Julia Price

 GoogleAds and Keywords! The nitty gritty. I feel like this is where we're really going to learn HOW to make our business successful, with SEO and Ads. You can have the most amazing, fantastic business in the world, with the world's most beautiful website to go along with it, but if people can't FIND your website.. what's the point? This is something that I've been needing to work on with my photography business, but I've felt a little hesitant for whatever reason. So I'm glad that I'm in a class that will force me to start making ads, getting familiar with the program, and that allows me to see the results. I've been thinking a lot about WHO I want to see my website, and what those customers might be looking for. Aside from creating a product that I think will serve my target audience, I have to really get inside their heads to a new level, trying to figure out what they're literally typing into their phones. It's not as creepy as it sounds....

 All things LEGAL this week! I'll be honest.. just this stuff alone is enough to make me rethink owning my own business. There is a LOT that has to be done! Having a business is more than offering a product or service that you're passionate about and getting paid for it unfortunately. You have to be legit, and have to play by the same rules as the big dogs, even if you're just a college student completing a project for class. So that's kind of a bummer. It definitely takes the fun out of owning a business. But I'm sure it's worth it, I'm sure there's countless horror stories of small business who didn't register their business, get licenses, permits, pay taxes, etc. So hopefully it doesn't take too long to set up. A problem I'm running into this week is that my Squarespace interface isn't loading.. so I can't get in to edit my website. Luckily I had already completed a decent amount, but I still need to add product pictures and update...

 Site Design!! My favorite part of this whole class! I love creating and designing a brand/website that accurately reflects my product, business, and personality. But this doesn't mean I'm an expert at it. I don't have a lot of coding knowledge, and I need to explore more websites to see what I do and don't like. I really liked BrightBox's layout and color scheme, and their product photos were very well done. I'm thinking about possibly doing a flat lay sort of of photo, not just the box, because what I'm selling is the contents! I'm also unsure of how to get away with a colored background. I've seen it really well executed on other sites, but I've been struggling to get it to look good on mine. Overall, I'm really happy with my current site. It's just missing some product photos and reviews, but luckily I'm a photographer so I can take those after putting together the products. I think I'm going to give some friends a box and see...

 Okay WOW- Each week I'm realizing more and more just how much goes into an online business. Setting up products and payment on a site is trickier than I thought. Also, I honestly had no idea what hosting meant. Probably because the site I've created prior to this class has automatic hosting. So I've decided to use Squarespace again, just to stick with what I'm familiar with. I've really enjoyed brainstorming product ideas, designing the website, and even though I have no idea if it'll even be successful, I think it's going to be fun. I'm definitely stretching out of my comfort zone though, not just with the website end of things, but actually putting out a product and the possibility of not selling anything is pretty daunting. But I've experienced that in my photography business as well. Being based out of Rexburg can be tricky, because the main population is college students, who not only don't have a lot of cash, they're also being bombard...