The internet is an essential tool for most businesses. We have designed two series of programs to help you design, optimize and promote your web site. Each series includes three different programs, you can save 10% by registering for a series versus the individual programs.
Web Design & Optimization Series
Web Marketing & Promotion Series
Web Design & Optimization Series
Enhancing the user experience for your site
This series will help you understand how to build a new or improve an existing web site. From web site design to search engine optimization (SEO) to e-commerce practices, this series will help you achieve the type of site that will be most productive for your business by meeting your customer's needs and desires.
Building an Effective Web Presence
You don't necessarily need a big budget to create an effective website for your business. We will look at cost-effective ways to build a highly successful website that magnetizes your customers and is easy to maintain over time.
Through case studies, group discussions, and short exercises you will learn to:
- Effectively critique the good, bad, and ugly in the Web world
- Get up to speed on essential tools and technologies
- Incorporate existing marketing communications into the Web
- Evaluate Web editors and ways of maintaining sites to find which is best for you
- Avoid the top ten most common Web design mistakes
Instructor: Sandra Bradley, Web Strategy and Marketing Consultant, aei
media, inc.
Sandra has led web strategy and marketing consulting initiatives for
leading companies for over 12 years. Her focus is on helping companies
succeed online including strategic consulting, online business
planning and revenue generation, e-commerce, online brand development,
and web site interface evaluations.
She is an independent consultant specializing in web strategy and
online marketing and also leads Web Strategy and Marketing and
E-Merchant groups for the elite UW E-Business Consortium. Through the
consortium, she regularly provides subject-matter expertise to
companies such as Lands' End, American Girl, Swiss Colony,
Eastbay/footlocker.com, Promega, Brady Corporation, and many others.
Sandra is a co-author of The Manager's Guide to Marketing, Advertising, and P.R.; published September 2009 by McGraw-Hill as part of the Briefcase Series of management books.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Optimizing your Web site’s content will improve your search engine rankings when someone searches on keywords relating to your business. These search results are called “organic results” and appear on the left-side of the screen in Google. The sites listed in Google’s organic results did not pay to be ranked #1, #2, #3, etc. The sites are simply using optimized content. This workshop is ideal for small business owners and managers who want to learn an efficient and effective process for dramatically improving their site’s rankings and doubling monthly unique visitors.
A business owner does not need to know technical skills, like Web programming, to be successful at search engine optimization (SEO). Instead, business owners will rely on their marketing skill and the ability to think like their customers and prospects, versus an ability to write HTML or other form of Web programming.
Stephen recently authored the book entitled: The Small Business Owner’s Handbook to Search Engine Optimization: Increase Your Google Rankings, Double Your Site Traffic…In Just 15 Steps. Guaranteed! The book was published by Atlantic Publishing and is included with the course materials. See Stephen discuss why you can learn SEO even if you aren't a web expert: Click Here to see Stephen on Youtube
Instructor: Stephen Woessner. Stephen has 15 years of experience in Web strategy development, search engine optimization (SEO), marketing, sales, market research, and strategic planning. He has consulted with literally hundreds of clients on the development of Web sites and online promotional strategies. Stephen has significant experience in driving more traffic to a Web site and then converting the additional traffic into revenue.
As the director of marketing services for a major marketing agency, Stephen led the development of an SEO model. Stephen implemented the model on client Web sites with impressive results. Often times a client’s Google rankings improved to Top 10 positions or better.
e-Commerce Tools & Practices
As you build an online presence for your business, you may be asking some questions about e-commerce:
- Do you want to sell products or services on your website?
- How do shopping carts work and how secure are they?
- Do you have to do it yourself or can you hire a service to do e-commerce for you?
- How do you evaluate the various e-commerce options for your website?
- What is the difference between PayPal, other payment services and your own credit card merchant account?
These are some of the questions that will get answered in this program. This session will teach you the terminology, tools and techniques that are commonly used to incorporate an e-commerce function into your website. You will have a better understanding of your options and best practices from which to plan, implement or upgrade your site into an e-commerce site.
Instructor: Sandra Bradley, see bio above.
Web Marketing Series
Strategies to tell web users about your site and business
This series will help you to get your website noticed by your customers on the web. Using promotional tactics, influential copy, social media and paid advertising you can increase traffic to your site and make more sales.
Best Tactics for Promoting Your Website
Getting people to a site is half the battle. This session will focus on promoting your site in the online world with direct e-mail, community building and placements in key directories or search engines. You will learn about selecting which directories and search engines to target and how to get listed in the right away. Measuring site traffic and determining success measures are discussed. How to build a list of customers and prospects for online promotions.
Through case studies, group discussions, and short exercises you will learn to:
- Build the right kind of traffic
- Create an effective e-mail campaign and build and manage your list
- Use best practices for page and site development to leverage search engines
- Determine if advertising or paid opportunities are for you
- Look at site usage and how site statistics can be used in Web maintenance
Instructor: Sandra Bradley, see bio above.
Web copywriting, branding & persuasion
Writing promotional and informational copy for the web can be a challenge. In this session you will learn the best way to use your web site to communicate your message and to stimulate action from prospects and customers. You will see what works and what doesn’t when writing for the web. Discuss how to use the web to promote your brand and to persuade visitors to act.
Through case studies, group discussions, and short exercises you will learn:
- How to identify your audience
- Determine what will motivate your audience to change
- Write copy that appeals to different personality styles
- How to make copy the most effective on a web page
Instructor: Kyle Henderson is an experienced communications professional with high-level expertise in visual information design and presentation for the web and print. He is currently responsible for marketing communications and public relations strategy and execution for the UW-Madison E-Business Consortium, a university/industry partnership comprising 60 leading Wisconsin companies and UW faculty, staff and students. Duties include creating print and online communications, coordinating PR opportunities with private and public entities and coordinating the planning and execution of the consortium's annual conference.
Social Media and Search Engine Marketing
Social media and networking is all the rave on the web these days. How could this help your business? You have optimized your site for search engines (SEO) but, you want to drive more traffic to your site. Can paid search engine advertising work for your website? How do banner ads work and are they a valuable advertising tool? How do you localize advertising on the web to target only the customers you want to reach?
Just like print or broadcasting media, the web can be used very effectively to promote the right things to the right audience at the right time. This session will help you understand your options on the web and decide if web advertising or social media is economical and productive for your business.
This session builds on Best Tactics for Promoting Your Website (described above) to give more details in the areas of social networking for business and online paid advertising.
Instructor: Sandra Bradley, see bio above.
