Search engine marketing

(Also a course module of the E-Marketing Professional certificate, Services SETA Accredited, No. 2612, NQF6)
Britefire's Search Engine Marketing course provides an up-to-date and thorough insight into search engine optimisation (SEO) and contextual search advertising. It will also give you the skills, methods, and insights to maximise your online exposure, pump up your click-throughs, and increase your conversion rates, providing you with customer-behaviour and marketing insight.

The course covers:
• Search engines demystified
• Ten keys to search engine optimise (SEO) a site
• Developing a search marketing strategy
• Keyword research - the foundation of all online success
• Common obstacles to search rankings
• Linking strategies
• How to create and manage a powerful pay-per-click (PPC) campaign
• Bidding strategies and search advertising
• Designing landing pages that convert
• Using metrics to gain a competitive advantage
• A/B split testing
• How to select and manage a SEM/SEO partner

Learn how to:

* get visitors with low-cost pay-per-click advertising
* develop linking strategies to boost search rankings
* exploit social media to improve search rankings
* test and continually improve your campaigns
* build landing pages and conversion funnels
* use analytical tools to help you make smart decisions
* pull it all together into an effective search strategy

Why Search Engine Marketing?

Eight out of ten online transactions start with a Google search. If you do not appear in the top few search results rankings, you don't exist. If nobody clicks to visit your site, or clicks but doesn't transact, you have blown a major opportunity. The future of your business is now, more than ever, dependent on your ability to create, anticipate or adapt rapidly to digital market shifts. Your strategy has to be smart and agile. How do you stand out?

It's a noisy marketplace. At last count, there were more than 20 billion web pages in which your website can get lost. In South Africa, ten people out of every hundred have web access, and they account for a significant chunk of purchasing power. Worldwide, there are more than one billion active online consumers, and last year they spent R42 trillion. Search Engine Marketing is not only for e-commerce companies, it is a vital part of the marketing strategy of any offline business as well.

Many organisations opt to outsource SEM to specialists. Outsourcing SEM is very different from abdicating it. But if you don't understand SEM, then you will not be able to select or manage an external specialist critically.

The SEM landscape changes constantly, as do the algorithms used by the engines and directories. Staying current is critical if you want to maintain the high rankings you work so hard to attain. SEM is not easy, but it's not rocket science either. If you have an e-marketing responsibility, you simply have to 'get it'.
Who Should Attend?

This course is a must for anyone who makes tactical or strategic marketing decisions about online initiatives, or has to interact with those who do, including:

• online strategists
• marketing managers, product managers
• new product development people
• advertising and marketing services agency personnel
• website developers, information architects, and creative personnel
• e-commerce and e-marketing personnel

The course is led by Godfrey Parkin, a digital strategist, e-marketer, author, USB-ED faculty member and international internet business veteran, who has advised some of the world's largest corporations.

Date: 11 August 2011
Venue: Cape Town
Cost: R2600 (incl VAT, lunch, refreshments, course material & certificate

Date: 31 August 2011
Venue: Johannesburg
Cost: R2600 (incl VAT, lunch, refreshments, course material & certificate)

Date: 16 August 2011 to 17 August 2011
Venue: Johannesburg
Cost: R2600 (incl VAT, lunch, refreshments, course material & certificate)

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