Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is like a game that never ends. There is always something you can do to improve your SEO score. For my site there are several things I do to consistently improve my site. First thing I always do is have relevant keywords that align with the body of my text. I also learned that you can improve your SEO score even more by including those some keywords in title tags, alt tags and other metadata fields. Another way to improve your SEO score is through link building. Link building is where another site links back to your site like this for an exmaple JMU. I teamed up with a couple of my classmates to provide links to each others sites on your own sites. The more websites that link back to your site the more favorably your site will be rated by search engines. My 470 teacher Dr. Clarke told us that you ask sites to provide a link to your site if its an appropriate, she also warned us to always stay away from organizations that offer to provide a link to your site for a fee.

So far this semester my site has underwent a lot of improvements. At the beginning of the semester my site was one of the last results on Google’s SERP page 6 for the query “Love JMU”, not its moved up to one of the top results on page 5. Even though my site is ranking higher, there’s still a lot of room for improvement. A good indicator that shows how much I can improve my SEO score and site, is through a website called CrawlerFX which told me that on the keyword “Love JMU” I only received a 29 out of a possible 100 points.

SEO scores are crucial for all websites, you have to consistently work at it to improve it and even at times get more creative.

Last week I had the privilege of introducing Lindsay Crone to my Marketing 470 class. Mrs. Crone shared with us her background, what it’s like to work for The Search Agency, and advice on the job search process.

Out of all the outstanding information Mrs. Crone was nice enough to share with us, the part that resonated the most with me was her advice on job search, interviews and resumes. First she told us that resumes should never be longer than one page, and that you don’t really need an objective. She informed us that objectives aren’t necessary because it’s included in your cover letter. Mrs. Crone told us one of the most important things is to go into interviews knowing what you want to do. She told us the response “I’ll do anything,” to the question about what you want to do for a company is not what companies want to hear at all. She told us that companies not only want to hear what you actually want to do, but also how you personally can add value to the company. It was easy to listen to Mrs. Crone talk about all this because not only does she have experience reading resumes, but because she was genuinely passionate about trying to help us.

I think Mrs. Crone inspired our whole class to have the confidence to pursue a career we really desire. Mrs. Crone told us to actually contact companies were interested in even if their not listing job openings. She said that if a company sees how passionate you are they might create a position for you or contact you in the future. Mrs. Crone really encouraged us to reach out to people we know or contact JMU alumni so you can have contacts or references in fields you’re trying to work in.

After the presentation I felt much more confident in reaching my goal of landing a job in the sports industry. Everything Mrs. Crone said was so genuine and that she was interested in helping us. I can’t thank Mrs. Crone enough for taking the time talk to our class and for sharing all the valuable information. THANKS AGAIN!

Today my MKTG 490 team and I enabled our Google Adwords account to compete in the Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC).

I’m lucky enough to have Blaine Anderson, Sarah Carpentner, and Jacqueline Cheff on my team for the challenge. The four of us have selected Wild GUYde Adventures LLC as our client for the competition. The competition is made up over 50,000 students from 100 countries. Our team will strategically allocate a budget of $250 dollars on an advertising strategy in Google Adwords. Teams in this competition are judged on their accounts’ success metrics, actual adjustments made during 3 week period and the post campaign summary. The winners of the competition get to fly out to the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Our client Wild GUYde Adventures is located in Harrisonburg, Virgina. The business is run by Lester Zook, who is currently the Director of the Outdoor Ministry program at Eastern Mennonite University. Mr. Zook takes customers out on full or half day adventures. The adventures you can choose from inculde Rock Climbing and Rappelling, Caving, Hiking, and Canoeing.

My team and myself have been working very hard all semester preparing ourselves for the next 3 weeks of competition. Preparation include meeting with our client multiple times, and getting a sense of the current market conditions. Once we had a sense of the business and the market itself, we began to develop campaign strategies. We made campaigns for all major categories like Rock Climbing, Canoeing, Hiking and Caving, as well as few other strategic ones that we believe will help us be successful. Within each one of these campaigns we have several different Ad groups that represent the different ways we think customers will search for Wild GUYde Adventures. After we had the framework down, we began to select keywords that would potentially trigger our different Ad groups. Along with selecting keywords, we also selected negative keywords, used Geo targeting, had different matching options and bidding options put in place all in hopes to make our account more optimal. Our team will be monitoring the account extremely closely each day and be making continuous adjustments. Wish us Luck!