Search Engine Optimization

This week I’ve learned how I can improve my website for search engines. There are many different ways to do this but I’ve listed five that I plan on implementing if possible on my own website.

1. Have descriptive words that will help people locate my website.
2. Have descriptive titles for my page so the search engine can easily find my page and to give it added relevance.
3. Have links that add importance towards my website and give it credibility.
4. Have the right words within the links that show or describe my website well.
5. Have fresh and consistent content on my website

These optimizations will help the search engines locate my website if it is relevant to the users search. Also, I can make my website and its pages seem more relevant by including or improving these different aspects. By participating in the two discussion boards, I’ve learned a couple other ways that will help as well. One classmate mentioned emphasizing certain words or phrases that the search engine will pay more attention to. This suggestion is one that I plan on including as well.

Conversions

This week I was a little confused about what a conversion was. Now I know that a conversion when someone clicks on my ad and then does an action that I deem valuable. In my case that would be that a conversion would involve someone buying one of my paintings or prints. The more difficult part was determining the actual value of that action since not all of my paintings and prints are sold at the same amount. I resolved this issue by counting the number of items I have listed and then averaging out the sum of all of them. Another way I could have valued it was by the lowest priced at for the value instead, but I thought the average would be more accurate. I excited that I can know monitor these specific actions and with that information I can hopefully improve my website!

Google Analytics

I have overcome the daunting task of installing google analytics- something I didn’t even know existed a couple weeks ago- and it’s amazing. Not only is it amazing, but it’s free! Once I added the script tag to my website in the SEO and waited 24 hours, I can now monitor how many people come and visit my website and how long they stay. Weebly offers limited statistics already, such as how many people visit per day and which pages they check out, but you don’t know how much time they come and stay. Now that I can monitor that information, I can see what people are most interested in and cater to those needs. By doing this, hopefully my website will be more interesting to potential customers and they will buy some paintings!

Adwords Campaign

This week I’ve delved into making multiple ad for my Adwords Campaign with Google. I’ve named my campaign B250 Artist Website Campaign so I can differentiate between separate  ones if I make more. I have four or five different group themes within that campaign and I plan on possibly making an ad for each category. The first ad I made was pretty generic and advertised for watercolor decor. I wanted to focus my ad more so I could get better search results, so I made a second ad directed towards people searching for local artists in Iowa. I also specified that I sold watercolor paintings and prints. For each ad I can further narrow and optimize the keywords listed to better reflect the possible searches related to my ad and business. Hopefully my ads are successful at gaining more interest in my art and induce more sales.

Google Adwords and Keywords

This week I’ve learned a bunch on how to create a campaign in Google Adwords. There are many options for controlling how much you want to spend on your whole campaign and specifically how much you want to pay per click. Since my business focuses on selling watercolor paintings and prints I’ve selected twenty or so keywords that I think effectively describe my business or are phrases I think potential buyers would put into the google search engine.

Here is my list:

Art group: art prints, framed art, wall art, art for sale, original art for sale, watercolor artists

Nursery group: baby nursery decor, nursery art prints, nursery art, nursery wall art

Painting group: watercolor painting, original watercolor painting, paintings for sale, watercolor paintings, watercolor painting artwork

Children group: kids wall decor, kid wall art, baby room decor

In Google Adwords, you also have the option to add negative keywords to eliminate searches that don’t pertain to your webpage or that you wouldn’t want associated with your business. I chose three different negative keywords for my business and they are: childish, novice, and amateur. Through the use of these keywords, my business will get more relevant searches and potentially more business.