Google Ads and Keywords

It was great to learn more about Google Adwords and Keywords this week. When running an ad, a business obviously wants to reach as many people as possible. However, as I studied the aspects of ad campaigns, I feel that advertising to a broad area could be a costly mistake and the owner will spend money on the advertising that is wasted rather than working in their favor to build their customer base.

How great is it that we can advertise on computers and smart phones rather than having to use flyers, newspapers, etc. Most people, no matter their age, have a smart phone right at their fingertips so this is definitely a smart way to advertise and reach a large population of people.

I appreciated the information that will help me in choosing good keywords for my ads:

Characteristics of a good keyword include:

• Directly relate to ad’s theme
• Use similar keywords in ad groups
• Use words that you would use as a customer
• Not too specific/narrow
• Not too broad/general
• Keywords of two or three words

Characteristics of a bad keyword include:

• Too narrow or specific and rules out customer searches
• Too broad or general and gets clicks that will not convert
• Doesn’t relate to the theme of the ad

I hadn't really thought about having different ad groups so that similar keywords could be in the groups. Originally I had included the keywords for all of my products, bath bombs, bath salts, sugar scrubs, lotions, all in one ad. After this week, I am going to edit the ad and create ad groups for each of the products.

Legal Structure and Site Building

Wow! This has been a busy week. It started off with a lot of reading, researching, googling, etc. to learn about the legal structure needed for businesses. The following sites were the most helpful for the information I was looking for:

• https://corporations.utah.gov/business-entities/dba/: This site gave me the instructions for registering my sole proprietor business as a DBA (Doing Business As). It is a rather simple process and can be filed online through Utah's "OneStop Business Registration." Besides being registered with the state, most cities require local business licenses.
• https://tax.utah.gov/training/tap-salestax: This site was helpful in knowing about sales tax and how it is paid/filed. In Utah, you need to register for an account on the state's TAP site (Taxpayer Access Point), https://tap.tax.utah.gov/TaxExpress/. Small business owners need to file and pay sales tax monthly, quarterly, or annually. Businesses with an annual sale and use tax liability of $50,000 or more must file and pay sales and use tax monthly. Sellers who are not required to file and pay monthly may voluntarily file and pay monthly by contacting the Tax Commission. The choice to file and pay sales taxes monthly remains in effect until the seller contacts the Tax Commission in writing to cancel this choice. The change back to quarterly or annual filing will happen the following quarter or year. Sellers who file monthly returns timely qualify for a 1.31 percent seller discount on certain sales and use taxes.

Then onto the actual building of the website. This took me ALOT of time because I wanted it to be just right (ok, perfect :)) right out of the gate. There are a few things I couldn't figure out how to do like create a submenu for each of the products (bath bombs, bath salts, sugar scrubs, etc) underneath the Shop button. I'll need to do some more research and search the Help section on Wix to figure this out. I think it would be more user friendly to have this option on the site. I really enjoyed building the webisite. Besides being fun, I kind of felt empowered to be able to do new things during the process.

Site Design and Payments

I was excited to learn how to create a button for my website this week to enable selling. Since my website will be to sell products, I chose to create a Shopping Cart button through PayPal. I am still a bit nervous about this because I want to make sure it will work before going live. I may look into a different provider because PayPal seems to have higher transaction fees. 

It was unclear as to the information I needed to include for the button. It would have been helpful to have instructions in the week’s lesson since this is not something I have ever done before. A video walking through the process, step-by-step, would have made it a smoother process and given me more confidence that I was doing things correctly. Since the process of creating a payment button is something that is for an actual business and not just an assignment, I definitely need more in-depth instructions before feeling confident in what I am doing.

As part of this week, I also enjoyed looking at other websites that sell similar products to the business I am starting, Lush and Cosette. They had similarities as well as differences between the two sites. There were things that I will definitely want to include in my website.

Site Builder and Hosting

This week was packed with so much information on site builders and hosting sites as well as completing project 1. I know I make things harder than they probably really should be but I want to not only do the assignments and projects correctly, I want to really be learning as well.

I have been a little confused about Google Adwords and other aspects of project 1, so I was grateful to be able to meet with Brother Scott. Even though I felt like I needed to refine my Adwords after we met, I got much better data with new words and even a different name for one of my business ideas.

As I researched site builders and hosting sites, I think I have narrowed it down to Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly. They are an all-in-one, meaning site builder and host. They also seem like the learning curve will not be too big since they have templates and are pretty much a drag and drop process. I was interested to see all of the different host sites this week and have actually been looking at Bluehost (which I had never even heard of before). I am a little nervous to host with them because it looks like they are only compatible with WordPress and I don't think I have the extra time right now to learn another new program for the class. Maybe this is something I will look at when I am not on a semester timeframe.

My leading site builder and hosting site is Wix. Another person in my class also mentioned that Wix was having a sale right now. I don't know how I missed this information but am grateful he pointed it out and I will be checking into it as well.

Brokers, Manufacturers, Drop Shipping, and Affiliate: What to Do?

This week was very interesting to me. In fact, as I was reading about drop shipping, I found myself getting so excited that I wanted to find a product and company and start at that moment! Thankfully I needed to go to bed and so I didn't have time to do anything too quickly. The ideas of drop shipping and working with an affiliate are both intriguing to me. I have been working on redoing some areas of our home and organizing differently and so I have been to many sites over the last few months. As I would click on different links to see the products they used, it didn't even occur to me that the site I was originally on was actually advertising for these other companies. This was quite a novel idea to me. I obviously don't know what happened behind the scenes for the work they put in to create the content, but it didn't seem like it was too hard because they were just putting links in their article or instructions of what they did or what products were used.

I also appreciated learning more about choosing a manufacturer and/or a wholesaler. It makes sense to buy a product for less so that you can make more of a profit; however, after doing the readings, videos, and discussion boards, I realized there is so much more to consider. It's always been cheaper to get products from China but ever since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, it is more challenging to get things in a timely manner. Besides the supply chain for products and components, the shipping time has increased immensely. This is definitely something that needs to be taken into account when choosing a company to go with because while the profits may be better with a company that sells to you cheaper, if you're not able to get the product(s) to customers in an acceptable timeframe, you won't have customers and therefore your profits will be nonexistent.

Being able to have a class meeting this week was very helpful. Many of my fears were put to ease as we talked and learned more about expectations of the class. This was great because I want to enjoy the class rather than be so worried about everything that it's just a "going through the motions" course.