Blog Post 3 - BUS572-3

Third Session

This week´s topic is about Search Engine Optimization. One of the concepts that I found interesting in this chapter is optimizing images. The key point here is to optimize the images with the relevant keywords because the search engine cannot read images. It needs to understand what the image is about. Giving a good title to the image would help visitors to get a better sense of what the website is about. The title should describe the image and give good information about the image. Giving the correct title to the image can help the website getting higher rank in the search engine.

There are different ways to optimize images with key phrases for SEO:

• Use descriptive filenames.

• Use specific alt tags and title attributes for the images.

• Meta information can be supplied in the image file. Make sure this information is relevant.

• Use descriptive captions, and keep relevant copy close to the relevant image.

• Make sure the header tags and images are relevant to each other.

The second concept is how to get more links for a website. Having valuable content on the website that visitors want to read will help getting more links to the website. Using relevant tools and documents on the website will increase the number of links for the website. For example, creating a calculator that calculates body mass index can increase the number of links for a website that sells diet books. Creating games is another way to generate links. Other ways to generate links are widgets, browser extensions and other software that visitors use. In order to identify target sites for link request, you should first know your competitors and those who are linking to them. Secondly, you should find noncompeting sites that have high rank for your key words.

Source here

The skill that I have learned this week is how to use A/B testing. A/B testing is a way to test changes on a website and determine whether these changes will increase the conversion rate or not. For example if you have different set of keywords and you are not certain which would give your website the higher rank, you can use A/B testing method and find out which keywords will give your website the higher rank in the search engine.

The knowledge I have gained after this session is how optimizing images can lead to higher ranking of the website. Giving the title that is relevant to the keywords and describe the image properly are the key points. I have also learned how you can get more links for your website by putting useful content or documents on it and by using tools and creating games. These all increases your website's ranking if used correctly. 

Blog Post 1 - BUS572-1

First Session 

The first most important concept that I´ve learned is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which is the process of making a website showing in the search engine by using keywords. The higher number of visitors a website receives, the higher rank it will get in the searching list. SEO is used in Internet marketing. It examines how search engines work, the keywords that users type into search engines and what users search for the most. I think this concept is important because it helps the users to optimize their websites, improve the ranking in the search engine, get more visitors and higher rank on the search engine. Does anyone of you readers have experience within how to use SEO prior to this course? Would you mind sharing your knowledge?

The second most important concept is the 4 P´s of marketing; product, price, place, and promotion. First all, this tool helps marketers to determine the customer’s need for a product and how to develop it based on their needs. Putting the right value on the products that customers are willing to pay for is the other factor of the 4 P´s; Price. Third P is putting products in a place where it is most convenient for customers to access. Last one is how to promote your product in the best way to attract as many customers as possible. By using this tool, marketers can design an effective marketing plan where they can meet the customer´s expectations and be competitive in the market place. In my opinion, this concept is very important. In order to succeed in today´s competitive market you need to have the right strategy and right marketing plan for your business and using the 4p´s of marketing as a tool can help you through this process of planning.

                                           (Source: marketingplan.net, 2010)

What I can add to my skillset is the practice of blogging. I found this impossible two weeks ago but I can now state that I have a blog AND know how to use it. What I hope to learn after next session is more advanced ways of blogging and perhaps also how to add advertisement on it and how to control it. 

I have after this first session learned the basics of search engines. Despite this, I am still not fully understanding how these work more than just basic knowledge and feel that I need to learn a lot more about this. All the terms such as keywords, spiders, matches, PPC and more are all still fuzzy to me. However, I am sure that this will change over the weeks and I have still gained a lot more knowledge than I had before this course; I only used search engines without knowing the true functions behind them as I know now. If someone reads this post, will you be able to fill in what you think I have missed, did I understand this right? See you in class!