Internet Marketing

Course Starts: March 4, 2012

For further inquires please e-mail mintz@lander.ac.il

Day & Time:  Sundays from 6:00p.m.-9:00p.m.

Length: 15 weeks

Academic Hours: 60

Instructors: Mike Mintz

http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemintz

Cost: 3800 ₪ + 200 ₪ Non refundable Registration Fee.

Payment by Cash, Check or Credit Card. All fees must be paid up to one week before the course starts. If paying by Credit Card, tuition may be paid in installments of no less than 250 ₪ /mo for a  maximum of 10 months.  If paying by check, checks must be paid in advance and can be post dated until the course completion date. Cash – tuition must be paid in full before the course begins. (For exceptions please call our office)

This course will cover an introduction to search engine optimization and social media marketing. Participants will learn both technical and strategic aspects of optimizing a website for major search engines while working on sites throughout the course to implement what they learn. Social media marketing coursework will include building and managing public profiles on major networking sites, creating content to be shared socially, tracking and analyzing traffic from social media efforts and creating a strategy to allocate resources efficiently. This course is geared toward individuals interested in working in the SEO or social media fields, business owners looking to improve their web presence and marketing executives who manage corporate websites. Previous web design or programming experience is not necessary.

Syllabus:

Topic 1:  Starting an online business

1. Overview of an online business vs. a traditional business
2. What’s required to be an online business owner
3. Writing an online business and marketing plan
4. Conducting market research
5. Required sections of an e-Commerce website
6. How to learn from your competition
7. Products vs Services and how to set consumer pricing
8. Website Branding – It’s all about finding the niche

Topic 2: Internet Marketing v. Traditional Marketing

1. Broadcast marketing and newsletters
2. Making money from newsletters
3. Banner ads and Pay Per Click advertising
4. Support charitable causes to attract customers
5. Get traditional print and radio advertising for FREE
6. Google Adsense and the power of keywords
7. Google Analytics and how to utilize website statistics
8. How to generate online and offline referrals
9. Partnerships and cross-website linking strategies

Topic 3: Working with a Web Designers, Developers and SEO Professionals

1. Finding the right professional for your needs
2. Picking the right technology and platform for your website
3. Different options for contracting with a professional
4. Legal protections for your website and intellectual property
5. Planning the project and how to set a timeline and milestones
6. Setting long-term expectations for your relationship with the professional
7. Pricing for developing and maintaining the website and avoiding the pitfalls
8. Hire a project manager to save you time, money and headache
9. Long-term planning and how to reduce the cost of development and maintenance
10. Criteria for which professional opinion to listen to and how to proceed

Topic 4:  Getting Started with your Site

1. The importance of development vs. production sites
2. Quality assurance testing
3. Test marketing your site and gaining feedback
4. Creating your pages and organizing your site
5. When to create Posts vs. Pages
6. Getting ready for deployment – what to do first, next, etc.
7. What should you do once you deploy your site

Topic 5: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

1. What is SEO and how to implement SEO on a website
2. Using YouTube and Rich Media to increase search ranking
3. Choosing the right domain name and URLs to increase site visibility
4. Changing trends in Search Engine Optimization
5. Why you need to pay attention to your Google Page Rank
6. Why Google Loves WordPress – SEO Tips for WordPress
7. PageRank sculpting – Is it important?
8. Avoid Content Spam, Link Spamming and Spamdexing

Topic 6: Registering Users & Enhancing the Website User Experience

1. Building and monetizing an email list
2. Redundancy on a website and how it helps you
3. The Call To Action – Encourage them to buy now
4. The use of appropriate pop-ups to gain users
5. How and when to give stuff away for free
6. Tagclouds and categories
7. Page layout requirements

Topic 7: Generating Revenue from Customers and Advertisers

1. Driving home the sale
2. Shopping carts and accepting online payments (Paypal, Google Checkout, etc.)
3. Payment processing services and fees
4. Offering Incentives and Squeeze pages
5. Increasing sales by building a relationship with the customer
6. Turn & Burn sales vs. Subscription sales
7. Generating affiliate income
8. Selling to customers vs businesses
9. Developing a media package for attracting advertisers and partners
10. Dealing with potential advertisers
11. How site statistics can be leveraged to gain partners, advertisers and generate revenue
12. Setting up and managing affiliate relationships

Topic 8: Site Policies & Security

1. Privacy Policy
2. Site Security, Passwords, Firewalls, preventing website hacking
3. Blocking JavaScript Injection Attacks
4. Blog and forum posting guidelines
5. Return policies and how returns can make you money
6. SSL Certificates (HTTPS), when is it necessary
7. Determining where to host your website

Topic 9: Blogging

1. Different ways to blog: text, video, audio (podcast)
2. Blogging as content marketing: how to blog for all types of products and services
3. Mindmapping and how to generate blogging ideas
4. Developing a content plan and routine for your blog
5. Crowdsourcing and blogging with contributors (guest blogging)
6. Blog Carnivals – Creating a blogging event
7. Monetizing Blogs
8. Blog forum monitoring and blocking forum spam
9. Who owns your content when using social media sites
10. Blogging Do’s and Don’ts

Topic 10: WordPress

1. Why use WordPress (advantages and benefits)?
2. Self-hosted v. WordPress hosted: which is better for you?
3. Essential First Steps after WordPress is installed
4. Choosing a theme that works for you: free, premium and custom themes
5. WordPress Plug-ins

1. 1. Essential list of plug-ins to get started
   2. What these plug-ins do and why you need them
   3. Installing plug-ins- The hard way and the easy way

1. Setting up an RSS feed through Feedburner
2. Related tools: Aweber, Wishlist, Pop-up Domination, ShoppingCart

Topic 11: Social Media – What it is and where’s it going in the future

1. Creating community around an idea, project, business or blog
2. How and why to use social media to increase traffic and drive sales
3. Overview of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+
4. The future of F-Commerce (aka selling on Facebook)
5. M-Commerce and making money on the mobile platform
6. Tips, tricks and best practices for implementing social media

Topic 12: Social Media Tools – Facebook

1. How to navigate Facebook
2. Creating and enhancing your profile page
3. Friending and Filtering: how to manage your connections on Facebook
4. Beyond Farmville and Bedazzled: going from consumer distraction to business tool
5. Facebook Fan Pages: what are they, how do they differ from profiles, and should you have one?
6. Setting up a Facebook Fan Page: standard v. custom pages
7. Facebook applications: integrating them to your page and creating your own
8. Social Advertising: hyper-targeting with Facebook’s built in tools

Topic 13: Social Media Tools – Twitter

1. Creating and customizing your Twitter account
2. Leveraging Twitter to broaden your reach: what to tweet and how to do it
3. Tips and tricks to increase your followers and keeping a good ratio of Followers to Readers
4. Developing quality Twitter followers – it’s not just about the numbers
5. Using TweetDeck or HootSuite to publish content
6. Syndicating your tweets across networks

Topic 14:  Social Media Tools – Linked In

1. Linkedin v. Facebook (and other networks): why is it different?
2. Optimizing your Linkedin profile
3. Developing professional connections and networking
4. Using Linked In Groups to target a niche market
5. Being active in the overall community and building your own community
6. Publishing and participating in discussion
7. Driving Traffic back to your site
8. Establishing yourself as an authority: Q&A feature

Topic 15: Google Plus (G+)

1. What is G+ and how can you benefit from it now?
2. How does  G+ differ from Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter: the in-between network
3. +1 (the new Like Button): how to use it and why it’s important
4. Setting up and optimizing your G+ Profile
5. What is the Stream and how does it work?
6. What are Circles and how can you use them for business?
7. Hangouts: a free video conferencing and presentation tool
8. G+ for Business: what’s next?