Session 8 enters into Section 2: Content Creation & Marketing Strategies
THE VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION IS BELOW
This is the last and the most crucial session in this course. It teaches students how to optimize their marketing efforts to maximize customer reach. Let's watch the video.
The informative wordy part of the course is complete! In the final objective of the course, students will watch and follow the Print On Demand Tutorial. Students can then work independently on their developing their business.
In Intermission 2 we will review the course topics and instruct students on how to print out their COURSE CERTIFICATE! Let's move into Intermission 2.
SESSION End Worksheet (if printed) or as CLASS ACTIVITY to review together
Section 2: Content Creation & Marketing Strategies
Welcome to Section 2! Learn how to create the best content (text, photos, videos, etc.) and implement SEO strategies.
Session 8:
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Creating Quality Content & Implementing SEO Strategies
Search engines like Google love fresh unique content. Updating your blog/website often with new posts/articles will help get you listed on the search engines, but have patience. While some of your content may get listed in a few days, other posts may take months.
Don’t forget about adding pictures and videos to make your website (if you have one) and social media accounts more exciting and engaging! People love photos and videos! For Print-On-Demand, you would want to create/use mock-up images of people using or wearing your merchandise (www.placeit.com is a fantastic site for mock-up images). If your site is mostly text, it will appear very uninteresting. Remember to TAG or RENAME the file names of the images and videos with keywords (before you upload them to your site) related to your niche to help your site get found by the search engines.
SEO - Optimizing Your Content For Search Engines
“Keywords” are essential to use within your articles. These are the words that people use to search on Google. For instance, if you are starting a new business to teach people how to play guitar online, your blog post/article title would include ‘How To Play Guitar”. You could even get more specific like...“How To Play Guitar Chords” in the title. Then, in the article, be sure to list those keywords a few times. Google loves this. When someone searches on Google “How to play guitar chords”, Google may show them your website in the search results.
Let’s use another example. What if you are selling handmade wool winter hats? “Handmade Wool Winter Hats” would be a good keyword, in general. What if these wool hats were for girls? Then your title should be more specific; “Handmade Wool Winter Hats For Girls”. This new keyword phrase is called a Long-tailed Keyword. Why is this important to understand?
Here’s why. If you title your blog post/article only “Hats for Girls”, you would be competing in the search engines (Google, etc.) against thousands of other websites that are selling “hats for girls”. However, if you were to title your post “Handmade Wool Winter Hats For Girls” since it’s more specific, anyone searching this “long-tailed” keyword phrase may be sent to your website first. Google loves websites with great content, and niche targeted keywords! This is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
More About SEO
Search engine optimization is the practice of increasing both the quality and quantity of website traffic, as well as exposure to your brand, through non-paid (known as "organic") search engine results.
SEO is as much about people as it is about search engines themselves. It’s about understanding what people are searching for online, the answers they are seeking, the words they’re using, and the type of content they need. Knowing the answers to these questions will allow you to connect to the people searching online for the solutions you offer.
Search Engine Basics
Search engines hunt for billions of pieces of content and evaluate thousands of factors to determine which content is most likely to answer the type’d in question (query). Search engines do all of this by discovering and cataloging all available content on the Internet (web pages, PDFs, images, videos, etc.) via a process known as crawling and indexing. Then ordering it by how well it matches the query in a process we refer to as ranking.
Why SEO is important
While paid advertising, social media, and other online platforms can generate traffic to websites, most online traffic is driven by search engines.
Search results from organic (natural traffic sent to websites through search engines) cover more digital real estate, appear more credible to savvy searchers, and receive way more clicks than paid advertisements. For example, of all US searches, only 2.8% of people click on paid advertisements.
SEO is also one of the only online marketing channels that can continue to pay dividends over time when set up correctly. If you provide solid content that deserves to rank for the right keywords, your traffic can increase over time, whereas advertising needs continuous funding to send traffic to your site.
Here are some basic SEO principles to follow:
Make pages primarily for users/consumers, not search engines.
Don't deceive your users.
Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings.
Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging.
Here are some SEO things to avoid:
Automatically generated content
Participating in link schemes
Creating pages with little or no original content (i.e. copied from somewhere else)
Cloaking — the practice of showing search engine crawlers different content than visitors.
Hidden text and links
Doorway pages — pages created to rank well for specific searches to funnel traffic to your website.
Tags/Hashtags - More SEO Opportunities
Keywords are sometimes called “TAGS” on other websites or platforms. Always use the maximum amount of keywords allowed in keyword/tag fields. For instance, when uploading a video to Youtube, you’ll be required to complete a description field before you can post a video. Youtube then provides other fields, like a tag field, which you should take complete advantage of. Enter as many keywords as you can that are specifically related to your video/content. Maximize your SEO opportunities. In addition to using proper keywords in all of your content and titles, use #HASHTAGS on your Facebook, Instagram, and other social media accounts. This will open your visibility to many others on the platform who share the same interests. It is a great way to start growing your followers.
What Does 'Hashtag' Mean? # = HASHTAG
A hashtag is simply a keyword phrase, spelled out without spaces, with a pound sign (#) in front of it. For example, #doglovers, #chocolatemakers, #jewelryfad are hashtags. Place hashtags anywhere in your social media posts: in the beginning, at the end, or anywhere in between.
These hashtags tie public conversations from all different users into a single stream, which you can find by searching for a hashtag, clicking on one, or using a third-party monitoring tool.
EXTRA INFORMATION
Post Coursework:
You may watch this after the completion of the Print-On-Demand Course Optional Supplemental Video Tutorial Google Course: Google Digital Garage https://learndigital.withgoogle.com/digitalgarage/courses This Digital Garage is reasonably in-depth and you may want to return to this after this course is complete. It covers the Fundamentals of Digital marketing and the entire study is 40 hours. Consider reviewing the Google course if considering Digital Marketing as a career.