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.