Taking a business online? Building a commercial Web site for yourself or a client is just the start. To grow any business on the Internet, you'll need to market strategically to your customers, using content sharing, email marketing, search engine optimization, social media management, and more, to reach your target audience.
In this 6-lesson Internet Marketing course, you'll learn practical skills for growing your business on the Web. Studying with a professional Internet marketing consultant, you'll learn how develop an entire marketing plan for your online business. Course projects will include target audience analysis, developing a site plan, creating a content development strategy, planning email marketing campaigns, optimizing for search engines, building a Facebook fan page, planning a social media crisis strategy, designing a landing page for an ad, and using site metrics.
Whether you're looking to build a new business online or simply get better results from your existing Web presence, this course will give you systematic strategies you can use right away. Web designers and marketing professionals will both benefit from this intensive course.
KristenBecker is both an educator and a graphic & business designer specializing in e-commerce.
Course content developed by Holly Berkley.
To take this course you'll need:
The following courses can help you meet the above requirements:
Students learn how to:
Internet marketing isn't your father's marketing channel. How will you make your Web campaigns count? Lesson One explains the ways in which Internet marketing can be more measurable, targeted, and cost-effective, than print, radio, and TV ads. You'll read case studies on companies that have successfully leveraged online advertising and examine reasons that companies succeed or fail in this space. You'll explore the critical issue of how to identify and attract your target audience through thematic, language, technology, and even color choices. You'll also learn the importance of an expansive Web presence that includes social media. In the exercise, you'll conceptualize a product, company, or service (this could be your own entrepreneurial project), analyze its target market, and design a home page targeted to this market.
On the Web, content is kingand having a content strategy is key to any site's success. Lesson Two explores the important role of Web content. You'll look at how to develop and cycle content to attract visitors to your site and ways of sharing content with partners. Strategies for harnessing user generated content will be examined with reference to successful case studies. Finally, you'll learn about ways to promote fresh content through email marketing campaigns. Topics will include how to generate a quality list, write an effective campaign, schedule appropriately, and craft compelling subject lines. In the exercise, you'll put together a content development strategy and map out a one-year email marketing campaign.
A billion users on the Web, but does anyone know you're there? Lesson Three focuses on search engine optimization (SEO), the art of making sure your site's pages are well ranked by search engines such as Google. You'll learn the major dos and don'ts of site optimization and explore current trends for getting noticed on searches. An overview of search engine technologies, HTML meta tags, tips for structuring your page design, and how the submission process works will prepare you for quality SEO. By reading case studies on SEO, you'll learn how link popularity and optimized content like press releases can affect your positioning. In the exercise, you'll develop and carry out an SEO plan for your course project.
The most successful online businesses have developed a strong sense of community around their brands, and much of this stems from their social media presence. Lesson Four examines how to integrate social media into your marketing campaign. You'll read case studies about successful Web sites that have developed a strong sense of community, and explore specific platforms like Facebook fan pages, Twitter accounts, blogs, and niche social networks. Ways to build internal communities are also discussed, with a focus on features like message boards and service chat. Finally, creative ideas for working with business partners are examined. In the exercise, you'll develop a Facebook fan page for your course project, focusing on how to design effective and attractive content that will encourage a robust community.
Once you establish your social presence, how do you maintain it? Lesson Five gives you a practical orientation to today's social environment. You'll learn tips and tools for cutting down on the amount of time you spend maintaining various accounts, and you'll learn how to generate community content versus mere buzz. You'll also gain insight into strategies for converting negative feedback into brand loyalty through case studies and practical advice. Finally, advertising strategiesincluding keyword ad buys and social adsare examined as a component of your Web presence. In the exercise, you'll craft a plan for dealing with challenging social media situations through responses to three hypothetical scenarios, and you'll design a landing page for a social media ad campaign.
How will you measure the success of your Web presence? No Internet marketing strategy is complete without some well-defined success metrics and a sales/lead conversion plan. Lesson Six begins with a discussion of how to obtain and interpret site visitor metrics, including a look at social media analytics. You'll look at creative ideas and technological solutions for increasing lead conversion and sales. Lead collection software options and shopping carts do's and don'ts are addressed, with a focus on turning online shoppers into buyers. In the final project, you'll round out your studies by developing a complete Internet marketing campaign, from start to finish. Look out Bezos, your competition is here.
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Internet Marketing Course | Sessions College