Cassie Wylie

 This week about Ad Words was a lot for me. While the work load was lighter, I do believe the information was a lot more complicated. I also think that I have a lot more to learn. I am feeling like it will take a lot of practice with keywords to see how certain ones work or don't work. In the campaign assignment, it was challenging because Ad Words gets a facelift pretty often so I think the layout or design of the website changes a lot. I had a hard time finding the right buttons to follow the assignment instructions. As for keywords, I do enjoy the brain storming that comes along with that. I feel as though I tend to go a little too broad and need to work on getting that sweet spot of not too specific and not too broad. I also need to practice thinking outside the box.

I enjoyed the little about website design we learned this week. With my major being Web Design, this is my cup of tea. While I know there is still a lot for me to learn about website design, I do feel like I already knew the tips from the article, i.e., simple equals professional, the tips about the navigation bar, the logo being visible and simple, etc. I have coded with HTML, CSS and others, but using a site builder is a newer experience for me. The part that has been the learning curve so far is using Shopify. It took me a while to figure out how to connect it to my PayPal account to allow for the credit card payments. In the past with sites I have built 100% myself, I have just added the paypal button code to my HTML and it has worked just fine. Maybe once I get the site rolling, I will like the site builder aspect more and maybe the button will be more easily customized this way?? We will see!  

I got a rough start to this week as I had family in town and was not managing my time well. We also had sickness and sports and appointments that threw me for a loop. I liked learning more about hosting and site builders as I don’t think I was as aware that they are/can be different. I have worked with Blue Host in the past as well as Wordpress and Wix so I had some idea, but I haven’t experienced much with domain names and pairing a site builder with a separate host. I look forward to learning more as I start to practice using Shopify, as that is the site builder I have chosen. It was interesting looking more into the costs and features and types of support we get from each host and site builder as I haven’t needed to care as much in the past. I think I am most excited to see how to design the site on Shopify and also setting up the web transaction portals.

 This week, I enjoyed the research about brokerages, wholesalers and manufacturers as well as the affiliate and drop shipping options. I thought it was very interesting because drop shipping as well as the international brokerages I expected to be cheaper options. In both instances that I researched it for, they were both more expensive choices. I did enjoy learning about drop shipping because I think that will be the business model that I choose for my business.  While I chose affiliate marketing for the group in the assignments because it made the most sense for their product choices, I am not planning on it for my own. I think I have decided so I am excited to continue to learn more about international brokerages and drop shipping as I start mine. I’m also interested to research the options a little more specifically with my products of choice. I guess I may still change my mind depending on what else I learn in the next few weeks.