer to in the near future to get the ball rolling:  https://secure.utah.gov/account/log-in.html And taxes. Blah. But interesting. I thought it was cool to find out about sales tax discounts if you...