24-evening SEO/PPC/Social Media Course training

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is the process of making your web site more likely to show up higher in Google and Bing for certain search phrases. Understanding what people are searching for is critical to this goal. We show you how to find these important keywords by analyzing your competitors and using online tools to refine the process. Once you know what to target, you still have to code your web site in such a way that it is easy for Google's algorithm to interpret as relevant to those keywords. Finally, for a search engine to consider yours an important web site, you have to convince other people in your industry to create links on their web sites back to your site. This is very difficult since there's no motivation for them -- but we show you several clever strategies for achieving this. In the SEO part of the course we show you how to:

• Analyze your competitor's keyword targets by viewing their source code
• Use online tools to find keywords your competitors have overlooked
• Structure your web site so that your keyword strategy is reflected in its link topology
• Prioritize between search phrases that are frequent but vague versus rare but specific
• Code your HTML tags and content to maximize its SEO impact
• Find web sites willing to link back to yours for free
• Create "link bait" so that other sites will link to yours
• Lay out the optimal "landing page" that will be most effective in encouraging users to buy

Pay-per-Click Advertising

Even if your web site ranks well on Google searches, you should also pay for ads so that more than one link to your site appears on the first page of Google and Bing's results. The placement of ads is auctioned to the highest bidder with the best ad. There are a bewildering number of different configurations for advertisements but we walk you through them one at a time in logical sequence. We train you on how to:

• Calculate your return on investment (ROI) from advertising dollars
• Open an AdWords account
• Identify relevant keywords
• Set up advertising campaigns and AdWord groups
• Determine how much to pay for ads
• Create an group of rotating ads from which to select the best-performing one
• Compose enticing ad copy with a call to action
• Interpret the various metrics associated with ads: CPM, CTR, Conversion rates, and more
• Decide whether to use text, image, audio, video, or map-based ads

Reports and Analytics

Google offers a vast array of reports to track your ads, as well as a set of charts and graphs to analyze the overall traffic to your web site. Using these tools you can refine and optimize both your ads and your web site in order to increase your conversion rate, turning your visitors into buyers. In this part of the course we show you how to:

• Use the campaign optimizer tool
• Use the web site optimizer tool to refine your landing pages
• Identify the sources of your traffic
• Find entry and exit points to your web site
• Set up a sales funnel with goals to track the progress of visitors
• Indentify and fix pages where visitors abandon their purchase process

Social Media

Between Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter and blogs, there are many ways of taking advantage of social media. When someone purchases a product and recommends it to their friends and business associates on a social media site, you can not only drive new traffic to your web site, but also increase the likelihood of convincing them to convert into a paying customer. In this part of the course we show you how to:

• Create a business presence on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter
• Promote your business on the major social media sites through raffles and referral incentives
• Get feedback on products and services from your social media community
• Create buzz and drive traffic through blog and forum postings
• Set up a Youtube channel to build your community
• Create demographically targeted ads on Facebook and LinkedIn
• Set up affiliate programs to get other people to advertise for you using sites like Commission Junction

Prerequisites:

• Basic understanding of HTML