Professional Development

Price includes refreshments, lunch and course materials.

Level: Foundation

Key issues:

Most companies across all sectors of business realise the importance of gaining visibility in the natural or paid listings of the search engines to growing sales. This has made search engine marketing extremely competitive. To succeed, marketers need to know the latest on factors and tools to use which will help them compete, either through working with search agencies or through doing search engine marketing in-house.

The purpose of this course:

It’s hard to imagine life without our trusty search engine (Google) or directory (Yahoo). Two thirds of us use one or the other exclusively for finding relevant information on the internet and most of us never move off the first page of results. So, with literally billions of pages on the web, it’s imperative that we utilise proven search marketing tools and techniques to improve our relevance for people searching for the types of products or services we provide.

Who this course is for:

This workshop has been specifically designed for internet marketers responsible for building their organisation’s electronic presence and optimising the use of limited funds to achieve their electronic marketing objectives.

Benefits for your organisation:

The internet represents one of the most cost effective ways of interfacing with customers. However, with billions of web pages out there, it is imperative to use proven search marketing tools and techniques to improve the electronic positioning of your organisation and it products and services. This workshop delivers these as well as a host of useful support materials and hands-on practical exercises and discussions with a view to ensuring your organisation comes out on top.

Benefits for you as an individual:

You will learn how to exploit the fundamental differences between search engines and directories in order to maximise the returns on your electronic marketing efforts. A thorough understanding of how search optimisation works coupled with access to proven search marketing tools and techniques should ensure you get the results you need. The establishment of a feedback loop will ensure you keep on top of things.

You will learn how to:

• Differentiate between ‘search engines’ and ‘directories’
• Use tried and tested techniques for improving ranking/positioning
• Decide whether to do in-house or use a specialist agency
• Critically assess any third parties you might employ to help with ‘optimisation’
• Find out what people search for in your market
• Utilise ‘free’ (organic) as well as ‘paid for’ (pay-per-click) tools and techniques
• Exploit linking and listing strategies which improve your ranking/positioning
• Make relevant and winning ‘submissions’ to search engines and directories
• Make the best use of the keywords and metadata
• Make it easy for ‘web crawlers’ and ‘spiders’ to rate/rank your site highly
• Avoid common search marketing pitfalls and key technical challenges
• Put together a comprehensive search marketing action plan
• Test market your search marketing using web analytics and other tools
• Set an appropriate budget and continuously evaluate
• Utilise software to get the job done more efficiently and effectively

Course content:

Reaching your audience

Managing the advantages and disadvantages of SEO and PPC marketing

Goal setting

Understanding customer behaviour

Review of SEO ranking factors:

• Index inclusion and submission
• On-page optimisation
• External link-building
• Internal link architecture
• Spam filters

Copywriting guidelines for SEO

Completing an SEO audit of current effectiveness

International/multi-lingual search engine marketing issues

Review of pay per click ranking factors

• Bidding and bid management
• Account structure
• Quality score concepts
• Creative/copy effectiveness
• Landing page effectiveness

Managing the content network

Process and approach for managing SEM

Selecting the right agency

Pre and post learning support:

Approaches used include pre-workshop questionnaire and follow-up questions or informal post-workshop review of approaches by the course director after delegates have sent through questions by email.

To take away from the course:

• A book on search engine marketing
• Summaries of the main ranking factors for SEO
• Checklists for content owners and editors
• Tips on improving pay per click search marketing

Professional Standards

All of our marketing courses are based on CIM's Professional Marketing Standards, ensuring that marketers at all levels of seniority gain the practical skills that employers require to improve business performance. Review our Professional Marketing Standards framework