Forgotten hero; corporate web strategist on the daily battle field.

Starting adwords

jhasmal — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:51:33 +0000

I started putting together adwords campaigns as mentioned on my last post. Since this has been the first week I’ve been watching and modifying the wording of the ad. I’m trying to find the right text to get the reaction that I need for someone to click on the link. I also want the right people to click on the link not just anyone. To make sure I’m finding the right people I’m going down as far as I can on a niche. My site contains short stories that are inspirational in nature so I want to find users who are looking for exactly that.

The images below are examples of the niche – click the image to enlarge each of them.

First Image – I’ve been focusing on the “CTR” score or click through rate. As you can see the first one has a “CTR” of 1.08 and the second one has a “CTR” of 0.00. I’ll have to go in and make some changes to the second one because it’s under performing. I try to at least have a click through of 1.00 which Google recommends.

Second Image – Is more detailed of the keywords that are used in the Ad group – Wisdom Story. As you can see there are phrases related to what my website is about. Each of the keyword phrases has its own CTR score. These scores show me which phrases I may need to remove. It’s good to wait a couple of days before really messing with this because a phrase you are thinking about removing could become a higher performer based off who happened to see the phrase that day.

Basic online marketing plan

jhasmal — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:05:39 +0000

The other day I jotted down some quick notes for the website www.jhasmal.com. These notes are part of my plan of action for 2012. It took me about 20 minutes to come up with these items. You don’t have to spend hours building a web plan because it should be modified as you go along. Don’t worry about all of the details because sometimes you won’t have them, at least not at that very moment.

To show you how basic the plan can be I’ve posted below what I started with. Each part of the plan will get more details as I go along each month. I needed a basic plan so I would know where I was headed. I’ve already started building some of the Google Adwords campaigns. Once I have more detail around each campaign I’ll give some examples of the Google ads that I have written. The ads started running Monday so I don’t have a lot of numbers to show at this point. Next week I’ll post the ads and then give you an idea of the performance and the niche that I’m looking for.

Promoting website – Online Marketing – Budget

Google Adwords

$10 per day for 5 days = $50 – for each month

50 x 12 months = $600 per year

Jhasmal.com Pens

Pens – give them away for free – $75??? – Purchased in December 2011

Online Marketing – Free

Facebook Share/Like

User can hit the like button on each story to share with their friends if they are a facebook user. The like will show up on their wall to be seen by their friends which will give more visibility to www.jhasmal.com.

New Short Stories

Create one new short story every month for a total of 12 stories for 2012.

Introduction of videos 2012

Create small short videos like an interview to help inspire people.

Google+ button

Google+ button – http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/

Create Financial Income (ROI)

Affiliate Marketing

Book sales (Amazon)

Audio books (MP3) sales (Amazon)

Create Amazon Affiliate store to display on site

Embed Store code

The right online platform

jhasmal — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:15:21 +0000

All you need is an easy way to purchase and good brand standing but on the right platform.

Thing ugly truth about social media is finally starting to show. Check out this article on Mashable about brands shutting down their Facebook stores. It’s not really a surprise because when you think about it. Most of the people that I know are looking at the site on their cell phones. They spend a quick second looking at friends posts and then they get off the site. The only time they look at the site on their computer is if they aren’t able to use their phone for some reason. They never look at the ads on Facebook. If I was in charge of a project that I had to decide on where to put the online marketing money I would work on creating an mobile phone “app” specifically for my company. If you have an app you don’t have to worry about who’s going to social media and if they will make time to find you fan page. If you have a good product with an easy way to purchase it people will buy if they have a good relationship with your company.

Like they say on the apple commercial, “There’s an app for that.”

Negative Thoughts

jhasmal — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:42:56 +0000

The pen project is a way for me to give without looking for anything in return. I’ve been told many times that I really need to get out there and talk to people because the things that I say have a way of touching people. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, I just like to talk about personal growth. I’ve never volunteered to talk to people because I felt like I would know when the time was right. Well, I guess now the time is right… The last couple of weeks I’ve felt like now is the time to really get started on pushing my website and promoting life to my blog readers.

Everyone goes through tough times and sometimes it’s hard to handle. I’m building this blog and my web space as places that people can come to read and let go of life’s problems for at least a little while. It will be a community where other people will also influence others to be positive and not give up hope or faith.

I spent a lot of time chasing my career and a college education. I don’t regret doing either of those things but I realized that I was truly never happy. I felt like I didn’t reach the place that I set out to reach. I would blame all of my short comings on situations that I thought prevented me from getting there. Daily negative thoughts are what kept me in a screwed up situation that I didn’t want to be in. It truly took me 37 years to finally figure that out.

Trapped by negative thoughts…

Is it really that simple? It’s definitely that simple, one negative thought changed to something more positive can change your mood or your opinion of a situation. It’s hard to control not thinking negative thoughts. I’ve been working on it for over a year, I’m getting better but I’m not perfect. I can tell you that I don’t feel as drained like I used to when I would always worry about something negative. As time went on I realized that really things weren’t as bad as I thought. Things that seem to be negative really aren’t it’s just a perception that I created about them.

Promoting online is easy when people actually want your product

jhasmal — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:28:42 +0000

The company website is one of the stops on the path for a more intricate introduction between a consumer and a brand. The consumer already has an idea of what it believes the brand is all about. The website is there to help push them along towards a positive relationship with the brand.

A lot of pressure is put on the web strategist to capture leads and produce sales online. It’s important to remember that if your brand, product and marketing materials are solid the web sales and leads will follow. If you aren’t having success with generating sales of your product maybe check the brand or product’s image that it’s giving off.

A website is like an online sales person, it can’t sell the product if the consumer’s opinion is negative of the brand or its product. Websites can’t sell a product to people who don’t want it. Companies still have to innovate when it comes to their products – produce something that people want.

You can be the first to market and put up online marketing materials throughout the online universe but it doesn’t matter if no one is looking for it. Being listed in a search engine is useless if no one cares to use it to find your product. In corporate America the thinking is a little backwards at times. It’s so much easier to generate social media “likes” and “share” on a product that people want. You don’t have to trick them into sharing they will do it naturally. People always want to tell other people about something they purchased or are proud of.

There’s no one size fits all web solution

jhasmal — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:32:45 +0000

When I’m writing for myself I really don’t give much consideration about meta information or the search engines. I’m writing because I want to, it’s what I enjoy. I think some of the true beauty of the web is being destroyed by the race of getting to the top of search engines. You have companies selling items that are supposed to help you get to the top. Some of this stuff you really need to weed through fact and fiction. Some people are making money because they are selling ebooks to other marketers that really aren’t beneficial. Some of the stuff in the books are so vague that you’ll never get any real results from it. There is no one solution for all websites or businesses.

This stuff is hard, and don’t let anyone tell you any different. You can’t build a million dollar website empire from scratch in one week. Websites are like building a true company from the ground up. You better be ready to put some serious time into it. The reality is that you need to understand how your website is going to be beneficial. If your website has no true benefit it won’t matter what you do to drive traffic to it.

Like www.jhasmal.com – I’m working to build a place where you can find anything that’s motivational. I want people to instantly think of www.jhasmal.com whenever they have a need to find some type of motivational product or information. I’m a long ways off from where I want to be but I’m building it in small steps. When I was personally looking for motivational books and information it took me months. I had to go to multiple sites to find the information and looking up authors name’s one by one. This blog will be a place to teach the online marketing pieces of how I promoted www.jhasmal.com.

I spend a lot of time building flow diagrams on paper trying to understand how my sites will work together. Currently I’m using amazon for my affiliate pieces to generate some income. The focal of my site really won’t be to generate income but to use it to promote online teaching or on-site lectures in the future. These site will be my platform or online resume to show that I know online marketing from true experience.

Your life is worth writing

jhasmal — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:30:22 +0000

This pen project has helped me to think about what’s next for my life. When I’m writing these letters I feel like I’m living in the moment. I’m not worried about what happened today at work or what is going to happen tomorrow. It’s me, a pen and one piece of paper creating conversation. It truly is about the simple things in life. Each letter I complete makes me smile because I feel like I accomplished something. I think the reason I care so much about these letters is because I’m really not looking for anything in return.

When I’m at work and I’m trying to build the best web experience possible I’m looking for someone to tell me, “good job”. When I’m writing letters and blogging for myself I already know I’m doing a good job so no one has to tell me. Looking for approval from other people is what I perceive to be the down fall of many individuals. My own acceptance of myself has taught me that I can grow beyond what anyone else can perceive for me. These letters are my way of showing people that they can control their own life. If you keep pushing towards whatever it is you want eventually you will see it unfold right in front of you.

It’s not even about the physical pen but about what it represents – freedom. You have the freedom to write your own life and destiny. You can change your path to anything that you want as many times as you want. It’s all dependent about how you write your life. If you fall down today, write down different goals and ideas you want to reach tomorrow. Nothing is set in stone, but we’ve been trained to believe that it is. You hate your job? Change the job… Do you feel that you are trapped in a job because of the high pay or insurance? Figure out a creative way to compensate for those benefits. It could be taking a job with good insurance and less pay but building a part-time business on the side that could generate the extra income you need. There’s always a way to change or improve your life and that’s what these pens stand for.

Decide to write the life that you want.

It’s always hard to get to where you want to be. You are going to struggle most of your life whether you have money or you don’t. With each struggle you will learn one more thing to get you closer to your ultimate dream. No dream is out of reach, it only disappears when you stop trying.

Additional letters

jhasmal — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:34:58 +0000

So today I wrote four more letters that are a little fancier than just using a note pad and pen. They aren’t perfect but they look pretty good, I’m still learning to use the white pen. I also purchased a stamp with the words, “Be the change you wish to see in the World”. So many times in life I wanted a change but was waiting for someone else to drive the change for me. I waited a long time for someone to help me and it never happened. I didn’t realize that the only person that could make the change was myself.

With these letters I took a different approach. Initially I wanted to use the pen with my name branding on it to write each letter. Considering I used really dark paper to write these letters I couldn’t use normal black ink that’s inside my pens. I ended up going with a white hobby paint marker so you could read the words. I’ll still include my name branded pen in the packaging. I haven’t figured out what type of envelope I will use to mail these items yet.

First letter has been written.

jhasmal — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:13:04 +0000

Last night I wrote my first letter by pen. It’s kind of weird writing a letter in pen when you are so used to typing on the computer. My hand was a little uncomfortable by the time I got the second page. It’s kind of funny considering that it was only letter number one. Since the computer and printer have come about I’ve taken for granted the effort to write someone. I’m dedicated to this project and looking forward to see how many letters I write.

I think once I get some responses to the letters I’ll be even more motivated.

Well, I’ve got to get started on the second letter.

The pen project has started

jhasmal — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:39:32 +0000

I challenged myself at the beginning of the year to write personal letters to people in my life. Some of these individuals will be family but others will be friends. I’ve noticed that I’ve been consumed with the daily hassles of life and forgot to keep in touch. In each letter there will be the attached pen that I used to personally write their letter.

These letters are a start to changing the way I communicate with them. I’m really excited too… As I write the letters I will also encourage them to write a letter to someone else they may have not talked to in a while. This will be my way of doing something positive in the world. It’s nothing big but I want to try and do my part to promote positiveness.

This week I will be writing my first letter.

I’ll also encourage the people I write to come back and post to this blog and maybe tell who they decided to write their letter too. I think it would be awesome to see how far of a reach this project will have.