It’s Week 13 already?! How did that happen? Okay, so maybe it feels like Week 25 to me at times, but I have to say that when I look back at all that I’ve learned and accomplished in this class, I’m happy to say that I have survived.

This week we did an interesting and rather fun activity. We were sent into a simulation of sorts in Google Analytics, I think, I may have already forgotten. Anyway! Oh my goodness, all the kinds of information we had to look for was amazing! I know that we had done something similar with our own websites, but this was incredible. I can see how searching and gaining this kind of information would be fun for some people. I was a little overwhelmed and amazed at what is available for online businesses. There really is no reason anyone, even someone with no experience in doing so, can create an online presence for their web business, and be able to optimize it with the Google tools we’ve been using.

I don’t know if having a web business is my cup of tea, but the things I have learned in this class will help me if I do decide to go that route. I won’t be completely in the dark or be surprised at what creating a web business entails. This has been a really great class!

If Google Analytics, and all that we’ve been doing for our website these past few weeks, Adwords, campaigns, ads, etc…, were a popularity contest, I would be in last place. Just when I thought I was moving things a long and gaining some traction in figuring out what I am doing, BAM! Numbers don’t lie.

This week we turned in Project #4, which included sending in our conversion rates, conversion cost, clicks, and quality score for our campaign(s). Sigh. I think I have a handle on optimizing, but turning on and off the campaign, well, the campaign has to be turned on in order to get the numbers. It’s like trying to iron your shirt with the iron, and you finish ironing thinking you’re good. You look at the shirt thinking ironing isn’t what it used to be, because you’ve seen better. Turns out you didn’t plug in the iron, so while you may have flattened out some part with the heavy metal of the iron, you didn’t really iron it with heat. That is how I feel.

The most important thing I learned this week, though, is that Google Analytics is a very strong tool for knowing what your business online is doing and is capable of doing. Unlike a brick and mortar business where you can literally count the foot traffic, online business are business with a man behind the curtain, named the Wizard. With Google Analytics, you can still count the foot traffic of your online business as you would a brick and mortar business. Pretty cool, and pretty impressive.

Have you ever watched the movie “Twister”? It’s about a group of tornado storm chasers who are trying to get their machine named DOROTHY, filled with sensors that are supposed to go into the heart of the tornado in order to get data about patterns, and other important answers. When they finally do get the sensors in a tornado, you see the chasers on the ground fiddling with their computers and suddenly you see just tons and tons of data scrolling and being inputted into these computers. THAT is how I felt today when I logged into my AdWords account to check on the status of everything that is going on with my website, campaign, and ads. The data that was being pulled in was very cool. The more time I spent trying to figure things out, the more I found how Google Analytics is a tool surely created by a geniuses.

What I appreciated most about seeing all the data/information today is that I also saw recommendations that Google had for me in how I could optimize my ads and keywords. This is what we’ve been learning about this week, how to optimize.

This experience made me think how I could apply this concept to the gospel and my life. It was actually quite easy to do. Heavenly Father has not left us to our own devices here on earth. He has given us the tools to optimize ourselves, our lives, our experiences to become better than we were yesterday. Everything about the gospel is about how we can become like Him. The tools He has given us are scriptures, leaders, prophets, apostles, moms, dads, good friends, and most importantly, the atonement.

This week was pretty cool.

This week was probably one of the most difficult weeks in this class for me. Project #3 was about us starting our AdWords Campaign. Not being familiar with internet talk is really starting to hinder my ability to understand and keep up with what I’m supposed to be doing. I mean, I’m keeping up, but I’m spending way more than the suggested hours these assignments should be taking. That’s okay, I know sometimes we need more time to understand, but this week, the pressure is on for me to really gain the knowledge of the concepts and what I’m doing with my AdWords Campaign. Why? Because it is now costing me money!

I didn’t think my AdWords Campaign was on because it said it’s paused, or not enabled. Turns out, it’s actually been on since October!! But luckily, I didn’t fill out my billing information, so there hasn’t been any activity to charge me for. On the other hand, maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be and I’m just reading things that I don’t need to consider. I mean, maybe once this class is over, and if I haven’t completely drained my life’s savings with this project because I unintentionally committed to spending $5,000 on my AdWords Campaign, I might look back and see that the process, while a lot of work, is really not as hard as I feel it is right now. On my third hand, though, I think I somehow missed out on the coupon I could have used, so this is going to cost me another $100! Ugh.

On a side note, I’ve been checking how my campaign is going, and can I just say that this is making me feel like I’m in a popularity contest, and the only hope I have of winning anything is perhaps an honorable mention?! (hahaha).

This week we had to create a Google Analytics account. What is Google Analytics, you ask? Well, as far as I can tell, it’s a tool that has taken the place of the tabulating machine, of sorts. You know those little hand held counters that the employees at the front entrance of Costco use to count how many people are coming in? That. Google Analytics is going to count how many people click on my website, and how long they stay there.

The internet, while an amazing tool that is hard to live without anymore, is still a foreign enigma in my life. I check my email. I check Facebook. I check my bank account. I do my online schooling on the internet, too. But I’ve never understood how they find me. You know, those ADS that seem to know what I’m looking for, and where I live! I’m beginning to learn the how and why of the biggest machine ever to be invented. I have square footage on the internet! It’s kind of cool.

The biggest thing I’m learning in this class is that just as I have almost any crafting tool you can think of to create cool crafts,  the internet also has a lot of tools to make searching and being on the internet even better and more profitable if you’re not a brick and mortar kind of entrepreneur.

This week was a nice week. Not because we didn’t have a lot to do, but because not having a whole lot to do gave me a chance to study up on how to make and ad, and also to research Google Ad Words a little bit more.

The most interesting part for me is learning how I affect business when I click and search for things online. There is nothing random about the things that catch my eye and make me want to purchase them. I dislike ads. I dislike being interrupted while I’m watching something online with an ad that I could care less about. I never liked commercials, why then would I like ads? But ads work, as do key words. I did not know that when I type up something I’m looking for on Google, that I am probably costing someone some money because I clicked on their business. I clicked on their business because it’s the first one that popped up on my screen, which is something else that is not random.

This class experience has been somewhat similar to what Dorothy experienced in Oz. Just as she found out there was a man behind the curtain pretending to be the Wizard, so it is with me as I am learning that there are little things in the background on the internet that are purposely there, put there by other people. Well, maybe that’s not the greatest example, but it’s kind of what it feels like. What I’m learning is pretty cool. I imagine a little city in my computer, with a ton of people working to put out ads and keywords for the many, many websites, all vying for my attention.

This week we studied and practiced the art of finding good keywords to make our online business successful. It made me thing more about words. The reason it made me think more about words is because what I thought were good enough keywords, actually weren’t all that great.

It’s not enough to say just cards. What kind of cards? Holiday? Homemade? Free? Cheap? Recycled? Gift? (Oh man, I should have used that one in my negative pile!). How will anyone find me in the pile of available card options, if I’m not specific enough? However, if I’m too specific, it might not bring potential customers who will not use that specific word. Turns out there’s a balance. In order to find good keywords to drive business to your business, there has to be a balance between too specific and too broad.

This exercise made me think about how humans use many, many words, everyday, to communicate with others face to face, on paper, over the phone, or on the internet. Do most of us really pay that much attention to the words that we use? When we’re trying to get our points across, do we stop and think long enough to find the words to articulate in the best way what we want to say? What would happen if we thought long and hard about the better keywords to use, instead of too specific or too broad words? I think we would all become more effective communicators and less miscommunications may happen. This is what this lesson made me think about. Pretty cool how a web class can make you think of ways to apply what you’re learning to other parts of living.

This week we turned in our online business website. It was nerve wracking for me because pushing buttons seem so final. Yes, I may seem indecisive, but it’s really just anxiety coursing through my veins at the thought that as soon as I hit a button, I can’t “unhit” it. Yes, online school with all of its submit buttons has made this ride most interesting. But I digress.

Is it okay to say I was kind of proud of my website when I finally published it? It could use some blush and maybe some mascara, but I think it looks pretty darn good. If you push the Home button, well, you’re already there, but if you’re not, it takes you home. Not to your home, of course, because that’s not the business I created, but to my home page. If you hit the About button, it actually goes to a page about me! I know it sounds like I am a complete amateur at all things technological, but this really is the first time I’ve ever created something for the internet. Please, not able to sign any autographs at this time.

All in all, this experience has taught me that you can teach an old horse new tricks, at any age. I’m a grandmother whose own grandmother never experienced sending an email or text before she died 4 years ago. Did you notice I skipped a generation….my mother is queen of all and anything having to do with computers and internet, all skills and interests that were not passed on to me.

As an entrepreneur, it is crucial to know how to build websites, know what it means to have Google Analytics working for you, and how to create pay buttons. I am excited to continue learning about this new frontier, where I have never gone before. See? I can be nerdy, too.

Where did week 5 go?!? This week we needed to create a code that would put a pay button, from PayPal, onto our website, which is still currently under construction. On one hand, it wasn’t too hard, but on the other hand, it also doesn’t quite work.

I have mixed feelings about creating a website. I go to websites all day, for almost everything. I never considered how they are built, what goes behind the creation, how much time it takes, or have I ever cared who the wizard is behind the curtain of it all. It is just something that has never interested me enough to learn more about it. Until now. So that’s how I feel about the big picture. Five weeks into this class, and I’m starting to feel that this is kind of cool. As I was beginning to build my website for my card sending business, I felt the power of using technology to create something. I am not technology savvy, and so there was almost a feeling of having created something so grand, and yet, it was only adding pictures to the categories I’m going to have on my website.

I may never go on to have an online business, but I can say that I will have more appreciation for the wizards behind the curtains that bring me the cool and much needed websites on the internet.

This week sure came up quickly on me. Project one was due this week. The spreadsheet we were required to fill out was actually quite interesting and fun to plug in different numbers to see the endless possibilities of what a good business would be to create online.

The first thing we had to do was compare three website builders. I personally have never created a website, nor have I ever looked to see what it would take to create one. After researching the many, many options out there, I did dwindle the list down to 3: Wix.com, Weebly.com, and Voog.com.  Weebly and Wix seemed pretty straight forward and regular. Voog, on the other hand, was a little too fancy for this first timer. It is amazing to me how far technology has come. I remember being a kid when the first computers were coming out and how cool I thought the graphics were then. Fast forward to today, and wow! The websites that can be created are pretty impressive.

The second thing we had to do was find a hosting service. A whaaat? Yes, since Monday of this week, I have become much more knowledgeable on what website hosting is. Turns out I my website builder can also be my hosting server. I am seriously thinking about sticking with Weebly for all my building and hosting needs.  If I can learn by using something that is beginner friendly, I think that will work the best for me.