Unearthing Alicia

 One of my insights about SEO was to incorporate keywords into your text, metadata, and alt text. I don't have a lot of text on my site, so working keywords in naturally is difficult, so I thought it might be a good idea to incorporate a blog. This could not only add keywords, but would also let me update the site more often, which is good for SEO, and could also help people get to know me and feel more invested in my art which would hopefully lead them to purchase. So, instead of writing about how I could do this, I thought I would write a draft for such a blog. This would be found on aliciajakeman.com . To say that my photography journey started in 2021 when I took my first photography class would be a gross simplification. It's true that this is when I bought my first DSLR camera, but as any photographer worth their salt will tell you, it's not the equipment that makes a good photographer. I'm not saying I fit into that class of photographer yet, but my journey start...

 

Creating a Google Ads campaign is so frustrating! Come up with keywords that are searched a lot but don't have high competition - because those exist. Use those keywords in your ad, but make sure you use popular keywords, but make sure you make your ads unique, but add more headlines, but make sure they're unique. Oh, you made sure you have keywords in every headline? We're still going to give you a quality score that makes it look like you haven't used any. Just because. Okay, I'm venting. But I really thought that Google Analytics, Google Ads, and integrating them together would be more straightforward. You watch a video or two and it looks easy, but then you try it and find out that it's different for every site builder and also they've updated it and you can't use anything you learned before. Sorry. Anyway, I think I have it all figured out and now I just have to sit back for a few days and see what data I get so that I can find what works and what d...

 How old am I? I'm old enough to remember when TV commercials started listing their websites at the bottom of the screen. I'm old enough to remember that when you went to those websites they were basically just one page with some text and maybe a picture or two about the company or products. I'm old enough to remember that anything more than that took several minutes to load and possibly made your computer crash. But my favorite old-time internet memory (besides the dancing baby and the hamster dance song) were the little tickers at the bottom of the site that said how many visitors had been there.  We've come a long way, huh? Those little tickers were some of the earliest "likes" and analytics of the world wide web. Now, we can see not only how many people view our websites, but if they did so on a computer, phone, or tablet; what browser they were using; how long they stayed on the site; what pages they visited and so much more. So, what's the point? Mor...

Keywords and ads are hard.  I mean, they're not that hard, but they are.  Sure, you can throw any old words in there, but finding a way to sound attractive while also finding a way to differentiate from your competitors is a tricky balance. Also, I would expect Google's Ads sight to be more intuitive, but it's not. I'm sure it's something I could get used to, but nothing seems to go quite where I think it should and half the time it erases everything I've just tried to do. It's frustrating.  That being said, I'm sure glad I'm learning all this in a class with a business I'm not overly invested in, rather than when I've put my heart, soul, and savings into a project. I must say, also, I think that responsive ads are a really cool thing. Rather than having set headlines that come up no matter what the user searches for, with responsive ads you can have a number of options so that Google's AI can pull the headlines and descriptions that best...

 Getting the right customers to your site is not as simple as may sound.  Theoretically, if I am selling fine art prints for home décor, if someone searched "fine art prints" or "home décor" they should see my sight. Right? Well, that depends on how much I want to pay. There are so many sites selling fine art prints and home décor that my little site would get lost in the pack, 72 pages down on Google where the sun never shines and sales are never made. So, what can I do about it? Besides throwing more money at it, I can be more deliberate and specific with my keywords. For example, I am based in the Pacific Northwest, so I can add that to my "fine art" keywords. I can find underrepresented areas like "bedroom wall art" that may drive less people to my site, but a higher percentage would be looking for what I'm selling.  I can also use negative keywords to keep searches for other products from finding me. I don't print your photos for you...