I think this week I finally found something in this class that interests me! 😉 This week we got into Google Analytics. I felt like this is something I understood and it was very interesting to see all the analysis that can be done with Google Analytics. All of the Website building and Google campaigns and Adwords and stuff was quite a bit beyond me. It was interesting as far as I could understand it, but most of it was far over my head. I don’t really understand all the ins and outs of Google Analytics – setting up goals, attaching it to your site, etc – but I found the information it gathers totally cool that all that data can be tracked. What a great tool for marketing! I haven’t received a score on my Google Analytics quiz yet … so I guess we’ll soon see how well I understood it all … but I did find it fascinating the amount of data and detailed data that can be gathered using this tool.

This week we jumped into the world of social media and using it to market and advertise our business website. This is a tricky one for me. I don’t do social media. I do have a Pinterest account, but I have no idea how to pin something to Pinterest, just my own board. And I don’t ever look at anyone else’s boards, I don’t even know how to! Refraining from using social media has been a personal decision – one I don’t regret. Although I often miss new engagement announcements, pregnancy announcements, someone moving, someone dying, a divorce, a marriage, a missionary farewell, or other life changing moments … I have seen how some get caught up in the social comparisons, the negativism, the pornography, the crap and crud. Let me be clear – there is SO MUCH GOOD on social media. It makes me sad that I miss that stuff. But I don’t want to be sucked into wasting my time or worse and so I have chosen to not engage.

So, again, this week’s assignments have been a bit tough. It is hard to market using social media when you don’t even know how to use it personally! 😉 I completely understand the importance of social media to a business. It is the means of reaching people and advertising. If I desired to continue this business website, I would definitely take the steps to integrate into social media. Quite honestly it is necessary in today’s world. But, for me, I am not planning to continue, and thus, will not spend much time getting to understand the ins and outs of social media. It’s okay, living in the “dark ages” isn’t so bad! 😉

So every week gets a little more above my head and my level of comprehension. I am trying my best to stay on top of understanding and I do believe that bits of truth are sticking with me. At times, I have been frustrated with immersing myself into so much unknown and so much of something I don’t intend on doing throughout my life. However, I finally coming to believe that my frustrations are in vain. The tidbits that are sticking are knowledge – and I’m grateful for that. Also, I realize we all have strengths and weaknesses. I can see as I participate in discussion boards that there are so many in my class that have substantially more knowledge in this course than I. That used to bug, but now I am grateful for what they are teaching me. This is their strength, not mine … and that’s ok. I am excited that the semester is coming to a close, but I am so grateful for what I’ve learned and how I’ve grown.

You can see I missed Week 9. I was at a family reunion that I was in charge of and didn’t prepare enough to get everything done in my class that I should have before the reunion.

This week, I thought I was all ready to go to start my ads campaign, but every time I saw my instructor’s screenshots, it looked very different than mine. Long story short – I emailed my instructor to see if I was operating in the express version and I was and that needed to change. I called Google 4 times. The first time some information was taken and I was transferred …. transferred to nothing. The second time I was in connection with a man who changed all my ads and upped my bid max by over 300% and told me that I didn’t need to be in the regular mods because it wasn’t the most effective. He and I also corresponded through some emails. The third time I called, the gentleman helped me show my screen in the regular ads mode. I was thrilled! We got off the phone and it didn’t take long for me to realize my campaign hadn’t transferred. The fourth time I was put in contact with probably the most patient employee at Google. She helped me pause my current Express campaign and start a totally new campaign in the regular mode. The problem through all of this had to do with emails. My computer was logged in to my personal email instead of the email I use for school. So even though I would log in to Google Ads with my school email, because my computer was logged in to my personal account, for some reason, it wouldn’t let me get into regular mode. I certainly am not going to pretend like I understand how that all works, but I am so grateful to have it figured out!

So, what did I learn this week …. well I used the grade calculator tool in my class grades section and learned that if I did the bare minimum and kiss the ads campaign goodbye, I could have passed the class with a solid ‘D’. That was hard to swallow after having a 100% through lesson 8. Even still, I was seriously considering that option. I learned that not all Google employees are fantastic. I learned patience. I learned perseverance. I learned (or re-emphasized) that I am not a “marketing-Google ads-computer-techy” kind of girl. But I’ve also learned to appreciate those who are.

Well … the results are in – I got an ‘A’ on my website! Yay! That is such a relief. Now we are diving into the world of Google ads. Who knew all this tech-y stuff existed?! I always knew technology is smarter than me, but holy moly! There is so much work behind the scenes of trying to get you, the customer, to certain sites. There is so much effort vying for your business. Crazy. Even just the simple learning was interesting this week. Things like – best practice when making a Google ad is to capitalize the first letter of every word. But, when they visually show you the difference – heck yeah! it looks better that way. Also they discourage gimick-y ad words like FR33 or using all caps. And again, that stuff doesn’t look as professional and draws me away for sure. While this class has been a “kick-my-trash-and-let-me-know-how-much-I-don’t-know” class, I have learned a lot! By no means a professional, but it is nice to understand a bit of what is going on in the world around me.

So, feeling a little better this week. The website has been turned in and I will rest a little easier when my grade is posted. This week we are learning about Google campaigns, Adwords, and keywords. Very interesting stuff. Who knew so much stuff goes into online business! There is so much to learn to use these tools effectively. It is funny – in the past when I search something, I always skip the first several sites that say “ad” with the little box. I had this feeling that I shouldn’t be sucked into some site trying to “advertise” to me. While those may be sites with a little more money to spend on my business, they are also sites that could better give me what I’m looking for. Lesson learned! I may need to change my “searching” habits. 🙂 Life is calming a bit in this class. Getting the website created was a huge stress, and now I feel a little more like “I got this!” This IS week 7, which means officially half-way through semester. B250 Marketing – definitely my most difficult class thus far. But, with “uncomfortable-ness” comes growth. Well then B250 – you’ve pushed me to grow leaps and bounds my friend!

I’m freaking out!! (I feel like a broken record!) The realness of creating a website is scary. I am almost done creating mine and it is plain … like REAL plain. Not sure what that will do to my grade, but I’m telling you – ‘A’ for effort …(just maybe not for looks and value …). Honestly, I spent hours on what little my website is. It took me forever to figure out everything. This class has given me the most stress, headaches, and fear E.V.E.R. Not going to lie, I’ve contemplated quitting school more times than I can count this semester. This class is definitely out of my comfort zone; and being uncomfortable for 14 weeks is rough…and I’m only in week 6! 😦 I am learning a lot – I can’t deny that. I suppose that is the point of the class. I guess you could also say that I am learning what my strengths aren’t and what I don’t want to do the rest of my life. So … Life is good. I’ve decided that even when I feel like I’m a kindergartener taking an AP Calculus class, I’m going to give it my all.

This stuff scares me! So this week we jumped into the world of site design and web payments. Site design is interesting – I still have no clue what I’m doing, but it has been fun looking at sites and seeing what things are working and what things aren’t. I have been more aware of colors, design, complexity, simplicity, pictures, videos, tabs, etc. I have found things I don’t care for, and things I love. We also learned about Paypal buttons. Who knew there were so many different structures?! I am planning on selling friendship bracelets (see, that is solid mommy-ness! I can have my girls help me make them and then I’m killing two birds with one stone – is it still okay to say that? … I’m getting my assignment done and spending time with the cool little people in my life.) So as I was putting together my buttons, the questions started stirring … do I insert color options, length options, style options? If I do color options that would be a whole heck of a lot of options to insert into the button. Style options in the button might not be best because the consumer would want to see the style not just read the styles. Most people could visualize length, so I went with the length as the option in the button. I will have to give several colors to the various styles and then allow for the length to be the option the consumer chooses from. AHHH!! I feel a bit like “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”! But I got news for you fear and trepidation – I’m old and I’m learning (albeit slow)! So take that!

So … first things first. I am not feeling any more adequate, any smarter, any more like I know what the heck I’m doing. Hmmm?? Not good. I am, however, learning more more that I know so little! This week we learned about web builders and web hosts. Who knew they were two different things? Okay, you all did. Whatever. This is new to me. I had to complete a bunch of research on both and came out feeling very confused. This class is kicking my tech-dummy trash. Have you ever heard the old saying “the more you know, the more you don’t know”? That is my life right now. I even messed up when discussing with classmates which web builder to use, and claimed to be using Weebly for my blog. (Sorry WordPress!) I don’t even know where I am (internet speaking). We dove into researching costs of hosts and what they offer. Yikes! I just hope I don’t come out of this class completely broke with an online small company that yields no profit, unused inventory, and half my hair ripped out. …goals…

This week we learned a great deal about drop shipping and affiliate marketing – two things I didn’t even know existed in the world! (I tell you, this class is opening up my eyes to things I didn’t even know existed! Welcome to the world!) Wow, those are two pretty cool options for someone wanting to start an online gig. Drop shipping has some solid benefits – one of which would be the potential for faster, higher profits. But oh! the headache of returns, and customer satisfaction, and reliance on the drop shipper, and the long shipping time. Affiliate marketing is not for the get-rich-quickers! This option would be those in it for the long haul. So – let’s put it this way (since I am a momma!), this, to me, is the race of the tortoise and the hare. Drop shipping is the hare – it promises to be fast, to be quick, to “win”. Affiliate marketing is looking a little slow, definitely the “under-dog”. But (again this is my take), I think that the headache and hassles associated with drop shipping are like the hare’s debilitating confidence, the distractions, the “ha! I got this”. All the while, the “slow and steady” affiliate marketing wins the race. Are you in it for the long haul? Or do you want a quick-fix? Diets don’t last – consistent, healthy living does …. get the picture?