Just like the past two chapters, chapter 7 provides another way to learn about analytics in a live setting. The last two chapters talked about Shopify and AdWords, while this chapter will talk about Gumroad. Gumroad can be easily linked to Google Analytics, and it has its own built-in analytics.
Conversion analytics is very important to learn because they help you to optimize a campaign. It helps make campaigns more effective, and more efficient. In the process, generating more revenue and using the existing budget more wisely. Knowing a conversion rate helps you measure the effectiveness of your efforts to improve things, over time.
Let's get started with Gumroad! Go to: https://gumroad.com/ click "Start Selling:" then create an account. Next, name your store and enter a description. You will want to add a username, which will appear in the link. Once your account is all set up, you want to connect with Google Analytics.
Go to: https://www.google.com/analytics/ click "Access Google Analytics," click "Property," add your Gumroad website in, and copy the Tracking ID it gives you.
Now, you'll want to go back into Gumroad, and select "Settings." In the "Advanced" section paste in the Tracking ID, you just obtained from Google Analytics. Update the account details, then add a product into Gumroad. Once you have a product added in, share it on Facebook to generate some traffic. Once you have some traffic you can go to Analytics in Gumroad and see how your conversion rate is doing.
Google Analytics will allow you to dig a little deeper into the statistics than Gumroad will. You can use both websites to track your website, and make improvements to increase your revenue even more!
Chapter 8 is the last chapter in Surfing the Tsunami and it discusses what to do next. Now that you understand AI, the causes, and the effects, it's time to discuss what to do after you implement the three A's (adapt, adopt, and adept) into your life.
As a reminder, a couple great books to read about AI include Rise of the Robots, Master Algorithm, and 2nd Machine Age.
Once you've read these three books try Machine Learning and Deep Learning to help you become more adept in AI.
Books can only take you so far though, once you have read all these books front to back, your next step is to take courses in AI to further your understanding. These courses can be done at a local community college, online/book refreshers such as Khan Academy, or Coursera. Coursera offers free courses as well as courses for payment. Through Coursera you can receive actual certificates that will look great on a resume! They also offer online Master's Degree programs in Computer Science.
Another great option besides Coursera is Udacity. You can get their "Learn to Code" nanodegree. It starts with HTML and moves to python. They also carry an online Master's Degree in Computer Science.
All of these books and websites are great sources to help you stay up to date with AI. While Artificial Intelligence does not seem to be affecting you, it affects everyone in some way, shape, or form. It is very important to address AI and understand the effects it has on everyday life.
Lesson 4 focuses on the fundamentals of blogging. It is an essential part of being an inbound marketer, helping you to easily and effectively reach prospects on your website. Business blogging helps you attract new visitors, and convert them into leads. Blog posts can help strangers by answering their questions and turning them into visitors. People who are interested in your blog will visit it, share it, and help promote it. The more you blog, the more people will look at you as a reliable and trustworthy source.
When creating a blog it is important to follow these simple and easy steps:
1) Pick a topic and title: When choosing your blog title it is important to use long-tail keywords. The keyword should fit as a description of what the page is about.
2) Format and optimize the post: When creating a blog it is important to focus on one topic. The more focused a blog is, the better because it will make posts clearer for readers and for search engines. Having empty space on your blog (whitespace) is a good thing, it helps visitors to focus on your content, not the clutter. Use short paragraphs, indents, section headers, and bulleted lists to make it easier to read.
3) Promote offers on your blog to increase lead generation: Use your blog to strategically promote your current offers. You want to attract someone and provide relevant information and offers. Feature CTAs on a blog sidebar, you want it to catch readers at the beginner of the buyers journey. Also, make sure that you make it easy for people to prescribe to your blog.
4) Promote your blog posts: Use your blog sidebar to promote your recent or most popular posts, and add your blog to your primary website navigation. Also, link internally to your blog posts, readers who are interested can click through to your blog. Sharing your posts on social media can help promote your product or service.
5) Analyze the performance of your blog posts: You will want to look at hte number of views for each blog post. It will help you determine which content is the most popular among viewers. Filtering your most popular posts by topic, author or channel of promotion. Last, look at the number of clicks on the CTAs at the end of an individual post.
Once you have done all of these steps, your blog will be even better! Just remember it is important to write consistently and frequently. Each new blog post is a new chance to reach new customers.
Lesson 3 of hubspot focuses on creating content with a purpose. Content is what your trying to deliver to your visitors through social media, emails, and more. Not all content is created equally, remember quality is always better than quantity! In the attract phase content is the driving force to the convert stage. It fuels the inbound methodology, and helps progress visitors from step to step.
Your content should make people want to come back for more, or refer others to you. Every piece is an investment in your future goals. When coming up with content it is important to take in consideration your buyer personas (who you're trying to reach) and the buyer's journey (what content will be most interesting or helpful for them).
If your content is in the awareness phase you should be targeting a problem your buyer persona is experiencing. In the consideration stage you should be targeting a solution to a problem. In the decision stage content should be about your product or service because they have already chosen you. Content should be created for all different stage of the buyer's journey. The picture below shows the best places content should be placed in each step of the buyer's journey.
When trying to convert visitors into leads, you should utilize content in all of the stages of the buyer's journey. It is more important to focus on the content first, and the design second. Products should not be discussed until the decision stage of the buyer's journey. Delivery of content makes it relevant, so you need to make sure you can get your content out in an effective way. Make sure you are promoting and distributing your content. Lesson 3 focuses on content because it is a crucial step in inbound marketing. Without it, inbound marketing would not be successful at all.
Last week we talked about Shopify and how it provides a foundation for e-commerce. This week we will move on and talk about how AdWords provides a way to advertise a site and track conversion.
To start off lets create an acount, go to http://www.google.com/adwords. Once your account is created go to tools and then to conversions. The goal is to set up a connection between AdWords and your e-commerce site. You can then code it with Shopify and it will allow AdWords to track your site. It will allow you to track how much money you spend on ads to the revenue you will make on your your e-commerce site.
Click the conversion button and ad Shopify in the box. Add the conversion channel as Purchase/Sale, the markup language to HTML, and last click "I make changes to the code." Click done and you are set. Take the code Google gives you, log onto your Shopify, click checkout, and paste the link into the additional content and scripts area.
Congrats, you have successfully linked your Shopify and AdWords, now you will have a better understanding when you are tracking your site!
Chapter 7 of Surfing the Tsunami focuses on diving into the AI field and learning a little bit about some of the industry leaders.
The first individual highlighted is Andrew Ng, he was based out of Stanford, and helped to launch the "MOOC" revolution, through co-founding Coursera. He offers courses at Stanford on machine learning that are very popular. He used to work in China at Baidu as the chief scientist,but he recently came back to the United States. Below is one of his recent videos where he discusses AI.
The second individual is Geoffrey Hinton, a British cognitive psychologist and computer scientist. He was one of the first researchers who demonstrated the use of generalized back propagation algorithm for training multi-layer neural nets. Blow is an interview Geoffrey recently had with New York Times.
Pedro Domingos was also sited as having a strong influence in the AI field. He wrote the book Master Algorithm, and teaches at University of Washington. His youtube videos for his online machine learning class, as well as several TEDx talks show just how knowledgeable on AI he is.
These are just three of the top individuals in the AI field. They are great sources to help further grasp your understanding of AI. Check out these videos, as well as other videos and books written by these influential individuals!
Growing up in a small town the food options in
my school district were very slim. There was one lunch offered a day, no
alternatives for students with allergies, intolerances, and no healthy options.
Without fail, year after year, the highlight of my day was chicken nuggets,
Bosco sticks, and pizza. Once we got to middle school, our school offered what
I thought was tons of options. The problem was the food they offered was pizza,
chicken nuggets, cheese fries, and hamburgers. I had no concept of the junk I was
putting in my body to fuel it.
In the link below, What’s
Wrong with School Lunches, Cooper states, “We're seeing sick kids get
sicker and sicker. And the reason this is happening, by and large, is because
of our food system and the way the government commodifies food, the way the
government oversees our food, the way the USDA puts food on kids' plates that's
unhealthy, and allows unhealthy food into schools. And by -- tacitly, all of us
send our kids, or grandchildren, or nieces, or nephews, to school and tell them
to learn, you know, learn what's in those schools. And when you feed these kids
bad food, that's what they're learning. So that's really what this is all
about” (Cooper, 2007). Cooper agrees that school lunches are not only
unhealthy, but they are, teaching students that eating those foods is good for
them. She says that the only way to fix this growing problem is for everyone to
step up and help stop it. Whether it’s petitioning for healthier schools in
your district or simply packing lunch for your child, anything will help.
When
thinking about the effects of eating unhealthy foods most people just think
about weight gain, but have you ever thought about the other effects these
children have? Think about the children who do not have consistent meals, the
only food they receive is food they get from school. They come to school, their
brains are foggy, and all they can think of is their next meal. These students
need nutritious, filling meals that will keep their mind and bodies fueled. In
his TED Talk, Kass talks about how he instituted a program for all schools who
had a forty percent more low-income kids. Every student in this school would
receive not only a free lunch, but also a free breakfast. These kids would come
to school and not have to sit and wait for their first meal of the day, instead
they would start off with a meal. Kass stated that, “The schools that have
implemented this program saw an increase in math and reading scores by 17.5
percent. 17.5 percent. And research shows that when kids have a consistent,
nutritious breakfast, their chances of graduating increase by 20 percent. 20
percent. When we give our kids the nourishment they need, we give them the
chance to thrive, both in the classroom and beyond” (Kass, 2015). When we think
about school lunches, we need to think about the effects that they have on
every child. Most importantly, the children who do not receive consistent meals
at home. They are the ones lacking the nutrients they need to grow and
function, they are the ones we need to make sure are receiving nutritious
meals.
I
believe that schools are starting to take the right steps towards improving
school lunches. If I were to look back at the school lunches I was fed as a
child, and now look at the one my brother receives, there have been vast
improvements. At my brother’s school there are four lunches served a day. The
normal lunch special, a vegetarian option, a gluten free option, and a salad.
They can choose their sides and can opt for healthier options. His school even
offers breakfast to students and healthy snacks for students who do not have
one, or who forgot theirs at home. With the option of these healthy meals, the
real question is, are these students picking the healthier option? Thanks to
the Obama administration, school lunches are starting to become healthier with
less options of junk food. “The amounts of fat, sugar and salt were drastically
reduced. Portion sizes shrank. Lunch trays had to hold more fruits and
vegetables. Snacks and food sold for fund-raising had to be healthier”
(Severson). If we want children to live longer, grow up healthy, and perform
well in school, we need to make sure they are receiving proper nutrition to
fuel their bodies. While I believe that school lunches are not perfect, I
believe there have been steps made towards a healthier future of school
lunches.
References
Cooper, A. (2007, December). What's wrong with
school lunches Retrieved February 12, 2018, from https://www.ted.com/talks/ann_cooper_talks_school_lunches/transcript?
Kass,
S. (2015, November). Want kids to learn well? Feed them well. Retrieved
February 12,
