Site Analytics:

Since I created my website a few months ago I have had 107 visitors check out my site, with 36 of those readers returning to visit my site again. I have had over 230 page views, with the average visit time being a little over 3 minutes. 21% of my visitors are brought through search traffic. The individuals who tend to visit my site the most have searched for keywords relating to “JMU”, “Theresa B Clarke”, “Scrapbook”, and “senior year”. Another 34 % of my visitors have been from referral traffic and the remaining 45% from direct traffic. From Google Analytics, I discovered that my SEO strategy was successful bringing 22 visitors from organic page listings on Google.

Reflection on MKTG 470:

From taking this MKTG 470 class this semester I have learned a lot through creating my website. One of the most interesting things I’ve learned so far was in general how to create a website. I always wondered before taking this class what the steps were behind creating a website. Now I know how to insert a link into a website, create new pages and blogs, change the theme of my website along with many other fun tricks to making a website interesting and appealing to the viewer.

One of the most helpful things I learned from MKTG 470 was about the importance of SEO and PPC and how to utilize both of them in order to gain a better following to one’s website. Most importantly, I learned the small tricks to SEO that help the keyword content of your website using the ethical/honest ways of white hat SEO tricks. Similarly, I learned how to hook Google analytics up to my website and use it to analyze my site and better improve it based on their data findings. Both of these skills are crucial to marketing and working in the business world after life here at JMU.

Future Endeavors:

Before starting this class, I had always found internet marketing interesting and thought about going into that field after graduation. Having learned many techniques related to internet marketing, I concluded I enjoy more of the website creation than I do the SEO aspect which was a big surprise to me.  Although I will not pursue an internet marketing career after graduation, I will continue to update my website.

I recently hooked up my website to Google webmaster tools and it has provided me with great information to help me improve my blog. Google Webmaster tools basically analyzes your website based on keywords, clicks, searches, page load times and presents the data in an organized way so that you can see the areas where you might want to change or improve you site. Google Webmaster Tools analyzed my website and reported the top keywords it pulled from my various pages. By showing me this data I was able to tell that my keywords were consistent with some of the themes of my pages which should help me gain clicks from people searching for those particular keywords. This feature can be viewed as an important tool to marketers because if their website is analyzed by Google and the keywords they were hoping to have linked back to their site are actually very different from what they thought, it allows the marketer to realize this and correct this mistake so that they can gain more followers.

For more ways that Google webmaster tools can benefit your site check out this article:

Top Four Technical Benefits of Google Webmaster Tools

Second semester of senior year here at JMU has proved to be bittersweet. Many of us find mixed feelings about the thought of graduating in less than 7 weeks. For the past 16 years all we’ve really known is going to school and now, if you’re not going to grad-school, the life as a student that we’ve always known is over. The real world is approaching very fast with everyone you know questioning you on where you will be living, where you will be working, what you want to do with the rest of your life starting in a few months.

While still taking a full class load of marketing classes, we are applying for jobs, interviewing with future employees, studying for exams, completing projects and trying to enjoy the last few weeks of school with our best friends. As the weather becomes more beautiful outside, many of us are faced with the second semester senior year dilemma; do we give school the 100% effort that we have become accustomed too for the past three and a half years or do we buckle down and finish strong?

It’s a difficult decision to make. While you want to continue acing all of your classes and landing that dream first job, everyday you are one day closer to graduating and saying goodbye to the lifestyle you have become accustomed too and enjoyed for what seems like forever. JMU has been a great four years to a long career of education. It has been filled with great professors, classes, experiences, friends, and memories. My only wish is that we had more time between when classes and finals ended and when graduation was so we wouldn’t be faced with the second semester dilemma that many of us now face.

Social media is transforming the way businesses interact and advertise to their consumers. Facebook has emerged as one of the top ways for companies to revamp their marketing campaigns, keep up with technological trends and increase their awareness to consumers all at the same time. With the 350 million users that check their Facebook every day, businesses are able to interact with their consumers on a new personal and more frequent matter for a relatively low cost. Businesses are making pages to keep their consumers informed about the latest news, events and interesting random facts that might appeal to their target market.

Facebook allows users to connect and express themselves on a myriad of things. Fan pages have been created from anything ranging from Pringles to musicians to a page titled “Flipping the Pillow over to Get the Cold Side!” Even states in the U.S have their own pages- special shout out to MA for having the highest number of fans for a state facebook page!

The point is social media allows businesses to connect with their consumers for a relatively inexpensive and extremely effective way. Social media is creating the experience for a small blueberry pancake café in Boulder, Colorado to get a snowboard junkie from New Hampshire the opportunity to hear about their business and awesome reviews about their breakfasts before they even get off the plane. Local businesses are creating a following on Facebook and increasing their awareness now to consumers that might not have had the opportunity to learn about their business otherwise. Furthermore, Facebook users are able to see their friends “likes” of pages and consequently stumble upon new unique pages that they are also interested it. Facebook is in essence a new form of word of mouth marketing for businesses through the internet. Check out Hubspot’s article State of Facebook for Business to find out more cool things on how social media is transforming the process of marketing.

Here are 2 articles that provide helpful tips and advice for businesses that want to use facebook:

3 Ways to Drive Corporate Facebook Success

For my MKTG 470 class we are required to make a Twitter and tweet on the regular. Before this assignment I was one of my few friends that still did not have a Twitter account. I’ve always been supportive and interested in social media but I never saw the appeal of a website that is essentially composed of what could be considered a laundry list of Facebook statuses. I have never been a fan about posting my every moment and emotion on the internet nor am I interested in reading about everyone’s specific status. However, after creating a Twitter and being forced to follow friends and companies for a homework assignment I have gained a new appreciation for it. I chose to follow numerous news sources, magazines, companies and celebrities. To my surprise I actually enjoyed reading these various sources of tweets. Many of them tweet different current events or interesting articles that I might not have read otherwise. I’ve found many of the newspaper and magazines I’ve started following provide me with quick interesting facts about events, people and various industries. I’ve always supported Facebook for companies because it’s a great way to connect with customers and share information with them, however, before this assignment I couldn’t fathom how twitter could be useful for a company. I’ve learned that companies not only tweet interesting facts relating to the happenings within their own company or industry but also about different things related to the customers. For instance, I started following Women’s Health and many of their tweets link to a topic their customers are interested in such as quick healthy dinner recipe links or new workouts for getting in shape. The tweets help companies grab their consumers/followers interest without boring them with straight facts about their particular product or service. By tweeting daily and involving their followers in interesting content they help build their brand and image 

Now that I use Twitter to connect with my friends I’ve started to enjoy it more and more. Before I used to think that people would post about random things in their life that I was not really interested in following but to my surprise manyof my friends’ tweets are hilarious. They tweet random funny occurrences that happen to them throughout the day and I’m beginning to enjoy tweeting more and more.

For helpful hints on getting your twitter started check out: http://edte.ch/blog/2011/07/26/10-steps-to-kick-start-your-twitter-network/

I just uploaded a new theme for my website. It’s called Femme Flora 1.9 and was designed by Shivanand Sharma. I wasn’t sure what I wanted when I started searching for a new theme so I tried looking for something that either incorporated some aspects that represented Europe or Paris because I love traveling. I found it was difficult to search for a theme by a picture and that you could just upload a picture to most themes headers or somewhere on the website. I then searched by my favorite color pink. When I did this, many of the themes had a feminine touch which I liked. I then started looking for among the pink themes for one that wasn’t too young looking. I came across the Femme Flora one and like it for its simplicity and unique attributes. I liked that it had a subtle detailed pattern in the background but the main text of the page was overly crowded and was easy to navigate. I thought the main layout was aesthetically pleasing based on the different contrasts of colors and portion sizes. I also like this theme because the header allows you to upload a picture or keep the default setting and my favorite flower is included in the top corner. After uploading it, I noticed a few changes to my website. The widgits side bar moved from the right side to the left and a footer widgit was installed. The pages I had created still remained on the top which I really liked. Overall, I didn’t have any problems installing the theme and really am pleased with how it looks!

Welcome to my blog.  I am currently enrolled in Strategic Internet Marketing (MKTG 470) taught by Dr. Theresa B. Clarke at James Madison University.  As one of the course requirements, all students will be completing some of the assignments as blog posts.  This is my first official blog post for Dr. Clarke’s course in the JMU Department of Marketing.