Serp

Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo try to give you information that is relevant to your search.  and put that information on a SERP-Search Engine Results Page. Search engines use a methodology called indexing to try to provide you with information relevant to your search query. The search engines do this by using "bots". A bot is a software program that constantly crawls the entire web looking for content on websites and indexing that content to display on a SERP.

The results on a SERP are based on two main criteria:

1-Content on a website
The bot crawls through a website and indexes the information on a website

2-Links from other websites
The bot scans each web page for links from other websites. It gives different links different weights when determining the ranking. As an example, the bot will give the link from the NHL website a higher ranking than a link from an unknown hockey person's blog website.

Landing Pages

Today was mainly focused on landing pages and how to differentiate between a regular web page and a landing page. I learned that all landing pages on your website are web pages but not all web pages on your website are landing pages. To be a true landing page, it must meet two criteria:
1-It has a form
2-It has to capture the person's information through a form
So, a landing page is a page on your website where one might "land" on that has a form for the visitor to fill out and it's only purpose is to get the persons information so you can turn them into a possible sales lead. Once you capture their email information you use email automation to automatically send the visitor your blogs and other valuable content that you believe is relevant to them.

CTA's

 CTA's. What are CTA's? I had no idea until today when i finally got to ask someone next to me in the class. I have been hearing the acronym for a few days and i never asked what it was because I didnt want to interrupt. The guy sitting next to me told the that it was a Call To Action. Still I had no idea what it was and later during a break he explained it more. Its quite simple and everyone has seen them before. Say you are on a website and you see this big button below some product description such as "how to improve your marketing skills in three easy steps". The button below it could say, "Download Now" or "Free Ebook" or something else catchy. These are the CTA's. It's not easy to get people to click on your CTA though. Think about it. Most people look at these and think they could be scams and if they don't look appealing then you will not get people to bite on them. Sooooooo, you need to make sure your CTA is catchy, gives a clear deacription of what you are trying to sell and in the end it has to be something that people want to click on.

What I learned today: SEO

Today in class I learned a lot about SEO. Otherwise know as Search Engine Optimization. SEO is a technique that is used in Inbound Marketing in order to get more views on your website or making your website more easily viewable by potential customers. There are a couple different ways of making your website have a better chance of getting viewed. One way is that you can pay for it to show up on the top of the search list on Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Usually when searching different keywords, the paid links are located at the top or on the right side of the search engine results. The "organic" or non-paid for links will show up as the second link, third link, fourth link, etc. The other ways to get your name at the top of the links is to use different keywords that people are most likely to type in when they search for what they are looking for. It is better in the end to try to get your website at the top of the organic list anyway instead of using the paid method because it is proven that most people dont even click on the paid links. So, why is it important to be educated about SEO? Because every minute that goes by and your link is not at the top; you could be losing potential customers.

Reflection

This past week has been very productive. I have learned so much and I am really happy with what I have learned. It is awesome to know that I am getting a jump start on my career in business just from these three weeks doing senior project. I am really excited that I picked this as my project and that I am making the most out of these three weeks by learning new things. It is sad to think that my last week is ahead of me but I am ready to finish strong and enjoy my last week of this project. Next week I intend to continue classes online and go into Hubspot to meet again with my mentor at least once and maybe twice if he is available.

13-15

In my last few classes at Hubspot I have learned a great amount not only about Inbound Marketing but just makreting in general. It was very interesting to sit in class with people older than me and listen to them discuss different things. It was tough at times to keep up with the class because there were a lot of acronyms that were being tossed around in discussions that I was not familiar with such as CTA's, B to B and B to C, etc. At the end of each session I would ask the teacher (Emily) any questions I had and she was very nice and clear with her answers. I didn't want the be the younger and less experienced person in class that was always interrupting and slowing the class down with silly questions that everyone already knew the answer to. Because of this I would sometimes get behind on some of the tasks and activities that we would need to do. Fortunately for me, most of the activities that we did were in groups so the more experienced adults could help me out and answer any questions I had as well. I also had the opportunity to meet Brian Halligan on thursday. Brian is one of the co-founders of Hubspot and it was very interesting to meet with him and ask him a few questions about how he got started. He was surprisingly quite a laid back and funny guy and at some points I couldn't tell if he was being serious or not while talking to him.

Brian:

12th

Yesterday I drove into Boston to Hubspot and arrived at around 830. I have been attending a class this week specifically focused on Inbound Marketing. The class runs from 830am till 5pm with a few short breaks and an hour and a half for lunch. It's pretty much like being in school but just for one long long long class. Its kind of funny too because I am the ONLY student in the class. The class has about 20 people in it including me and everyone works for a company and they are all here to learn about Inbound Marketing in order to benefit their company. Yesterday we began our class talking about the four steps of Inbound Marketing. These four steps are Attract, Convert, Close and Delight. Attract strangers who then become visitors, convert these visitors into leads, then close these leads and turn them into customers and finally Delight these customers so that they become promotors for your company or product. Also, we talked a lot about Buyer Persona's and how to create them. A Buyer Persona is a semi fictional representation of the ideal customer for your company. There are many steps in creating them and we were given a sample for to fill out online to create a Buyer Persona for your company or in my case a company of my choice. Now I am in the class again this morning and we are starting up and I need to get to work.