Jamie Van Meveren's CIS 170 blog

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I will be making a portfolio site to highlight my work to potential employers. I have to come up with a domain name that does not contain my last name, it is too long and will not be my last name forever. Hero or main image that scrolls between images of my best work in each category, also click through links. Blurb describing myself. Links to a page for each category of work, about me and contact page Sitemap and privacy policy in footer

What we have learned in CIS 170

Is advertising worth it? If you are reading this, probably not. Most advertising is too costly and ineffective for a small business. There are a few exceptions, but it’s important to utilize the right method for you, below are my thoughts on some common advertising methods.   Search engine advertising: Targets people who already want to buy, but too much competition and too costly if you are not using very specific long-tail phrases. Display advertising: Good for people willing to put lots of time and effort to find the right platform to collaborate with probably. I’ve never clicked on a banner ad. This might work better for people looking for an older demographic. Social media advertising: Good for people marketing to a younger demographic. Probably apparel or convenience foods work best for these spots. These will all be impulse purchases, so they have to be eye-catching and relevant among hundreds of similar ads. Good luck Local advertising: Good for something ...

Why make a company blog? Simple: blogging is an efficient low-cost way to reach your customers and improve SEO. I am just now beginning to work with our local humane society to improve their online presence. Everything right now is still in planning stages, but one of the things I want to set up for them going forward is a blog that posts one or two times a week.  These posts could be used to generate interest, inform the public, and generate revenue from affiliate links. Our local humane society is at capacity, with more people trying to surrender pets that they can’t take in every day. For them, ideal early topics would be about the importance of spaying and neutering ( to reduce the overpopulation of cats in our area), lists of what you should buy before bringing home your new furry friend (Affiliate links could get them more funding for their animals), and links to training videos and recommendations about discouraging unwanted behaviors ( giving people resources to hel...

This week in class we were tasked with making simple posters. I made mine highlighting reasons to keep cats indoors. Please be warned that both posters have what could be considered sensitive content.

Social media is the way for an online business to hold the door open for a customer, or ask them about their day. It’s the way to make your company have a friendly, likable face when you can’t have face to face interactions with your customers. It also lets you reach out and find new customers with ease. The first step in making a good online presence for your business is to consider where your target demographic spends most of its time. Are they older, and more likely to access blogs or podcasts? Or are they younger and on microblogging sites like Instagram and Twitter? Its best to find what niche will give you the most success before you pour hours into all social media equally, when you could spend more time focusing on the ones that will bring you back the most customers. Social media makes it easy to advertise promotions or sales to bring in new customers, but its important to be careful that it won’t just draw in one time deal seekers. Its also important to monitor how people a...

SEM and SEO are concepts easy to understand, hard to master. To do it effectively, one must constantly review site traffic analytics, see what is actually working, and refocus their efforts. This is important both for free and paid ways to boost your site traffic. One easy free way is to register your business’s local phone number with a search engine. This will make you show up much higher in local listings.   Consider your sites Metadata description carefully, and try to describe your company using only the most relevant key phrases. Also, remember to add metadata to all of your images, especially logos and headers, to describe what is being shown.   Be mindful of your use of keywords and phrases. If used too much, keywords can make your content look fake and damage your credibility. If used too little, you may not get the site traffic you desire. A good solution is to try to organically fit key phrases into your content. Good ones really vary depending on what your site i...

I personally don’t like buying from unfamiliar websites. If I haven’t heard of it, I don’t want to buy from them. If I'm not searching for the cheapest thing on amazon, I really have to have the brand in the forefront of my mind first. I don’t think I’m alone in this, and as a potential future business owner, it doesn’t work in my favor. Content Marketing is the easiest way to solve this.   People love to learn. If something sparks my interest, I could spontaneously research it for hours. Creating educational content helps people to find your site and brand when they do this. If you have relevant information, they may look to you in the future for further articles. If once every 10 posts or so you happen to mention your own product and how it ties in, they just may so happen to trust your product over similar ones on the market. Think of your demographic and where they most likely spend their time. Some will spend more time reading articles on blogs, some might see you on ...

Jumping into things without first planning them out is often a bad idea. Visualize someone spending their student loan money on the newest gaming system, someone trying to nurse a mouse back to health only to get an infestation when it escapes, or someone out on their 21 st birthday out getting a face tattoo after a night on the town. All of these scenarios are reversible, but fixing them is time-consuming, painful, and costly. So is delaying launching your site because you didn’t plan it properly and had to scrap it and start over. Avoiding this is as simple as planning things before you rush headfirst into them. Make yourself a sitemap to start. It does not have to be anything fancy. Write out the pages you think you will need on some scrap paper. Draw lines to show what will link from where. What is always going to be in your navbar, and where you are going to put articles? Once you have this basic guideline, you can begin wireframing. This isn’t about colors or typef...

Strategizing is important when going into any battle. Today we discuss the battle of creating a successful online business, and five of the weapons we have to achieve success. Credibility:  Make posts and do it often. Be transparent in sustainability practices. Encourage the use of word of mouth advertising among employees. Consider utilizing brand ambassadors. Usability:  If you have different services, or sell to different types of customer, tailor the experience to each of them. Do not make them sit and look for what they need, they will not stick around.  Let them choose what is relevant to them and then show them a customized experience. Visibility: You can’t sell to people who don’t know you exist yet. Use a combination of social media, advertising, email, and SEM to reach your target demographic. Make your presence more than just selling, so they look to you even when not looking to buy. Sellability:  Show customers how the product is...

Online marketing is the best tool for businesses of any size. Big businesses often have many people or teams working on this branch of operations, but even as a small business or single person, much can be done to increase your online presence yourself. You can optimize your website as you create it and create social media to connect to your customer base. As a small business owner, you can connect on a more meaningful level with your repeat customer base, and may have one simple leg up on bigger companies. People trust local. People trust small businesses. It will take time to get brand recognition, and have the same scale as a bigger business, but the word of mouth you get from your community will instill a much easier sense of trust among your first customers. As your customer base grows, you can use analytics to determine who they are. Creating relevant advertisements depends on this information. The best way to view creating promotions or advertisements is to make a sandwich. ...

Am I making it for my own and only my own consumption? Am I positive I will never ever share it with others? That is the only time I would feel comfortable using copyrighted content. Buying is an option, yes, but it’s really not feasible for a broke college student. For my own personal use, I often try pexels.com for stock images and free music archive for sound. Unsplash, Pixabay, and Canva are good alternatives for free images, and I also use YouTube’s archive of free royalty-free music on occasion.

Proper Netiquette= Hirability. That is as simple as it gets. Sharing things that are inappropriate, politically charged, or rude are sure-fire ways to get turned away by employers. It’s important to maintain a social media presence in our field however, to show potential employers that we are comfortable using it. Many of the jobs available to our class in the future may be helping maintain the social media presence for a company. Going too far in the other direction, and having too much of a presence can seem spammy to others and should be avoided. Like all good things, social media is best in moderation and moderated. Don’t say things online that you would say in front of your mother.

Web 2.0 allows me to access content created directly by my peers. I can get opinions from any side of an argument. I can find new content live as it is created. It takes us away from being trapped at a local perspective and gives us a more global gaze. It gives me a more direct link to everyone, and makes one feel as if they can make an impact no matter their ability. Web 2.0 allows the common citizen to share their experiences, ranging from the low importance of a coffee picture to the urgency of reporting of an accident the second it happens. Web 2.0 allows me personally the beautiful opportunity to have a living portfolio. I can get feedback on my works immediately, update it on a whim, and communicate with potential customers regardless of my own (currently lacking) coding ability. I also frequently use parts of web 2.0 to keep track of what is happening in the lives of my family. It helps me stay connected and aware of what they are doing even when I can’t dedicate the two h...

I'm a proud future cat lady, currently Mother of 2 four-legged beasts. A year working at Wal-mart convinced me that I'd like to never work in retail again, so I went back to school at age 20. I once listened to the same 2 minute song on repeat for 12 hrs, and I focus on silly things very easily.  Ask me about the ecological effect of outdoor cats or how to meal prep on a tight budget and I'll talk for hours. I like to grab furniture off of the curb on garbage days and restore it. If you eat a whole bag of dutch crunch salt and vinegar chips in one sitting your tongue will peel. I used to live in a basement and found 38 spiders in less than 30 minutes along one wall.  I live to eat and my boyfriend and I often go on vacations to just eat good food. If I'm missing in class this semester assume I'm out sick because I destroyed my stomach with good food.