Week 5: MKTG 348- Introduction to SEO Chapter 9

Hubspot is a developer and marketer of software products for inbound marketing and sales. Inbound marketing is a technique used to draw customers to products and services using content marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization, and branding. It is not just the process of SEO, it is the next step. It helps generate sales, and track them, using a platform such as Hubspot. Obtaining a Hubspot Certification is very beneficial because it helps place SEO in context, and it emphasizes content.

Sarch Engine News Certification is another great qualification to obtain, but it is pricey. Start off with obtaining your Hubspot certification, and from there see what your next best step is in the SEO world. Having these certifications looks great on your resume and companies will love that you have given your time, effort, and money to further your knowledge of SEO.

Week 5: MKTG 348- Introduction to SEO Chapter 8

Once you have mastered SEO you are not done. SEO is constantly changing so it is important that you are following the changes so you stay up to date. In order to stay up to date try reading blog posts, attending webinars, and reading books. Some websites that are great sources are; www.searchenginenews.com, www.moz.com, and www.semrush.com. One thing to remember is to always check the dates, when it was written it was current but it might be an old post.

A quick example of the constant changes in SEO is an event called "Mobilegeddon." It occurred on April 22, 2015. Google released an algorithm update, stating that mobile rankings would differ for mobile-friendly sites starting on April 21, 2015.

Just like fashion, SEO does go out of date. Think of it this way, would you want to show up to a prom wearing the same dress your grandma wore to prom? Unless you have an extremely fashion forward grandma, her dress is probably very out to date and you would stick out like a sore thumb. You do not want your SEO to be the outdated dress at the prom, keep up to date!

Week 4: MKTG 348- Introduction to SEO Chapter 7

One important thing to always check is how Google sees your website. In order to do this simply type in your website domain into the Google. It will then list all the pages it sees. You can click through and find your page, you may even find that you had published pages you did not mean to. Doing this helps you keep up with the maintenance on your page.

Before website templates were available, you had to create your own website templates. This process is extremely difficult and not something that can be done easily. Often a Webmaster is hired to be incharge of optomizing the website and making sure that it is running smoothly for customers. Using another Google tool go to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools. Once there click add property, copy your blog address into the box, and click the add button. If you are signed into the same gmail you used to make your blog, Google will tell you that you are a verified owner.

Week 4: MKTG 348- Introduction to SEO Chapter 6

One thing to look out for is having duplicate content on pages of your site. Content should be unique, so it is worth going to Siteliner.com. This website is a good tool to scan for duplicate content. If you do find any duplicate content simply delete one of the pages. While duplicate content is not a good thing, sometimes it can be hard to get rid of all cases of it.

Something even more important to monitor is rank. The higher you are up on a page the more likely customers are to click your page. If you go to http://tinyurl.com/seocentrokp, you can enter your website and it will give you your rank. If you're above 100 for a given keyword, it will show the rank. Once you're ranked it is important to try and maintain the rank as well as work to increase the rank.

Week 3: MKTG 348- Introduction to SEO Chapter 5

SEO can be done not only on google, but it can be used on Blogger too. If you have a blog on blogger log into it and we can enter in our own overall meta description. Once you're logged in, scroll down in settings, and choose Search Preferences. Click edit next to description and you can add a maximum of 150 characters. Once you click save the description you just entered will appear in Google search results. Not only can this be done for the entire site, but it can be done for individual posts.

In order to do this, click edit on an individual post. On the right, in Post Settings, you can click Search Description. Enter in your description, click done, and do not forget to save. Now you have personalized not only your entire blog, but your individual post as well!

Week 3: MKTG 348- Introduction to SEO Chapter 4

In my last blog post we talked mostly about content and a little bit about keywords. Today, we are moving on to focusing on keywords. When trying to determine key words it is smart to ask yourself, what keywords are people using to get to your site, and what kind of keywords are people using, who might be interested in our sight? When picking keywords you want to use generic words as well as more specific ones as well. For example, imagine you are working for a company who builds drone kits. Now imagine what a customer who wants a drone kit would type in. Some of these keywords could be: how to build a drone, how do I build a drone, drone kits, best drone kits. All of these keywords are very vague and specific. The drone company would also use more specific keywords such as brand names or specific types of drone kits.

Search volume is also important. Even if your keywords relate well to products, that does not mean there will be a demand for the keywords. Even if you may think it is a good keyword, if customers are not searching the word, it is relevant. Using Google Adwords keyword planner is an easy way to research keywords. With a little bit of patience keywords are easy to master and can help customers reach your website.

Week 2: MKTG 348- Introduction to SEO Chapter 3

When trying using SEO it is important to ask where is the content going to go? You want to use different types content on social media and your website to draw in more customers. The more content, leads to more visitors, more google notices, which leads to a higher rank and better value. In order to perform proper SEO you need to understand your customer. Different content should be used based your your target market.

90% of the struggle of SEO is having high quality content. The other 10% of SEO is technical tweaks. Making sure that your content is easily accessible will help Google make your content available to customers. If google can't find it, customers will not be able to. Next, you should make sure you enhance your own website so when people do visit it, the content is relevant. Last, you should think of how your getting traffic from other websites. This connection will help link others to your page.

At the heart of SEO are keywords. Keywords are the phrases you think customers will type in to lead them to your page. For example, if you have content for a dog adoption website some keywords people would type in could be; dog, adoption, dog adoption, help dogs, adopt dogs, and adopt. One thing that is very important, is that your keywords match your content. While keywords are very important, it is still more important to focus your time on the actual content of your campaign instead of keywords.