Sara's Pathway Education

I did something really scary this week!   I hit the green go button on my Google Ads campaign.   My husband did one forever ago and I remember him spending over $300 and we hadn’t received one sale to go with that money.   I am really worried that I will also have the same luck this time.   I feel that I have a good product, but unless I’m hitting the right target market, does it really matter what product I have? One thing on my first day of ads is that it put up my ad on searches that had NOTHING to do with my product or keywords.   I was under the understanding that if you have 2 keywords, both have to be in the search to be put my ad up.   Apparently they have a setting that pulls up the ads if it’s even related at all, which is broad search.   Still, my ad wasn’t anything close to what the search term was.   Luckily, I have options in my searches.   I was able to put all those words in my negative keyword search, so it won’t pull up ...

I thought it would be a lot harder to add this to a website than it is.   The help files for Google Analytics walks you through the whole process, start to finish.   When getting into modifying code on a website, it’s a little scary, especially with the warning from WordPress that I might have to start my website all over if I mess it up!   Luckily, after saving the new code, my website still worked.   Plus when I visited it on my phone, I was able to see that a visitor really was there. Being able to link this with the Google Ads campaign will allow me to be able to direct traffic there and understand my customers.   It will allow me to know whether the ad campaign is working or if I am just wasting money on Google Ads.   One thing that I’m excited to learn about is the effect of sending out email subscription newsletters.   If what I’m sending out doesn’t create any effect in my website visits and/or purchases, then I know I’m missing key infor...

This week we ended up writing our ads and trying to make them more appealing to our potential customers.   One thing suggested by Google Ads’ help center is to make sure you call your customers to action, as well as add in keywords that help them know that what you are offering is what they want.   It’s important to add in prices and other important information, like free shipping.   One thing that I’ve noticed is when I’ve gone to a website where I’m looking for a keyword, then I get there and that word is not there!   So it’s really important that if you are linking your website to a keyword, that somewhere on your page, that is on there.   Otherwise you are wasting your money on a click that doesn’t end up with a customer sale. Another big hint we learned was to be active with our sentences and not passive.   How many times have we gone to edit a paper we’ve wrote just to find lots of extra words like “that,” “very,” “just,” or “maybe.”   I’m ...

Last week I tried my hand at designing a website.   I just have to say that is a lot harder than I thought it would be.   Those who have these beautiful websites, I now understand a small portion of how you made it look good.   I think I tried 3 different templates and it was a lot harder to just replace content and make it look right.   I did find a few videos online on how to make a website in an hour.   Even watching the first one, it took a lot longer than an hour as I had to pause and rewind so many times.   It’s a million miles away from what I’d like it to be, so if my business makes it past this semester, I have a feeling I’m going to be making lots of changes.   There’s so many things that go into it. This week we are getting ready for a Google Ad campaign.   There are so many tips and tricks on how to pick the “right” keyword for your customers.   Without picking the right phrase or term, you are just wasting money getting your ...

OK, so maybe I’m just naïve, but I had no idea online businesses had to be registered with the state and city in which they reside.   I thought it was just registering a domain name and going from there.   In working through my coursework this week, I found that I was grossly misinformed. It looks as though recently guidelines have gone through for online businesses collecting and paying sales tax.   Apparently states have lost a lot of sales tax due to internet sales.   If they don’t collect these taxes on items purchased, they are going to have to find a different way to collect that money.   It has been the responsibility of the customer to pay use tax if their online purchases don’t have tax collected.   Apparently this has been overlooked and most people don’t pay this. The good news is that not all online businesses have to collect and pay this.   In fact, in many states, the threshold for sales tax is $100,000 or 200 transactions.   I...

Ever feel like all popular websites are set up the same way?   Well, I do.   But there’s a reason they do that – it’s eye-catching and entices the user to continue exploring their site.   Just like brick and mortar retail stores use placement to gain the best possible sales, online businesses need to be concerned with the messages they are sending to their customers.   If it is difficult to find answers or products, they are going to leave and find something better.   If the products don’t meet the mark, move on.   It’s a hard world out there, especially with trying to compete with places like Amazon.   Not that I would even try, but it would be nice if I was able to have some customers find their way to me. Another thing we learned this week was about taking credit card payments.   It’s really easy just to add a PayPal button to your online store.   It’s a place that many people have associated with security in online payments.   An...

Ever feel like you are looking at the same product over and over again, with basically the same features and prices?   Well, this week was just like that.   I was trying to find web hosting and a platform to build a website in.   A lot of the decisions rest on what you chose as your selling model last week.   One thing I found out is that although Oberlo is a wonderful service, you have to pay a high monthly fee for a Shopify store.   Couldn’t they use that same technology and service in a less expensive hosting store?   That alone might be the breaking point for deciding to steer away from dropshipping.   I guess I understand why, though.   To be able to use shipping codes from all over the world isn’t something easily set up in stores.   Plus, a lot of effort and testing go into each supplier.   So it might be worth the money spent to have the ease of mind. This week we finished our first project.   When I first started this a...