Jamie Van Meveren's CIS 170 blog

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 ...