Kelley Smith

My Site Traffic

Using Google Analytics in my MKTG 470 class, I could see that my site was visited 205 this year. About 61% were new visitors. My sites was most visited on days that I announced new blog posts through social media sites. This strategy seemed to generate a lot of traffic as almost 50% of my traffic sources came from referring sites. Only 15% of my site traffic came from search engines so as I continue my site, I will work to improve my SEO efforts. Most of my visitors came from Virginia and other states where I have friends and family such as California and Pennsylvania. However, I also thought it was interesting that I got a few clicks from Canada, Saudi Arabia, India, and Australia. While these visitors did not stay long and likely found my site by accident, it was interesting to be reminded that people all over the world can find my site.

MKTG 470 Takeaways

MKTG 470 has helped me understand what goes into having great internet marketing. I especially liked learning how to use WordPress. In addition to just blogging, I enjoyed learning about the plugins and widgets that helped make my site even better. I also enjoyed using Google AdWords. This tool helped me understand that it is more important to have good quality keywords for a site than having as many words as possible. I have also found a greater appreciation for social media in the business world. I was not a big fan of Twitter before this class but now use it to keep up with my favorite companies, industry trends, and world news.

Internet Marketing In My Future

Before this class, I was very interested in web design. Now that I have learned more about how to optimize a website and internet marketing as a whole, I have realized how it important it is to have both a beautiful and functional website. I have enjoyed blogging very much in this class. It has given me an organized outlet to share my views on marketing and explore related topics online. I would like to continue this blog after this class is over with a focus on going green and my experiences starting my career.

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Earth Day began not too long ago in 1970 by Senator Gaylord Nelson in an effort to give environmental issues higher importance on the national agenda.  The holiday was wildly successful as over 20 million Americans participated in various cities across the country.  Later that year, Congress authorized creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, designed to tackle environmental issues.

Today, in an effort to raise environmental awareness, many companies are using internet marketing to inform consumers and set higher standards for healthy living.

Whole Foods, a natural foods supermarket, has made it their mission to provide consumers with the best organic food and household products since 1980.  The company uses various forms of internet marketing to communicate with consumers.  On Facebook, visitors can find a featured healthy recipe and links to healthy eating ideas.  Consumers can also keep up with Whole Foods on Twitter (@WholeFoods) where the company actively answers customer questions about eating healthy every day.  Whole Foods also offers a blog called Whole Story with a number of contributors that discuss organic eating, cooking, body care products, and knowing how to recognize the best Earth friendly products.  This month, many of the posts have had a special focus on Earth Day.

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I really like turtles. Sometimes I Google the word “turtles” to find cool images to use as my desktop background. However, most of the time, I find these images of turtles on websites that have nothing to do with turtles. Maybe it is a website about kitchen items that have glassware with turtle patterns or a website about party theme ideas with an “Under the Sea” theme featured on the home page. So how do you know if certain keywords are leading the right visitors to your site?

Google Webmaster Tools is a great way to see if a website is being found by relevant keywords. For example, even though most of my impressions are coming from words like “cartoon” and “turtle,” with my recent SEO efforts, words like “James Madison Marketing” and “social media in the workplace” are gaining much more impressions. Google Webmaster Tools also shows the top keywords found on the website. If these words do not match the general theme of the blog or site, the webmaster can refine headings and body copy to attract the desired visitors. It is also helpful to see who is linking to the site. For example, if a lot of sites with a certain topic are visiting the site, the webmaster could create more pages or blog posts with relatable content to attract more links.

Google Webmaster Tools also allows the webmaster to upload a sitemap. This feature makes it easier for Google to locate pages that might be hard to find otherwise. To further organize the site, the webmaster can also set up sitelinks to the website’s interior pages. These links will appear in the search results, allowing visitors to go straight to the desires pages without visiting the home page first. These tools can be especially useful if the site is very large.

In contrast, the webmaster can also set up a robots.txt file to tell Google how to crawl the site. Google spiders will look for this information first before indexing the site. If unwanted information is appearing on Google, the webmaster can use the Remove URL tool to request removal or add a line to the robots.txt file to tell the spiders not to index it. Both the robots.txt file and the Remove URL tool are useful when handling private or out-of-date content.

After exploring Google Webmaster Tools, I would like to learn more about the malware and crawl errors tools.

Posted in Marketing | 1 Comment »

Internet marketing opens up opportunities that many forms of traditional marketing cannot.  Internet marketing offers a unique opportunity for two way communication.  Gone are the days when marketers could simply rely on ad after ad to help customers remember a product.  Internet marketing is allowing marketers to form a stronger, longer lasting relationship with customers.  Deb Van Horn, Vice President of Support Services at Rockingham Group, a regional insurance company for Virginia and Pennsylvania, offered great insight on how to measure the effectiveness of online marketing tools.

Using Facebook Tools

Ms. Van Horn spoke highly about the tools companies can use on Facebook to help see if their Facebook page is working effectively.  These tools can help companies look beyond just the comments and likes posted on the wall. First, companies can see the activity of people who “like” the page on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.  This can help the company see when people are interacting with the page.  Ms. Van Horn talked about how important this is because many people are not checking Facebook during normal business hours.  In many cases, the Facebook page will need to be monitored on weekends and after hours to keep up with the traffic.

Another important piece of information provided by Facebook is the demographics of the people who “like” the page.  This information can help companies target their Facebook ads.  It can also be compared to the demographics of the company’s clients to see if it matches.  If it does not, the company can use this information to indentify new markets or better target current markets.

Effective Internet Ads

Before a company can decide if a certain site is a good spot for an advertisement, Ms. Van Horn suggested considering the following:

• How many people visit the site daily?
• What are the demographics of the people who visit the site?
• What link is going to be provided in the ad?

Asking these questions can help the company decided if their ad will be effective on a specific site.  Ms. Van Horn also emphasized that it is important to properly understand the metrics used to determine the success of internet ads.  These metrics include the following:

• Impressions: How many times the ad is visible to users.
• Clicks: How many times a users click an ad to visit the advertised link.
• Click Through Rate (CTR): the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions.
• Average CPM: the cost per 1000 impressions.

These metrics can help companies see if their ad is reaching the right market and leading customers to where they want to be.

I greatly appreciate Ms. Van Horn for taking the time to speak to our Internet Marketing class.  I have learned much more about using social media in my professional career.

Learn more about Ms. Van Horn and Rockingham Group by following her on Twitter (@debvanhorn) or finding her on Linkedin.

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