One of the biggest benefits that I gained from this project is learning what it is like to develop a website from scratch using the concepts of digital marketing that I learned throughout the semester. Starting with a blank slate of a WordPress website, I gained insight into the relationship between content development, search engine optimization, paid search marketing, and display marketing. The emphasis of the project was on developing a solid foundation for the website. This entailed ensuring proper page setup, navigation of the website, and that the website design is logical for both users and search engines. Writing blogs about various areas of search engine optimization, such as blog search, onsite search, and offsite search, has given me a clear understanding of the importance of blogs/content on search engine optimization. Using internal linking for blog posts and other important pages enhanced navigation and search engine optimization.

Establishing the use of featured images for blog posts and structuring the organization of the posts on a separate blog page made it more professional. All these aspects revealed to me that even some things that take a minute or two can make significant differences when it comes to building a website. Learning about the topics of digital marketing brought a whole other dynamic to learning about website visibility. SEO editors tend to try to reach people who are searching for something, whereas display advertising is more about trying to reach people earlier in their research process. Learning about how display advertising is deployed across websites, applications, and platforms reminded me that website traffic does not necessarily result from a search engine. Terms such as targeting an audience or remarketing gave me insight into how advertisements could reach certain users either through their interests or by visiting certain websites.

Having a website is more about understanding how people are accessing it. One of the key things that were accomplished in this project is understanding how various online marketing approaches can complement each other. While search marketing can be instantly visible, search engine optimization is key for establishing authority over time, while display advertising is responsible for improving certain levels of awareness or engagement. Using these approaches while learning to develop the website taught that they do not operate in isolation. From a personal point of view, this project was of great importance to me as it boosted my confidence in using WordPress especially because I’ve never used wordpress before. Activities like creating or editing templates, sorting blogs, or optimizing pages were essential in making me more comfortable with the process of website management. At one point, I would feel overwhelmed by some of the technical aspects involved.

Overall, being able to assemble this website from scratch is one of the highlights of this course that I found interesting. This allowed me to implement what I learned in class about digital marketing by observing firsthand how these digital marketing concepts work with each other through this website. And this experience really made me appreciate more what I learned about the importance of content, optimization, and wordpress through this course. There’s so much more to digital marketing than what we really think.