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[chef-mess]

Reflections: Week 13

This week we worked a lot with Google Ads and Analytics. I'll admit some of the finer details probably still escape me, but it's definitely been interesting trying to find better keywords and especially to see how people are traversing my website. I've been trying to fine-tune not only my keywords, but the landing page, as if I drop users directly on the free patterns page, they usually download a few and then leave without ever visiting the rest of the site, but if I drop them on the home page, they'll usually click directly on free patterns, download them, and leave, again without exploring the actual blog.

I'm starting to think my free patterns page, rather than being a draw to the site to encourage engagement, might actually be hamstringing my engagement instead, which stinks, because it was the most fun part to make. I may end this website after this class and transfer the patterns- the part I enjoyed most- to a tumblr blog, or something else that doesn't require as much money or effort to maintain.

[chef-mess]

Reflections: Week 10

Much like last week, it's fascinating to be able to see how my page is being viewed and what people are doing on it. I'm still missing my affiliate link- I've contacted DMC but not received any response- but people seem to be very interested in my free patterns, which is a good sign!

For ad optimization, I'm still struggling to really reach either a large audience or my target audience, I think, but there's not much I can do to dial it in- cross-stitch is already niche enough that I worry I'll lose the few people I am getting if I narrow it down to just patterns or just advice. Not only that, but my blog does both, so I need to advertise for both! And I can't branch out, because while I'm very skilled with cross stitch and reasonably skilled with other embroidery, it's kind of a mess to try to make patterns for sale due to copyright laws, and branching out to other sewing or anything like that would make my blog too widespread to be relatable to most of my potential viewers. Besides, my affiliate link (because I still have high hopes that I'll get it) is for DMC, an embroidery thread company. I can't branch out from that and still be able to reasonably recommend them in my posts.

[chef-mess]

Reflections: Week 9

I did most of this week's work ahead of time by accident, so it was more a matter of learning how what I'd already done actually worked. Google Analytics was fascinating to learn about, though, and I'm having fun tracking my pages.

[chef-mess]

Reflections: Week 8

The ads this week were actually surprisingly fun to compose, given we're putting together snippets of things that google mixes and matches for us as needed. I did end up making liberal use of pins, just to make sure I didn't get too many redundancies, since a lot of my headlines were along the same lines regarding cross stitch, patterns, embroidery, or some other combination thereof. That said, I am fairly proud of my ad copy, and I can't wait to see how it works when the ad is actually running! In other, technically-unrelated-to-this-week's-lesson news, my affiliate approval for DMC hasn't come through yet and I'm starting to get worried. They said it takes 5- 10 days, but it's been nearly 20... but I also haven't been rejected. I am a little worried about that, I'll admit, but I'm not entirely sure what to do. Is it too late to find another affiliate?

[chef-mess]

Reflections: Week 6

Keywords are difficult! It's a very fine, interestingly difficult to predict line between too broad and too specific, and I'm honestly not entirely sure I got it completely right, but we'll see. My ad campaign was relatively easy to set up, but I'm less sure about the keywords themselves. I have about thirty of them, so hopefully at least a few are okay. I also learned the value of negative keywords, as I don't want people to find my cross stitch blog when they're looking for D&D specific items, unless they also want cross stitch things, even if my cross stitch things are generally going to be of a geeky nature.

I'm still refining my keywords, though, and hope to have sixty of them before the actual campaign starts- it isn't easy, with such a niche market, but I might branch out a bit to make things a little easier.

[chef-mess]

Reflections: Week 5

I learned a lot about legal structures this week, and thankfully for me the choice is easy. I'm the only person in the business (for now), so I'll be running a Sole Proprietorship, since it's easy to set up and only requires that I fill out one extra form on my personal tax returns. I could, in theory, do an LLC, and that might be better in the long term because it provides more legal protections, but it's also more work to set up, and more likely (and risky) to mess up, so for quick setup with my lack of experience, I thought it best I avoid that for now and stick with the easier option.

I also spent a large portion of this week constructing my website, and I learned a lot about that too. It's simpler than I thought to construct a website with a site builder, and I actually thought it was kind of fun to drag-and-drop things instead of having to edit the code directly.

[chef-mess]

Reflection: Week 4

I learned a lot this week, but honestly it all stung a bit too. As a Software Engineering major with an emphasis in web design and development, this entire week of lessons has felt like being told, essentially, "Hey, look at all the ways you'll be irrelevant soon!"

That said, I do feel like I'm still learning a lot, and maybe this approach to things is also giving me skills to stay relevant in a world of site builders and pregenerated code snippets for buttons. I also did learn quite a bit about the design differences between different sites, and how to keep a stronger brand identity, so it wasn't entirely doom and gloom. I especially thought it was interesting to see how sidebars were used in the blogs to give extra functionality to the relatively narrow header, and I'm rethinking my original color scheme- I planned to do 4 or 5 colors- a primary color and a secondary color, with three accents, but now I think that may be too much and I'll probably tone it down a bit more. However, I am still torn between bright, pop-y gaming colors or soft, pastel cottagecore colors for the main aesthetic.

[chef-mess]

Reflection: Week 3

This week was fascinating to me. I've been working on websites for years, given I'm a Software Engineering Major, but something we hadn't really discussed in any of my classes was hosting, and of course, since I'm studying how to build websites from the ground up, we never discussed site builders either- though I played with WordPress a little on my own in high school, so I was rather familiar with that. It was interesting, seeing other ways to build a website, and really eye-opening to learn about hosting and all the ways different hosting sites can change the experience. Honestly, I'm glad for the new perspective, though, as part of my future business plans did include having my own website, and while I can build one from scratch fairly easily, I had no idea how to host it properly until this week. That's valuable knowledge and experience I don't know if I would have gotten in any of my software engineering classes at this point. Ultimately, I've decided to work with WordPress as my site builder, as my experience with HTML and CSS should be a valuable asset with WordPress, and rather than risk conflicts, I'm going to use the WordPress-recommended Bluehost as my hosting service. DreamHost was also an option that was recommended by WordPress, but it was nearly twice as expensive for far less service, so from there the decision was easy.

[chef-mess]

Reflection: Week 2

This week, studying the different ways to acquire the product we're providing, I learned a lot. For instance, I had no idea there was a difference between a broker and a wholesaler until this week! I sort of just thought that a company either made the product (and then sold it, usually to a wholesaler or other middleman, but occasionally to the customer), or that a company sold products it didn't have a hand in making, and that that was its own singular type of company. So far, wholesalers seem to be the safer bet, as the fact that they have the product (usually in-hand already) themselves is reassuring, but I'm sure I'll find something to contradict that in my further learning. After all, if there's anything I've learned about business, it's that it's never as cut-and-dry as it seems on the surface. As for affiliate vs. drop shipping, well, the affiliate route seems safer, as you're letting a more experienced (and usually larger) company handle a lot of the more difficult logistical things for you, but drop shipping does seem to have its merits (ie. profit) if you know what you're doing.

[chef-mess]

Reflections: Week 1

(Technically, it's Week 2. But it's Week 1 of the Reflections, at least.)

I learned a lot about how Google Ads works this week. It was fascinating to see all the data presented about each keyword used, and to see the way combining certain keywords made things more or less effective. I'm still slightly confused as to how, exactly, the demand and competition come together to create the estimate we're given, but ultimately, I understand them both separately, and I understand the estimate perfectly fine.

I did struggle a bit with keeping track of the different business models available to us and how they might affect or be affected by our competition, but there was quite a bit of discussion of the affiliate business model that intrigued me, as that seems to be a way to turn a weakness into a strength- that is, if you competition is willing to work with you. As a result of all this discussion, I plan to dig deeper into how that works, and possibly start an affiliate business of my own.