Our chosen article was published by Entrepreneur. The article is titled “How Entrepreneurs Can Beat Amazon at Organic Search” and it was posted by Nick Chasinov on April 5, 2019.

The article highlights how entrepreneurs can beat Amazon at organic search results. It covers how Amazon is dominating organic search results and has a great search engine optimization that gets them to be listed at the top of the search results for any product on its platform.

Chase a Page 1 Ranking

                There are many different factors that go into a website’s search ranking. However, Google’s algorithm has historically been powered by page rank which determines how important a webpage really is. It prioritizes pages based on the quantity and quality of links that point to the webpage. Furthermore, Amazon has a lot of links in this really helps them in their rank (DeMatas, 2019). Therefore, links still play a critical role in how pages are ranked today and a solid backlink strategy is critical for any company seeking visibility online (Chasinov, 2019).

Create Useful Content

                One of the most effective approaches to securing quality links for improving ranking is to create content that other sites want to reference. Useful content can take on many different forms and it is important to create valuable on-site content that shows the website’s expertise in a particular topic (Chasinov, 2019). Quality user experience that leads to high engagement rates will certainly help a website outrank Amazon (Heitzman, 2018).

Return to Resource Pages

                Resource pages have the sole purpose of linking to outside resources. This helps make them the perfect link building targets (Chasinov, 2019).

Fix Broken Links

This requires some detective work but it is a great way to build relationships with other content publishers. There are several tools that are required to execute this initiative/strategy as there are numerous broken links on the web (Chasinov, 2019).

This article has a very strong relevance to the course as search engine optimization and website rankings are the bread and butter that get potential customers to the website. Amazon is a retail giant and organizations that sell a product and directly compete with Amazon, need to be able to effectively compete for organic search result rankings.

References:

Chasinov, N. (2019). How Entrepreneurs Can Beat Amazon at Organic Search. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/331693

DeMatas, D. (2019). Outrank Amazon With These Ecommerce SEO Tips. Retrieved from https://www.ecommerceceo.com/outrank-amazon-with-these-ecommerce-seo-tips/

Heitzman (2018). How Difficult is it to Outrank Amazon? 4 Strategies to Beat Them Out. Retrieved from https://www.highervisibility.com/blog/difficult-outrank-amazon-4-strategies-beat/

Our chosen article was published by Customer Think. The article is titled “How Minimalist Web Design Can Improve the Customer Experience” and it was posted by Helen Armour on March 26, 2019.

The article highlights how a minimalistic web design enhances the user experience and benefits a business by improving their customer experience.

Improved Clarity

                A minimalistic website does not need elements for the sake of aesthetics. Instead, it improves usability and makes navigation effortless. This is important as it has been found that 76% of consumers state that the most important factor in a website’s design is the level of ease for them to be able to find what they want. Thus clarity is a crucial factor for a positive user experience. This requires the removal of the visual clutter that plagues many web designs. Excess details, buttons and other distractions should be avoided to help the visitor focus and find what they need in a matter of seconds as this is very important. This is especially crucial as a website should emphasize content and guide the visitors to important elements such as CTA buttons (Armour, 2019).

A Good Impression

                A company’s website is often viewed as the digital face of their brand. Therefore, if a visitor goes to a website and is overwhelmed with pop-ups, text, and imagery, all cluttered up, they are getting the impression that the company is disorganized. Visual appearances have the power to create strong associations in the customer’s mind. Websites that have a minimalistic design convey a sense of professionalism. They help make a convincing case for the brand and capture leads effectively (Armour, 2019). The design of a website can either make or break the business that a company is trying to deliver (Nilsson, 2017).

Responsiveness

                Practicality and functionality dictates modern web design. A minimalistic web design optimizes site speed and accessibility. It has been found that 47% of consumers would like for a webpage to load within two seconds. An uncluttered interface with simplified navigation allows a website to be quickly loaded. A simplified layout and navigation also allows for an improved mobile user experience. Furthermore, minimalistic web designs are also easier to maintain (Armour, 2019).

The Power of Basic Elements

Every element should have a distinct and justified purpose. This includes CTA buttons, navigation bar, font etc. Fonts are a very important visual statement. They also contribute to improved usability and effortless navigation (Armour, 2019).

This article has a very strong relevance to the course as web design is a critical component of digital marketing. It is the canvas where a marketing campaign will be painted upon. Web design also affects conversion rates (Hendricks, 2015). Therefore, having an effective web design will allow for the execution of an effective marketing campaign.

References:

Armour (2019, March 26). Retrieved from https://customerthink.com/how-minimalist-web-design-can-improve-the-customer-experience/

Hendricks, D. (2015, February 11). Understanding The Full Impact Of Web Design On SEO, Branding, And More. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhendricks/2015/02/11/understanding-the-full-impact-of-web-design-on-seo-branding-and-more/#6151074564fe

Nilsson, M. A (2017, October 24). The Importance Of Website Design And How It Helps In Making Business Profitable. Retrieved from https://codeburst.io/the-importance-of-website-design-and-how-it-helps-in-making-business-profitable-11bf5ee1817e

I chose to do a banner ad on the company that we picked for our group. The company is called 23 and me. I utilize the website called Canva provided in our weekly materials to create the ad.

Initially, I wanted to highlight the promotional savings and tie it to a national holiday. Therefore I created the ad that had a colorful border and a clear easy to read advertisement campaign.

The advertising campaign was for 50% off Independence Day sale. I utilize the map of the United States as a background and to serve as a contrasting color for the white colored text utilize for the word independence. I also went with red, white and blue colors to represent the national holiday.

I also chose the top performing ad size of 300×250, also called a medium rectangle. I chose this size as it is good for all three types of ads including mobile friendly ads (Google, 2018). I would also choose to place our banner ad above everything on the top of the page. This is based on conclusive findings that this location is the best for banner ads after tracking 1.5 million eye tracking fixations (Adewusi, 2018).

I also feel that this banner ad has a lot of potential as it is clearly indicating a promotional savings of 50% due to the large font size. It also ties into the national holiday. I hope that this will give the target market a clear memory that on Independence Day there will be a 50% off sale for 23 and me products. I do rely on and assume that the target market is familiar with the 23 and me products and are looking for a discounted savings.

I also will seek to place the banner ad on websites where our target market frequently visits or shops. Therefore, health related websites and technology related websites will be a great place to offer our banner ad to attract individuals who are familiar with DNA testing kits and are looking for a significant amount of savings. I also feel that online pharmacy websites will be another area of opportunity where I can offer our banner ad. In general, I feel that our target market describes a customer who is health-conscious, technology friendly, family oriented, inquisitive, curious, self-motivated and open-minded. Our ad is designed to appeal to that target market. Similarly, I will also utilize keywords that our competitors utilize to trigger our ad in order to attract those customers that are already looking for a DNA test service.

References:

Adewusi. (2018, October 03). Are Banner Ads Still Worth the Marketer’s Effort? Retrieved from https://postfunnel.com/are-banner-ads-still-worth-the-marketers-effort/

Google (2018). Guide to ad sizes – AdSense Help. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/6002621?hl=en&rd=1

Our chosen article was published by Business 2 Community. The article is titled “The Most Important SEO Trends to Boost Your Traffic in 2019” and it was posted by Sabyth Fay on March 11, 2019.

The article highlights the most important SEO trends that will boost traffic in 2019. The author states that at the start of every year there is an influx of new tips and tricks for search engine optimization. In addition, Google has recently rolled out a number of updates that can affect businesses and their online presence in the current year.

Mobile first is an important trend that needs to be addressed. In order for a website to successfully rank they need a robust mobile interface design. This is especially important as more than half of Internet searches are done on mobile devices (Fay, 2019). Therefore, the first and only impression of a website could be the mobile version.

Metadata is also covered by the author, where the featured snippets and rich data is discussed. This is important as many users will be able to find information on the Google search page before ever clicking into the website (Fay, 2019). This to address as the user is not even visiting the website yet they can see the information on the Google search result.

Keyword updates are also an important trend and there has been a focus on building a library of longtail niche keywords (Fay, 2019). Similarly, geo-targeted keywords are very important and can improve longtail keywords by linking a company to a specific location.

User intent is very important and a company should strive to focus on meeting that intent. This includes the format and design of the website (Fay, 2019). For example, does the user base prefer text over video?, info-graphics or images? and what common questions will they have?

Voice search optimization has become a prime focus due to the widespread popularity of Google Home and Amazon Echo (Fay, 2019). It is important for a website to optimize their code for voice search and stay ahead of the game. Long-tail keywords and optimized metadata has shown to positively contribute to the user experience.

Video content has also been trending as more users prefer to watch rather than read (Fay, 2019). Thus, it is important that the metadata on a website’s videos are optimized along with their descriptions and titles.

Influencer marketing is also on the rise as more and more companies are starting to collaborate with social media influencers on websites such as Twitter and Instagram (Fay, 2019). Influencers are also becoming the biggest opportunity in digital marketing. There are many different ways that they can be more creative with the marketing campaign and provide an alternative to the traditional forms of television and print marketing campaigns (Mardon, 2019). This is such an important trend that brands are starting to create products with the influencer themselves (Mardon, 2019).

This article has a very strong relevance to the course as the goal of search engine optimization is to allow a company to be the result of many different search queries (Larson & Draper, 2015). Furthermore, the end goal is to be at the top result from many different searches. The information presented in this article helps a website understand how they can achieve this goal by paying attention to the top trends of the year.

References:

Fay (2019). The Most Important SEO Trends to Boost Your Traffic in 2019. Retrieved from https://www.business2community.com/seo/the-most-important-seo-trends-to-boost-your-traffic-in-2019-02176905

Larson & Draper (2015). Internet marketing essentials: A comprehensive digital marketing textbook. Idaho Falls, Stukent.

Mardon (2019). Why marketers need to get more creative with influencer marketing. Retrieved from https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2019/03/12/why-marketers-need-get-more-creative-with-influencer-marketing

               The expert session was very informative. There was a lot of very interesting information. George Do of Long Tail Pro was the expert and he extensively covered keyword research 101. The topic was very relevant and something that we could apply to ourselves when we use Google search to find specific information. There is a lot going on in the background that helps a web-page rank higher on the first page of Google.

               Before we start keyword research we must think about the goals. Different types of keywords will achieve different types of goals. We also have to understand the search intent of the customer. This requires us to question the intent of the user/customer. For example, Is the customer researching something to be able to understand it?, Is the customer considering the best type of product or the top rated brand etc.?, Most importantly, we need to evaluate whether the intent of the search is to make a purchase? where the customer is searching using key terms that show their intent of a desire to purchase something. Lastly, we need to see and identify whether the customer is showing loyalty to a specific product or brand.

               Once we understand the intent of the search we need to then evaluate the seed keywords. These seed keywords have been described as a starting idea that is simple and broad. They are also viewed as the foundation keywords for search engine optimization (Kumar, 2016). A seed keyword can also help find competitors and other influencers.

               Keyword research is the process of discovering words and phrases that a user utilizes in search engines to find something they need. This is a critical component for search engine optimization as when conducted correctly, it can provide a roadmap for both the design and execution of the website’s development (Nick, 2018). A company will conduct research on these keywords with the goal of optimizing their content around those terms. Therefore, keyword research is usually the first step of any search engine optimization campaign (Dean, 2019).

               There is also an unintended benefit of doing keyword research. During researching keywords a company can identify the thoughts, desires, fears and concerns of the target market (Dean, 2019). This is due to the fact that keywords give tremendous insight into what the potential customers are searching for. Some describe keyword research as just market research in the 21^st century.

Finding Keywords

               We must find keyword ideas in order to successfully link the target customer and their interests. A company can brainstorm a list of topics that are related to the product that they are trying to target to a customer. They should also utilize Google and YouTube suggest as these suggestions are based off the most popular searches. At the same time, you can also find keywords by utilizing “searches related to” action at the bottom of Google’s search results (Dean, 2019). Once again, these are the terms that are very popular and are associated with the keyword that was used in the original Google search.

               A company should also find out where their target audience spends their time on the Internet (Dean, 2019). If they spend time on Reddit, Facebook, Instagram etc. they should also search for a broad topic on those platforms. Similarly, Wikipedia can also help in the identification of popular keywords that are listed in the subtopics of the wiki page.

Keyword Research Tools

               A company can find keywords by using the traditional manual method of physically searching and connecting keywords. However, there are a lot of keyword research tools that make the entire process a lot easier and more effective.

Keywords Everywhere. Keywords everywhere is a free keywords research tool that will show ideas from different places including Google Analytics, YouTube, Bing etc (Dean, 2019).

Ubersuggest. Ubersuggest generates keyword ideas from Google search suggestions and divides data on each keyword including difficulty, search volume, cost per click etc (Dean, 2019).

Google’s keyword planner. Google’s keyword planner can be viewed as one of the most reliable sources of keyword information on the Internet (Dean, 2019). This is due to the fact that the data that you get from this tool comes straight from Google. There is a drawback that the information in the design of the tool has been created or oriented to help individuals with their Google ad campaign and not with search engine optimization. Regardless you can still use the tool to get keyword ideas.

SEMrush. SEMrush is a paid keyword tool and it shows the exact keywords that a website is already ranking for. Therefore, you can search for a site and you will be able to view the exact keywords that the site is utilizing to achieve their high rank in Google search (Dean, 2019).

Choosing a Keyword

               After finding all the keywords we must choose the right keywords. In order to choose the right keywords we need to evaluate the following characteristics.

Long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are usually less competitive as they are very specific. At the same time, they have a high rate of conversion

Search Volume. A company should pay attention to search volume.

Organic Click-Through-Rate. The company should estimate the organic click through rate. This can be done by utilizing tools such as Ahrefs and Moz.

Cost per Click (CPC). This is a single metric that allows one to understand whether customers searching for a specific keyword are actually spending any money.

Keyword Trends. Incumbent should make sure to investigate if the keyword is growing fast or dying slope. They could do this by utilizing Google Trends and looking at the past five years of a specific key terms performance (Dean, 2019).

References:

Dean. (2019). Keyword Research for SEO: The Definitive Guide (2019 Update). Retrieved from https://backlinko.com/keyword-research

Kumar. (2016). Thread: What Are Seed Keywords? Retrieved from http://forums.hostsearch.com/showthread.php?92623-What-Are-Seed-Keywords

Nick. (2018). How To Do Keyword Research and Keyword Analysis For SEO. Retrieved from http://www.seonick.net/keyword-research/

            The expert session was very informative. There was a lot of material and it went into quite a bit of detail. Victoria Galperina from Supermetrics covered a the basics and explored numerous concepts

            She covered Affiliate Marketing as performance based marketing. This type of marketing works by collaboration of a goods or service providing company and affiliates that promote the goods or service in return for monetary compensation.

            The expert session also covered commission models. The various commission models and how they can be used by a company based on their business was adequately covered. For the most part the Cost per Click commission model was something that I am familiar with, based on prior research on Google Search and the revenue it generates for the company.

            There are different types of Affiliates that can cater to different types of audiences. Furthermore, they can have unique ways to reach out to the target market. The expert session shed light on the types of affiliates and helped us understand the key advantages and specificities.

            The expert session then covered Affiliate Software vs Network. There is a lot of advantages to using a network of affiliates. Software options are cheaper, however they limit the flexibility that can be achieved by using a network.

            Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways that people make money on the internet. It involves investing in a strategy where and individual partners with a business in an attempt to make a common by referring reader or visitors to a business’s particular product or serve.

            Affiliate marketing is very popular, it allows one party to promote the produce of another party through an affiliate network. This allows them to earn a commission through various models, including a purchase made due to the marketing.

            The way this works is by revenue sharing. This allows a product manufacturer to offer financial incentive through an affiliate program. Similarly, someone can promote a product that they feel has value and earn an income form it as an affiliate marketer.

            Affiliates can also range from single individuals to entire companies. Some affiliate marketing business can generate up to tens of millions of dollars. They can achieve this by promoting one or multiple affiliate products in an attempt to attract and convince the potential customers of the value of the merchant product, to get them to actually end up buying it.

            Affiliates will seek to market to the consumer on any channel they see it. This can include social network, search engine, digital billboards etc. Channels allow for different models that affiliates can get commissions. For example, the buttons, links or banners of a product allow for a unique user id that helps the affiliate receive a commission from the company.

            A company can find affiliate program partners by using tools that allow them to collaborate with affiliate program partners and allow them to collect commissions. The key is to find partners who have an actual audience that might be interested in what the company is trying to sell.

References:

https://neilpatel.com/what-is-affiliate-marketing/

https://makeawebsitehub.com/what-is-affiliate-marketing/

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton