Week #10- Introduction to SEO- Ch. 9

This week I read the last chapter of Introduction to Search Engine Optimization, and it is titled Exploring SEO Certification. This is something that we had to do for this class. We had to get a Hubspot certification. You might have seen this on my previous blogs, one of them was about my certification on Hubspot. We had to take the class or course called inbound marketing. The whole thing was free, so if you have some free time and it would be helpful for your career you should go through the course and then at the end of it, you have to take a test that is about 60 questions long and you have to pass that to be certified. He thinks that the material and the things that you can learn on Hubspot are amazing. The videos that you have to watch aren't even that boring. I am not going to lie, this is not the field that I want to go into, I just need credits to graduate and I have taken other marketing classes before, so that's why I am in this class, but it is super important information that you learn for people who are going into the marketing field, I would strongly recommend taking this course, and its free so it doesn't get much better than that!

Week #10- Artificial Intelligence

I just randomly came across an article this week about Artificial Intelligence and we have been reading a book all about it, so I figured I would read this article and see what it had to say about it. Up until now I have really only thought about the good things that AI would offer the world, such as SIRI on our iPhones and self-driving cars, but this article shows some of the bad parts of it. The first down side that AI presents is that sometimes AI is programmed to do something dangerous and devastating. Things such as automatic weapons are AI systems that are programmed to kill. If these weapons get into the hands of someone who would be dangerous, they could cause a lot of problems for people. I'm not trying to get into the debate of gun control, but I am simply stating how AI could be a dangerous thing. The next point that the author of the article makes is that "AI is programmed to do something beneficial, but it develops a destructive method for achieving the goal". And it goes on to say that this might happen when we don't fully align the AI's goals with our own goals, and when they are very different.

Like I said before, up until this point, I have heard nothing but good things about AI (until I saw the movie Ex Machina, but then again it is a movie), but I have thought that AI has only been up to good things, and now that I think about all the ways that AI is in our daily lives, it is a little scary how quickly AI is becoming more and more real, and how much we actually need to watch out for things such as automatic weapons and even self-driving cars, they can be dangerous in a way. Machines do make mistakes, so we have to keep a close eye on things and not let it completely take over our lives.

Week #9- Introduction to SEO- Ch. 8

This week I am doing two blogs about Introduction to Search Engine Optimization to just finish out the book. It is about how to keep up with the changes. He says to keep up with the changes you have to keep looking at resources, even some that are out of date. He says that pretty much nothing with SEO is eternal or going to stay the same. The only thing that is eternal is quality content. He says that its very important to keep reading blog posts or attending webinars to keep up with the resources and the changes that are happening. He gives examples of a few that would be good to check out. Not keeping up with the changes can definitely hurt you in the long run. It will ultimately help you do your job better, by keeping up with the times. And that is the end of his chapter. It was super short, but straight to the point. Just keep up with the changes and keep reading materials and looking at videos and such.

Week #9- Introduction to SEO- Ch. 7

This week I came back to the Introduction to Search Engine Optimization book and I read chapter 7. I took a couple week off of it because I wanted to blog about a couple other things, but I am back to reading this book. This chapter is about exploring Google webmaster Tools and Search console. Many businesses and companies who are smaller use a service to help manage their sites. Some examples of companies that do that are GoDaddy or Google Sites or wordpress.com. In a lot of cases these companies will manage about 95% of the technical part so that the owner of the small business does not have to. And a lot of the time it is automated through a system called Content Management System. What they do is they help people, who are not very tech-savy, create a good website that will help out their business. But he goes on to say that it does not matter how a website is set up, they still sometimes need a doctor and that is where Webmaster Tools/ Search Console comes in. He gives a couple links to check out if you want to learn more about it. They are YouTube videos you can watch. He explains that there are a lot of articles and videos out there about Webmaster Tools/ Search Console, so if you would like more information about it, I would suggest trying to check some things out. And in the rest of the chapter he shows you how you can manage some of your websites through Google.

Week #8- Surfing the Tsunami- Ch. 8

This week I read the last chapter of the book Surfing the Tsunami, and it was about what we have to do next. In this chapter he talks about different places we can go to get more information about AI. He says there are books we can read. There are websites that we can go on and take courses about AI. There are a bunch of different options that he gives you to learn more about things that are going to be happening in the future. If I had the time to do all of these things, I would probably go on a few websites to try and learn more about AI and how it is going to potentially impact my life one day. But I just don't have the time right now and I don't have the drive to learn more about it at this moment. Maybe one day I will want to learn more about it and start to really dive into it, but not now.

Week #8- Hubspot Certification

This week I finished my Hubspot Inbound Certification. Honestly, I learned a lot from it. I didn't think I was going to retain any information from it. Not to be mean or anything, but in most classes that are not for my major, I usually don't remember too many things from the class, but this one I think will stick with me for a while. I don't know if I will ever have to use it or if I will get a job because of it, just because it doesn't really pertain to my major or field. But it was a good experience and I think it will be useful for many people who are in the marketing field. And the test was actually decently hard, like if you didn't pay attention to any of the videos, it would be very hard to complete the test and pass it. But luckily I passed the test on the first try.

Week #7- Surfing the Tsunami- Ch. 7

This week I also read Surfing the Tsunmai Chapter 7 and it is about Getting to Know AI. In this chapter he introduces some people who have a lot to do with AI. He just gives brief over views of a bunch of these people who have a lot to do with AI. He also includes videos of the people and different websites to help us learn more about it. He also does an interview with a person who is big into AI and he says a big part of learning more about it is that we have to read books and articles about it, but also person-to-person contact is important for learning more about it. Just in case you have questions its easy to ask them right in person. Or if you have really specific questions and they answer them and you need more clarifying, then they can offer that to you. So being in person really helps to understand different things.

Week #7- Introduction to SEO- Ch. 6

Last week I didn't write a blog post on this chapter because I found that writing a blog post about a movie I watched would be better. But this week I read chapter 6 of Introduction to Search Engine Optimization, and it was about analyzing how things are going and how you can measure the performance of your SEO efforts. He gives you a website about how to check your SEO. You do it by typing in a keyword and seeing if your website pops up, and you can see what number it is at.

He also says that you should hunt for duplicate content. You never want to have multiple pages on your site with the same content. It is a pretty common thing. Pages may be forgotten, duplicated, or material might have been paraphrased. Sitliner.com is a good website to use to see if you have duplicate content. It shows if you have duplicate content on your website and it gives you a way to look back at your content and see if any of it is necessary or redundant.

Week #6- Surfing the Tsunami- Ch. 6

This week I read Chapter 6 of Surfing the Tsunami, and it was about the last way that we should respond to AI and the last way is to adept. This means that can get directly involved with developing AI, by learning coding and how to work with related data. Although this sounds nice to be able to do, its not something that I would have interest in at all. I don't really want to know how to code things at all. I understand that this is an important part, but if I wanted to know how to code I would be a computer science major, but no thanks. I think the first two steps are super important and, in my own opinion, I think those two are really important, but we don't need to code. I mean maybe in the future we will have to know how to do those things to be able to use a computer, which is fine, but up until then I don't think I want to learn that stuff. There are a bunch of videos of this kind of stuff on YouTube that you can watch if you are interested in this stuff.

Week #6- Ex Machina- AI

This week for a different class, I had to watch Ex Machina and it was all about AI. It was actually a really good movie. I didn't think I would like it very much, but it gave me a better idea of what AI actually is. In this movie, it shows a guy that builds a robot, actually many robots, that are very human like. When they don't have clothes on they definitely look like robots and not human, but when they had clothes on, you wouldn't even have been able to tell that they were robots. The robot, Ava, had human level intelligence and human level emotions, which was honestly kind of scary because she is clearly not human.

*SPOILER ALERT*

She and the student, Caleb, who is working with the guy who created Ava, have some real romantic emotions for one another. Caleb eventually finds out that the creator of robots, Nathan, has a bunch of other ones in his bedroom and its actually super creepy to see them, but he tries to take control of this guys house. Nathan's house was so technologically advanced that you can't go anywhere without a key card and so Caleb's plan was to take over the system and make it so that Ava and himself could leave the house. So in the Ava ends up killing Nathan and one of the other robots and she left the house because she got Nathans key card. So I'm not too sure how this movie makes me feel about AI because on one hand, they can help out humans a lot and help do good things for humans and on the other hand, they can be harmful and want to kill you, haha. But of course, it is just a movie, so I do think that AI is helpful for humans and it could really help us in the long run.

Week #5- Surfing the Tsunami- Ch. 5

This week I also read chapter 5 of Surfing the Tsunami. This is about the second level of the response to AI and this level is to adopt AI. Level 1, adapt, needs to be mastered or at least started before going to level 2. Level 1 was about starting to research AI and reading books and articles about it and just being able to realize that yes this is a thing and it might be happening really soon.

Adopting AI means that you have to accept that yes changes are coming. The changes may effect you and they may not. Some jobs will be lost and some won't. But sometimes, AI is cool and the changes are awesome. Just think about if we didn't have Siri. She is a product of AI. I use her for everything. If I don't know how to spell something, I ask her. If I'm driving and I don't know how to get home, I ask her to take me home. We can use her with the touch of a button or even just saying "Hey Siri". AI is a big part of our lives already, we just don't think of it that way because many people think AI is a bad thing and they don't want to accept it. But in reality AI isn't always a bad thing. It can be really good for us and help us out, just like Siri does. That's why you need to move to the adopt stage of it all and take it on and use it.

Week #5- Introduction to SEO- Ch. 5

This week I read chapter 5 of Introduction to Search Engine Optimization. It was about trying out search engine optimization. This book gives so many helpful tips on how to create a great website while allowing people to easily find you or your product.

He firsts starts to talk about how you can create an overall description for your blog and it will show up on Google. After a while the description that you put in will appear in the Google search results. It gives the viewer a little insight into what the blog is about.

In the image above I went into blogger and the search preferences like he said to do and I changed my meta tag description to "A blog about marketing from Lauren Bosman". When I first got to the page it was disabled so you have to make sure you enable it and write a description that is 150 characters or less.

He then goes on to discuss how to make a post-level description. It is about the same as the meta description, but just for the individual post. And he gives step by step instructions on how to do all of these things that I'm talking about.

The next SEO option he talks about is Site-level SEO on Google Sites. This is a entire website description. He literally created a website and is now using it to sell dogs. He goes into detail about coding and HTML for the website, but all that really confuses me.

Week #4- Surfing the Tsunami- Ch. 4

This week I also read Chapter 4 of Surfing the Tsunami and it was about the first part of responding to AI. The first way to respond to it is, Adapt. Adapt means learn more and pay attention; keep aware of where things are headed. He says that this stage is good, its good to realize and learn more about what is going to happen in our future. But he also says you can't just stop here. You have to become pro-active in this phase. He says we need to dig deep in researching about AI. Step 1 is to read articles. There are a bunch of articles he gives the url to in chapter 3 and he thinks its a good idea to read through all of them just to get some more background information about AI. Step 2 is to read books. He thinks its very helpful to actually have a physical book and go through it. Flipping the pages and putting your phone down and getting off of the computer helps to not be distracted and to really learn about everything. He also gives good suggestions of books to read in this book. At the end of the day it is important to keep up to date on these things and to figure out whats going on with AI and to see how soon it will be here.

Week #4- Intro to SEO- Ch. 4

This week I read chapter 4 of Introduction to Search Engine Optimization and this week it was about Keywords. I touched on it briefly last week in chapter 3, but this time we get more in depth with it. A keyword is a word that someone would use on a search engine, they would type it in and then a bunch of different results would pop up, and if the keyword has something to do with a certain type of product, that product should come up in the search results. To get a good keyword or keywords, you have to do a little research to see what most people are searching for. If you're too specific, a lot of people probably aren't looking for that, so you can use the website Wordtracker. You can use this website to see if people are searching for the keywords that you want to use. You can see the traffic of the keywords and it gives you other suggestions of words to use. AdWords keyword planner is also a good tool to use to help you figure out keywords that you should use for different products.

In the picture above, I went to Wordtracker.com and searched the word red dress and it shows up with other words that would be helpful to use as keywords. The first column shows the number of times the word has been searched for. So the term red dress was searched 135,000 times. It gives you so much useful information that can really help you in the long run. 

Week #3- Surfing the Tsunami- Ch. 3

This week I also read Chapter 3 of Surfing the Tsunami and it was about how AI is impacting the job market. In this chapter he gives a bunch of examples as to which jobs are probably going to be jeopardized. Jobs such as: accountants, lawyers. retail workers, financial advisers, and sales jobs. So as you can see its in no specific area of work that is going to be losing jobs, its pretty much all over the board. He pretty much says that you have to be a realist and realize that the change is coming and we need to adapt to the change. Change can also be good. Certainly, if AI doesn't effect your job, then yes the change is a good thing. AI has started to effect my job. I work as a teller at a bank and the job of a teller is slowly becoming a smaller and smaller job. I can't tell you the last time I walked into the bank, because of AI. ATM's can pretty much do anything a teller can do. Most basic transactions can be done through an ATM. So I am a little worried for my job, but not really. I don't plan on being a teller for a very long time, so I'm not too nervous about losing my job. But I do think this change is a good thing. If companies can save money by switching to robots, then they should, and I think we would all think like this if we were the CEO's of all these companies.

Week #3- Intro to SEO- Ch. 3

This week I read Chapter 3 of Introduction to Search Engine Optimization. He starts off by saying that 90% of Search Engine Optimization is about content. If you put relevant content on your website, that would be about 90% of the battle. The other 10% of SEO is technical tweaks. It is also called "classic SEO". Search Engine Optimization is up there with Search Engine Marketing, and its one of the top skill that gets people hired. This is based off a LinkedIn report. He goes on to say that as long as you remember that content is more important, you're good.

Kelsey also talks about an SEO audit. This is kind of a good way to understand how SEO works. There are 3 factors that go into an SEO audit and they are:
See: Can Google can "see" your site properly
Here: On-page factors
There: Off-page factors
See, is talking about Google. When someone posts a website to the Internet, Google will find it and scan it.
Here means how you set up your website and what it looks like. He likes to think of it as "on-site" SEO.
There has to do with traffic and how other people get to your website. And he refers to this as "off-site" SEO.

The next thing he discusses is keywords. Keywords are words that if you type into Google your website would pop up. Some keywords might be: the name of your company or organization, the name of a product, or the generic category of your product. As you can see below I typed in the word 'baseballs' and so many different types of baseballs popped up. And links for Dicks Sporting Goods popped up and another website at the bottom of the screen. So if you were selling baseballs as a product, a keyword that might be good for you to use, would be baseballs.

Week #2- Surfing the Tsunami- Ch. 2

This week I read chapter 2 of Surfing the Tsunami and it was about what AI is up to these days. That is actually the title of the chapter. But the first example that he gives is self driving cars, its pretty much a robot that is driving your car and you are just sitting in the drivers seat, but not actually driving. He pretty much goes on to say that this could potentially be a very dangerous thing to do, because obviously humans make mistakes and so can AI. Machines aren't perfect just like humans, sure they have far fewer errors but they still can make mistakes.

Another area that AI is taking over is drones. These are a physical example of how AI is taking over. The ability that drones have to fly and take pictures and videos is amazing. And they can also go pretty far from where the operator is. Farther than something like a little helicopter. Siri is another good example. I never think of Siri as a robot. I think of her as just an easier way to do things, which is really AI. AI is trying to make humans lives easier. The ways that iPhones store things such as our locations and what we say to Siri is almost scary. I can't speak for Androids because I don't know much about them, but when I turn on my car and the Bluetooth on my phone connects to my cars Bluetooth, the maps on my iPhone automatically pop-up and depending on the time of day it will tell me how long it will take me to get somewhere. Usually it says how long it will take me to get home or to get to work. That is AI. So the amount of AI that is already in our lives is astounding, and we don't even realize it half the time.

Week #2- Intro to SEO- Ch. 2

This week I read Introduction to Search Engine Optimization, chapter 2. It started off by talking about Curation vs. Creation vs. Collaboration. Curation is when you go find content and share it and then review it and then comment on it. Creation is a lot of things. It could be writing a blog or creating a video or writing an article. Collaboration is when you find someone to work with on something.

He says that starting a blog is a perfect way to start to develop content and really get to show yourself. I started a blog for the last marketing class that I took and you can customize it so it kind of fits your personality. In blogs you just write like you talk pretty much. So it really shows off your personality most of the time. And creating a free website is good for search engine optimization. In this book he goes through ways to create a blog and how to create a website in case anyone wants to do that. Creating a vlog or videos is a good way to create content as well, and of course he goes step by step and tells you how to create videos on YouTube and how to edit videos. Basically this book is super useful if you want to create content on the Internet and you don't know how to.

Week 1- Intro to SEO- Ch. 1

This week I read, Introduction to Search Engine Optimization, the first chapter. It was about Google and other search engines such as, YouTube and Bing. Just about everyone who uses a computer or a phone uses Google to search things. If not Google, than Bing. He says that a way to think of Google is like a library, except they make a lot of money at their library. But it really is like a library because you find whatever you are looking for on Google.

When you search for something on Google, they first couple that come up are ads that people or company's pay for to get people to see it and then under the ads are organic search results. There are also a bunch of ads that are on the right hand side of the page depending on what you search. In the picture below I searched 'Benedictine University'. The top link is an ad that Benedictine paid for. And under it, it shows the organic search results. On the side this time there are no ads, I think it might be because I searched for an actual place instead of just searching for something random.

The need for search engines probably won't go away for a while. Google is such a huge platform that so many people use around the world. In the book he says that Google probably will not slow down any time soon, and he wouldn't be surprised if Google bought Facebook or if Google bought Twitter, which wouldn't really be surprising to me either!

Week 1- MKTG 348- Surfing the Tsunami- Ch. 1

In Chapter 1 of Surfing the Tsunami, he talks about AI. AI is Artificial Intelligence. Its basically robots doing tasks for us. It is a faster and more efficient way to do things and it is decreasing jobs for many people. I work in the banking industry and we just got a faster more efficient way to do our job. AI is probably alarming to a lot of people, because they are probably thinking that we are all going to lose our jobs to robots someday. We can't take our jobs for granted because we never know when they will be gone. Doctors aren't even seeing patients face-to-face anymore. They can do this thing now called "virtual visits", all that has to be done is you video chat the doctor and they can send you a prescription. Now that seems a little scary to me. I think some people might try to take advantage of that and not in a good way. 

AI is a fast growing topic and debate, and I hope it doesn't put us all out of a job someday. But with technology now-a-days, I could see these robots getting pretty complex and being able to do things just as a human would do. And that is very scary to think about. We never know when they will come out with a robot to do all of our jobs so we can't take anything for granted.