One of a kind

• When looking at my GoogleAnalytics account, I had an overall good number of visitors to my website with a total of 193 visits. Of these 193 visits, 147 (or around 80%) of visits were from unique visitors and over 90% of these visitors were from the United States. Most activity was during the month of march along with a peak on April 19th. The reasons for these results were due to the Pay Per Click GoogleAdwords opportunity we had during this class. We created accounts, campaigns, and keywords, mine was “Love JMU”, that formed ads that showed on Google search results pages. These ads appeared based on bidding, and ranks of our websites. Although PPC tactics increased traffic to my page, the most effective way was on April 19th when I posted a link to my page on my facebook timeline. That day I received 33% of all my visits and increased my total visits by 64 clicks, with most of these 64 visits occurred closer to the time I posted it. As a result, I realized the promotional capabilities of posting links on Facebook and the viewing capabilities when a post is new to the news feed.
• I learned many other Internet Marketing techniques from the MKTG 460 class. I learned how Search Enging Result Pages, such as Google or BING, create their results. I realized they use “spriders” that crawl websites looking for key phrases/keywords that users type into the search bars. We also learned about heatmaps that document the mouse activity of viewers on a webpage. It was interesting to see the difference of a heatmap in China from one in the United States. I also learned how to create a website, maintain it, and attain ownership of my own domain name. 
  
• I can use many of these techniques in the future as I am an International Business major with a concentration in marketing. I have the desire to understand why people make the purchasing decisions that they do which I find extremely interesting.  I most likely will not continue to update my blog as it is expensive to keep the domain name. However, I can say that I will be very helpful to a company in using internet marketing to cater to different cultures and market products worldwide.
  

• One main topic of study was Search Engine Optimization which focused on increasing popularity and rank of a specific webpage on search result pages. We focused on using Google tools like GoogleAnalytics and GoogleAdwords to optimize our pages or blog posts. To monitor changes, we checked where our pages ranked at the start of the semester and towards the end. Rank is determined by the web crawlers or spiders that “crawl” webpages looking for keywords and search phrases on them. Focusing on my JMU page, I ranked on page 6 in search results at the beginning of the semester, and now am on page 7 of search results. This may be true due to other students optimizing their pages in a better way versus my changes.
• The class also checked on our ranking by using some websites to rate our pages. One website is market grader, which gives your page specific data why would page has a certain score. According to this webpage I have a score of 54/100 which decreased from 56/100 at the start of the semester. Another website we used is webpagefx.com which gave my page a rank of 29/100.
•  We focused on this by analyzing the key phrase “love JMU” and using that phrase to search for our blog posts. I know now that the more often you include a keyword or search phrase into that specific page, the better ranking it will receive. If I could do this assignment over, I would have included the phrase into the domain name and specific page URL name as well. I would have also implemented link building by encouraging more of my classmates to create links to my page and vice versa so we can all gain from increased website popularity.

 During this Internet marketing class, we have learned about many online tools for monitoring and promoting our websites. Google by far seems to have the best resources. The marketing class at JMU has used Google Adwords along with Webmaster tools to monitor and analyze traffic on our blog pages. Specifically when looking at Webmaster Tools, there are many different tools available to look through. Some useful tools include KEYWORDS which identifies the most significant terms Google found on your site. It provides insight into how the content of your site is perceived. A list of my keywords include the words “marketing, peru, patrice, and post.” Also available are a list of domain names that have links to your site. This was you can monitor who is giving you “link love” and supporting your website. The Search Queries section lists the top search queries for which your site appeared in search results, as well as queries for which users actually clicked through to your site. According to this page, the top search query that potentially lead to conversions onto my site, was the phrase “love JMU.” Google Webmaster tools recoreded 50 impressions for this key phrase that lead to less than 10 clicks. They have this information visually displayed in a chart and a graph that depicts a timeline of the data. The most activity on my page seems to be when our class was using Google Adwords to create paid advertisements for our blog posts. In conclusion, this just proves that the online resources are benefitial.

 Today in class, we had a speaker come in since our amazing professor, Theresa B. Clarke, was away at a Conference. Ms. Van Horn spoke about internet marketing and marketing in the social media for businesses. She showed us the different Facebook pages for Progressive, Allstate and her Rockingham insurance companies. Looking at Fans and engagement rates for these Facebook pages, Rockingham and Allstate have the highest number of Likes out of the three. Before Timeline on Facebook, negative customer comments were posted on the page “front and center” on Progressive’s Facebook Wall. This was not good for the Brand name and now with Timeline, they make it so fans have to search for that page instead of being the first thing they see.

She taught us some useful information on how to use Google Adwords and that Impressions means the number of time an ad may be visible. For television, impressions are estimated by multiplying the number of times your commercial is shown, by the number of people you guess are watching at that time. Also, when advertising online, Average CPM is the cost per 1,000 impressions. She also gave us advice that you should try to market your ad organically and start by seeing how successful your website can be naturally before paying for ads on search engines. Finally, when it comes to Facebook, you need to consider employers and really monitor what you post on your page. People seeking employment can also consider turning off their Facebook profiles, making their pages PRIVATE or focusing more on LinkedIn to network. By clicking on Ms. Van Horn‘s name, you can reach her page on LinkedIn.

JMU Thanks you

The Republic of Peru is located in the western area of South America along the Pacific Ocean. As the third-largest country of this continent, Peru shared limits with Colombia and Ecuador to the north, Brazil and Bolivia to the east, and Chile to the south. This country is divided into three areas that are characterized by diverse climate and topography. The first area, the coast is along the Pacific Ocean and characterized by a mixture of subtropical desert and tropical-dry climates. Although, this is the smallest area of the country it contains all the main ports and chief cities of Peru. The second section, the Andes shows a mixture of climates since around the valleys, the climate is seen as semi-arid but closer to the higher elevations it changes into high levels of moist. Finally, the Amazon basin has a vast of tropical forest along with countless streams and rivers. This combination of geography gives entrepreneurs and marketers a pool of opportunities and threats.

Due to Peru’s diverse landscape, the adventure seeker cannot find a better place for recreation and leisure in Latin America other than Peru. Peru’s 3,000km coastline provides many opportunities for water sports such as surfing, windsurfing, scuba diving and fishing. The miles of beautiful beaches incorporate leisure and recreation with their many Beach clubs that have several locations throughout Peru. The Andes Mountains incorporate sports like mountaineering, hiking, whitewater rafting, hang gliding, and even mountain biking. Unbelievably, there are also buggies and dune boarding on the steep sandy slopes near the city of Huacachina. *Click Here for a visual of dune boarding here* Consequently, there are countless opportunities to cater to these markets, export to, and sell products for outdoor and indoor activities. Firms also have the opportunity to expand abroad by building leisure clubs where members pay a monthly or yearly fee to use the facilities like the Club Regatas in Lima and Cantuta. Since Peruvian culture is more active, involved, and outdoorsy, threats may include the lack of responsiveness towards more sedentary products and services like television items. With a little courage, Peru has the perfect geography for adventurous recreation and can be seen in many different sporting and leisure scenarios.

I am a very avid user of Twitter.com. I’ve had one for over a year and find it very entertaining as well as useful from a business standpoint. Twitter is a good way to spread the word about something and many companies use to to promote their products and market to a wide consumer base. I appreciate companies that have dove into the social network pool because it relates to many people. I have heard of businesses like an ice cream truck in New York or a Taco truck in Virginia that Tweets it’s locations and people can find it. This form of social media is also useful for schools who make pages to provide information to students. Many clubs create Twitter pages to notify members of event and it makes it easier for student to spread the word by “retweeting” posts. One example that applies is the JMU Marketing page where our professor, Theresa B. Clarke, provides information on the class, jobs, etc. Twitter has become very useful to companies and it’s also used by consumers as a way to vent about issues in their lives. Firms may even follow their consumers back and learn about their needs and wants. This also gives customers the opportunity to communicate with a firm on a less formal basis. I know I have done this when I Tweeted a favorite band of mine, and they actually responded. It’s a great feeling. On the side of my page, you are able to see my last three posts from my Twitter account. Thank You for reading!

Successful coat drive at La Casita today! Out of the 36 winter jackets donated, 32 got new owners today =) The boys, girls, and even some parents, were very happy and now have more winter clothing! Miguel, the head volunteer there and friend, also mentioned to us about the need for more women to volunteer at the venue. He says there is only so much he can talk to the girls about, that female role model could do much more capably.The ladies of Sigma Iota Alpha Inc., the ONLY latina sorority on JMU’s campus, is gearing towards a focus to spend time with these kids, maybe once or twice a month, and help them with homework or even just hang out! Boys are also encouraged to visit and both will represent good role models for the kids that reside there. Visit La Casita’s Facebook page to see more photos of the event and information on the venue =)

The ladies of Sigma Iota Alpha Inc. are currently beginning initiatives to fundraise for this Boys and Girls club sponsorved location. To encourage the children to stay out of trouble from a young age, we want to gear them towards enjoying sports. The children expressed to me that they only play soccer outside with goal posts made out of placing someones shoes in the grass. In result to this, after already fundraising to obtain a printer and winter coats for La Casita, SIA is currently working towards getting them soccer goal posts for the summer.

If you want information on how to find a local Boys & Girls club near you, click here!

Welcome to my blog. I am currently enrolled in Strategic Internet Marketing (MKTG 470) taught by Dr. Theresa B. Clarke at James Madison University. As one of the course requirements, all students will be completing some of the assignments as blog posts. This is my first official blog post for Dr. Clarke’s course in the JMU Department of Marketing.