W13 Reflection: Ranking, Link Building & Google Analytics

I was excited by the idea of evergreen content over blogging. I am not naturally interested in blogging, and this seems like a better middle ground for me. I have a few ideas for content to develop, the limiting factor being available time and execution. I hope to focus my efforts primarily towards lasting useful content. As a supplement, I could incorporate a blog to review or explain industry tools. There can be a steep learning curve to the large brand businesses, and I think I can offer value by simplifying their tools in a more approachable way.

Guest blogging is appealing too but also feels awkward to pursue. I do not know when I would be ready for that or if I will even be an interesting addition to someone’s blog. I intend to become a credentialed genealogist. Having those initials after my name with help me with credibility among other professionals, but it will be a couple years before I complete the credentialing process.

Google Analytics is an interesting tool. I look forward to being able to implement changes from the data it collects. Currently, it feels more like a novelty and can be difficult to identify improvements. I do think that longer tracking history will lead to better data and make those improvements opportunities a little more obvious.

I am looking forward to building my business presence overtime as I complete my family history research degree and pursue genealogy credentials.

W12 Reflection: Social Media for SEO & Social Networking

This week’s information on social media SEO was really helpful. A few years ago, I worked as a digital marketing assistant for a Chinese herbal company and part of my job was creating and posting the ads for various social media platforms. My job wasn’t creating the marketing plan, I was given assignments to carry out, but now in hindsight I can see all the things that were missed and what could have helped that company even more. I’m excited to use what I learned from that job and what I am learning from this class to be more effective in reaching my target market.

I’m particularly interested to track the traffic sources and learn how to reach my market most effectively. That is something I know my old employer didn’t know how to do and wished they did. Part of me wants to send off a quick email to the owners to suggest using Google Analytics to track their social media advertising efforts would change their lives. If I can figure out a polite way to do it, I might—they were nice people, but we haven’t kept in touch.

I appreciated the emphasis in the readings and video on just taking the time to establish a plan, not to stress out about getting it exactly perfect but something to get you started and update periodically. I do best setting plans to a calendar and following a pattern so I want to use what I learned this week to develop a basic outline and fill in the framework from there. Once I have a manageable system with a pattern, I believe that I can maintain momentum in content creation and segmented, sharable content posts on social media.