Event Date: 10 September 2009

A one day workshop introducing marketing professionals and business managers to the free Google Analytics service.

Are you confused by web analytics?

Do you want a better understanding of how your customers discover and interact with your website?

Then this one day course will give you a good grasp of how to use Google Analytics to improve the performance of your website.

This course will give you a solid understanding of the fundamentals of web analytics.  You will learn how to interpret your website data, how to use the data to shape improvements in your website, and how to improve your marketing based on your visitors’ preferences and behaviour.

Using live demonstration and case studies, you will see how other businesses like yours are using their Google Analytics data to shape their web marketing strategy.

Quite simply, you will learn how to improve your website by understanding how people discover your business on the web, how they behave when they get to your website, and the characteristics of your visitors.

Book Your Place Now

Please book your place via email and we will send you an invoice that can be paid  by credit card, BAC or cheque.

You will learn:

• Which statistics are most important to your business, and what the numbers mean, good or bad, for your website
• How to find the most valuable statistics, without wasting your time trawling through all the options
• How to configure your Analytics to suit your business needs
• How to improve the navigation, content and design of your site based on the measurable behaviour of your visitors
• How to track the key measures of success for your business
• How to interpret traffic source analysis, and lead generation metrics
• How to set up powerful Goals and Funnels analysis
• Event tracking for Flash and Video
• How to use Analytics with  Ecommerce sites
• How to use Analytics to optimise your SEO and PPC activities and budgets
• How to produce an Analytics plan that are most important to your business

Who is this course for?

You will be responsible for the marketing of your business, and actively using the Internet as part of your marketing strategy. You want to learn how you can use your web data to drive your business forward, and get the best possible results from your website.

You do not need to be a statistics expert or a marketing professional for this course;  the workshop has been designed for real business owners who need practical information quickly and in bite-sized chunks.

Date

Thursday, 10 September 2009

Time

09:00- 09:30    Registration
09:30 – 16:00   Course
16:00 – 16:30   Informal Q&A

Venue

PDW Meetings & Training Venue
Colwick Quays Business Park
Nottingham NG4 2JY

Fee

£245 + VAT (payable by credit card or cheque).

Includes buffet lunch comprehensive course notes, teas and coffee.

Book your place now

Please book your place via email and we will send you an invoice that can be paid  by credit card, BAC or cheque.

The Workshop Leader

Susan Hallam is Managing Director of Hallam Communications, an Internet marketing training and consultancy company. Susan specialises in making complex topics clear and easy to  understand, and has been delivering search engine optimisation training for more years than she cares to admit.

She is a Google Analytics accredited consultant, and regular speaker at Internet conferences, including Search Engine Strategies, Search Marketing Expo, Internet World.

Google Analytics Training

A one day workshop introducing marketing professionals and business managers to the free Google Analytics service.

Are you confused by web analytics?

Do you want a better understanding of how your customers discover and interact with your website?

Then this one day course will give you a good grasp of how to use Google Analytics to improve the performance of your website.

This course will give you a solid understanding of the fundamentals of web analytics.  You will learn how to interpret your website data, how to use the data to shape improvements in your website, and how to improve your marketing based on your visitors’ preferences and behaviour.

Using live demonstration and case studies, you will see how other businesses like yours are using their Google Analytics data to shape their web marketing strategy.

Quite simply, you will learn how to improve your website by understanding how people discover your business on the web, how they behave when they get to your website, and the characteristics of your visitors.

Book Your Place Now

Please book your place via email and we will send you an invoice that can be paid  by credit card, BAC or cheque.

You will learn:

• Which statistics are most important to your business, and what the numbers mean, good or bad, for your website
• How to find the most valuable statistics, without wasting your time trawling through all the options
• How to configure your Analytics to suit your business needs
• How to improve the navigation, content and design of your site based on the measurable behaviour of your visitors
• How to track the key measures of success for your business
• How to interpret traffic source analysis, and lead generation metrics
• How to set up powerful Goals and Funnels analysis
• Event tracking for Flash and Video
• How to use Analytics with  Ecommerce sites
• How to use Analytics to optimise your SEO and PPC activities and budgets
• How to produce an Analytics plan that are most important to your business

Who is this course for?

You will be responsible for the marketing of your business, and actively using the Internet as part of your marketing strategy. You want to learn how you can use your web data to drive your business forward, and get the best possible results from your website.

You do not need to be a statistics expert or a marketing professional for this course;  the workshop has been designed for real business owners who need practical information quickly and in bite-sized chunks.

Date

3rd February 2010

Time

09:00- 09:30    Registration
09:30 – 16:00   Course
16:00 – 16:30   Informal Q&A

Venue

Euston House
24 Eversholt Street
London
NW1 1AD

Fee

£395 + VAT (payable by credit card or cheque).

Includes buffet lunch, comprehensive course notes, teas and coffee.

Please select the “Other Payment Options” if you would prefer to pay by cheque or pay by invoice.

Book your place now

Please book your place via email and we will send you an invoice that can be paid  by credit card, BAC or cheque.

The Workshop Leader

Susan Hallam is Managing Director of Hallam Communications, an Internet marketing training and consultancy company. Susan specialises in making complex topics clear and easy to  understand, and has been delivering search engine optimisation training for more years than she cares to admit.

She is a Google Analytics accredited consultant, and regular speaker at Internet conferences, including Search Engine Strategies, Search Marketing Expo, Internet World.

My top 5 Internet Marketing tips for fighting the credit crunch.

The economy may be turning ugly, but the Internet offers small businesses opportunities to survive, and even thrive, during this recession we are all calling the credit crunch.

Businesses are looking more carefully at budgets, making sure we can squeeze every penny of profit out of our investments, and looking for the most cost effective ways of delivering our products and services.

And our customers are doing the same:  but they are still spending money.  They may be spending less, but we need to figure out what they’re spending their money on.  And they don’t want to risk wasting a penny.  They want to buy the right products, from companies they can trust.

And our customers’ use of the Internet will continue to grow – after all, it is free.

Marketing budgets may appear to be a soft target for businesses looking to make budget cuts.

But canny business owners will be taking advantage of the opportunities the Internet has to offer.

Here are my top 5 top Internet marketing tips for fight the credit crunch:

1.  Work Smart to Retain your Existing Customer Base

Out of sight means out of mind.  You need to keep in touch with your customers or you risk losing them.  And it is always cheaper to retain an existing customer than acquire a new one.

• Email marketing is the cheapest, easiest, and most effective way keeping in touch with your customers.  I’m not talking spam, and I’m not talking about marketing to get new customers.  You need to be sending out personalised, targeted messages to existing customers who want to hear your news.  And well crafted email messages make sales.

• Blogs are another free and easy way to publish information anbd keep in touch with your clients.  I am of the personal opinion that the majority of the UK population doesn’t know what to do with an RSS feed, but they sure know how to read blogs.

• Getting Social means engaging in conversations with your customers.  Qype, Facebook, Twitter:  these are places where you customers are reviewing your products, discussing their purchasing decisions, exchanging views on your business.  Use these tools to listen to your customers, hear what they’re talking about, learn more about your market.  And remember it isn’t about advertising, your contributions ot the conversation need to be valuable and appropriate

2.  Get Even More Visible in Front of Your Potential Clients

You have to get visitors to your website to make the sales.  And one of the best times to get found by potential clients is when they’re searching for what you’re selling.  You need to get found on the Internet, which means Google, but also means a range of other places on the Internet that your customers visit.

Spending on online marketing is continuing to grow, competition is getting more intense, and as a result it is becoming more expensive.

Now is the time to review which of the visibility tools are going to give you the best return on your investment.  Put together your plan of action for building your visibility on the Internet.

Your Tools Checklist:

• Search engine optimisation, pay per click advertising, banner advertising, classified advertising, online press releases, affiliate marketing, videos, sponsorship programmes

3.  Make Your Business Transparently Trustworthy

You an do all the advertising you want, but consumers trust each other more than they trust your carefully crafted marketing messages.  I have previously written about the importance of customer reviews in building trust.

If you’re selling business to business, then recommendations from colleagues, friends, accountants, and business advisers all have the greatest impact on building trust.

• Case studies and positive stories about your business form an essential part of the content on your website

• Plain speaking in the words you write may look easy, but it takes time and effort to write well.  Make your web copy and email messages sound genuine, and not hollow marketing drivel.

• Cultivate customer reviews.   Sites like Google Local Business Centre, TouchLocal and Qype are platforms for customer reviews and ratings.  I know businesses are scared of negative reviews, but remember even bad reviews contribute to the sense of honesty and trustworthiness.  Keep an eye on your reviews, and listen to what your customers have to say.

4. Measure, Measure, Measure

If you don’t measure, then you can’t manage.  And if you’re not managing, then you could be pouring money down the drain.

Measuring means accountability for your marketing spend.  You need to be measuring against your success criteria.  You may want to measure sales, or email enquiries, or phone calls, or visits to your website.

• You may be using low-tech ways of measuring, like a clipboard near the telephone, and making a tick every time a person says they found you on Google.

• You might be using a dedicated telephone number that is associated with your Internet marketing activities, and when that phone rings you know the web is working for you.

• Or you might be using a web statistics package like Google Analytics, and set up your Goals and Conversion Tracking to see who well your website is performing.

If marketing budgets are tight, then knowing what works makes it easier to make the decisions of where to invest your cash.

5. Test, Learn, Test

And finally, there is no one size fits all answer to the Internet marketing puzzle.

You need to try something new, experiment with a technology or technique you haven’t used before.  Measure your success, and learn from the experiment.

• Experiments should be quick, cheap, and easy to deliver.

• If it works, then well done, and more of the same, please.

• And if it doesn’t work so well, then kill the experiment and move on.  No harm done.  Be quick and be ruthless.  You will have tested something, learned from it, and moving on to test something new.

Have you found this article useful?

Why not contribute to the conversation by adding a comment, or bookmarking the site using your Social bookmarks.

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I keep unsubscribing.  I keep complaining. And now I’m going public.  Those pesky Democrats in America are spam merchants.

Actually, President Elect Obama isn’t the spammer, it appears to be David Plouffe, his campaign manager guru who won’t take his foot off the spam accelerator.

I didn’t want to go public with the Democrats’ spamming reputation until they had safely won the election.  But now they have won, and it is time to point the accusatory finger.

The Democratic party use a piece of software called Party Builder to manage their hugely successful Internet election campaign.  A steady stream of emails asking for small donations proved to the key to financial success for party funding.

I’ve unsubscribed separate three times from their email broadcasts.  Twice the unsubscribes had no effect whatsoever.  The final unsubscribe took effect in August…. but the begging emails started reappearing in December.

As an expatriate American who completed and posted my proxy ballot, voting for Obama, I’m more than annoyed to be at the receiving end of spam.

The law they are breaking, of course, is the CAN-SPAM requirement to provide an easy and effective way to unsubscribe, or opt-out,  from email marketing.

Successful email marketing is getting the right message to the right people at the right time, and having the processes in place to respect the wishes of those wanting to unsubscribe.

Fix it, David!

Microsoft make a number of interesting tools available that are well worth exploring as part of your search engine optimisation activities.

Microsoft are offering more than 20 different tools, broadly grouped into Keyword Research Tools, Audience Demographic Tools, Content Analysis tools, and a few Social and Video tools.

I would recommend starting with the Demographic Prediction tool which gives a breakdown of a user’s gender and age based on Microsoft’s Passport data gathered as users search and browse the Internet.

You can use this tool to view demographic breakdown by key phrase or by visits to a particular web address.

Taking cars as an example, we an see that older men are searching for Jaguar XK8, whereas it is younger women looking for Mini Coopers.

Starting first with the Jaguar searchers, we see a 58:42 split men to women, with disproportionate number of searchers in the 35-49 age group as compared to the general search population.

As for Mini Cooper, we see a majority of younger women, aged 25-34:

You can use this data to better understand your user base, and ensure that your web design is suited to the characteristics of the visitors to your website.  It could also be used to help to shape your keyword strategy;  if it is mainly 18-24 year old men searching for what you think is your keyphrase, but you know your market is mainly 34-50 year old women, then it might be time to rethink your keyphrases you’re using on your site.

The Content Categorisation Engine tells you how how the search engines are interpreting your website, and the broad categories into which your website falls.

Looking at this website, the tool shows a strong level of confidence that this site is about Business, The Internet, People, and Small Business:

The Content Categoristion tool was designed to place appropriate advertising on a particular website, but it can give you a better understanding as to how the search engines are interpreting your website.

The Detecting Online Commercial Intention tool assesses whether key phrases indicate an intention to purchase products, or are simply seeking information about the product.  You can use this tool both to research keyphrases, but also to analyse your own website.

And finally, try out the AdText Writer tool, which generates small adverts for use as Pay Per Click advertising.  The tool analyses your webpages, and comes up with a range of 3 line ads to use in Google AdWords, oops, Microsoft AdCenter.

Google have produced an excellent search engine optimisation (SEO) guide.

The Google SEO Starter Guide (PDF) starts with the basics of on-page factors like Title Tags, through to site architecture concepts, and finishes with an overview of freely available tools in your Google toolbox.

It’s a good starter guide for beginners, and includes tips and tricks for the more experienced web marketer.

Happy reading!

Google dominates the UK search marketplace, delivering more than 90% of all search results, and it rates as one of the busiest Internet sites in the world.

But Google is much more than just a search engine. If also offers a range of office productivity tools which can make your information management more efficient, improve your business processes, and save your business money. From YouTube to Patent Searches, Picasa to Gmail, Google offers well more than 50 different services in addition to its familiar search engine.

Underpinning all of these services is a free, personal Google account. Your account acts as a single gateway to your subscribed Google services. This single point of access raises issues, however, in the view of human rights watchdog Privacy International, who rank Google at the very bottom of their Privacy Rankings of Internet Service Companies. Access to the services mentioned in this article requires you to have a Google account, but first you might want to read about the privacy implications

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a free tool which will notify you anytime your personal name, your company name, your competitors, or a key phrase of your choosing gets mentioned on the web. It tracks your professional interests on the web, and then emails you of changes that you need to know about. Your Google Alerts are easily configured to send weekly email summary on a range of searches:

* Your personal name, or your company name, to see what people are saying about you, and to monitor your online reputation. Just put your name into the Alerts box surrounded by inverted commas, eg “Susan Hallam”, and Google will automatically alert you whenever there is a new mention of your name on the web.

* Create an alert on the names of your competitors to keep an eye on the their activities and the coverage they’re receiving. This is a free competitive intelligence tool that could help you to keep track of developments relating to their firm

* Use Google Alerts to stay informed of your key clients’ developments.

* And of course, you can use keywords describing your interests or professional responsibilities

You can limit your search to certain types of information on the web, such as blog articles, news articles, or web pages. I would recommend you choose Comprehensive search meaning all of the above.

And finally, choose the frequency with which you want to receive updates, whether once a day, as it happens, or once a week.

iGoogle

iGoogle is your personal Internet desktop, providing instant access to the information and websites you use frequently.

You define what goes on your desktop, and can include:

* Gadgets, such as driving mapping tools, weather forecasts, currency converters, the Tube map

* News feeds from the web, such as Law News from the Times Online, BBC News, or hundreds of other news services

* A convenient place to organise your reading on the web, including Blog and podcast feeds pertinent to your business interests

Google Apps

Google Apps is a head-on competitor with the Microsoft Office suite. Known as “software as a service.” Google Apps comprises a word processor, spreadsheet, calendar, email and other software tools that run on the Internet.

More importantly, Google provides a free private network within the Internet, with no need for technical resource to manage hardware of software. Known as an “extranet”, users can have access to their documents, email, instant messaging and other information from any device that has an Internet connection.

Here’s a screenshot of Google Apps in action:

Google Docs is a word processor that is fully compatible with the Microsoft version. I can work on the document on my own computer, and then put a copy onto the company extranet to be shared with my colleagues.

That means for employees who want to work at home, they can access their documents securely in their firm?s private Google environment accessed over the Internet. As amendments are made to documents, the revised version is saved for other colleagues to collaborate or make contributions. In much the same way, calendars, videos, spreadsheets can all be accessed and shared via the Internet.

Firms could also use Google Sites to create secure areas for clients, making client information and reports available. The information is hosted securely using your own domain name, and the branding and layout can reflect your own firm’s requirements.

Organisations like the Telegraph Media Group are moving away from Microsoft in favour of Google Apps. Their decision was influenced not only by cost, but the benefits of working in a collaborative, mobile and flexible way using the Internet.

Google Apps has both a free and fee-paying version. The free version is subsidised by the appearance of advertising on the pages, whereas the fee-paying (”enterprise”) version has the advertising disabled, as well as additional functionality particularly in the areas of security. At a cost of US$50 per user per year, it could worth firms investigating Google Apps as an alternative way of working.

This article by Susan Hallam was first published in Internet Newsletters for Lawyers & Law 2.0, November 2008

Time: 09:30 – 16:30

This Masterclass will provide you with all you need to know to take advantage of the latest opportunities in search engine marketing. You will learn latest tricks to promote your website in the search engines, and you will walk away with the knowledge and confidence to make your website highly visible in the search results.

The day will focus on Optimising for Universal Search, and Social Media Marketing. Keeping up to date with these latest online marketing techniques is a real challenge, but essential if you want to stay ahead of the game in search engine marketing.

This brand new workshop is the latest in the Hallam series of search marketing events designed for anyone who promotes websites: web designers, marketing consultants, or in-house web marketing teams.

Our in depth training is delivered in a small group setting, which means plenty of time for discussion about your website and one-to-one support from your instructor, Susan Hallam.

Google’s Universal Search, Google One Box, Google Sitelinks: How you can be sure that your content is being found in all the right places?

During this session you will learn how to optimise, publish, and evaluate your universal content, with specific focus on user generated content (reviews, feedback) rich media content (video, image, podcasts), news services, local content, and more.

Optimising Using Social Media Marketing

The Internet is being transformed by social technologies: social networking, social bookmarking, tagging, rating and review sites. Your clients are creating content that gives their views about your business, reading about what others say about your business, reacting to others’ content, collaborating and communicating with you, and between and amongst themselves.

You may think the loss of control on the web is threatening. Or that it isn’t appropriate to your market. But it is here now, or it is coming your way. And the Social Internet has a big impact on the search engine results.

You need to get a handle on all this social media activity, and learn how to take full advantage of the opportunities it presents. Choose the right tools from the Socail Media toolbox. Create a plan of action, and deliver against it

In this session you will learn how to connect to this wave of social activity. Discover practical techniques for listening to what your clients are saying, energise your clients and engage appropriately and effectively in this tsunami of social activity.

09:00 – Registration & Coffee
09:30 – 16:30 Course
16:30 – 17:00 Informal Q&A

PDW Training Centre, Colwick, Nottingham

£365.00 + VAT (payable by credit card or cheque).
Includes comprehensive course notes, lunch, drinks and snacks.

Our training courses are not for absolute beginners: we are assuming that you already have a website, or you may be planning a new website and that you understand the basics of how search engines rank pages.

This is going to be a fast paced day, and it includes as much SEO knowledge as you can stuff into your brain!

You will leave the day with a written plan of action detailing the specific steps you need to take to optimise your website.

Susan’s workshop materials are constantly updated as the industry shifts and changes, and this workshop will reflect the latest strategies to reflect the evolving search engine optimisation marketplace.

You will be provided with a comprehensive set of course notes, articles and reference guides. Following the course, you will have access to Hallam’s password protected online library of SEO support resources.

Susan Hallam one of the UK’s leading Internet marketing trainers and consultants, with more than 20 years experience in the information industry.

She is a regular speaker at conferences including Search Marketing Expo, Search Engine Strategies, InternetWorld, and eBusiness Club.

Time: 09:30 – 16:30

Internet Marketing Masterclass

Central London:  Friday, 5 December 2008

Every discipline has its current best practice, and Internet Marketing is no exception. But the rate of change on the internet means best practice is changing every few months, new technologies appear and established approaches become obsolete.

Keeping up to date with online marketing techniques is essential and a challenge to any firim in any economic climate.  This workshops has been designed to specifically update you on the latest Internet marketing techniques.

Learn the skills, tools and techniques to ensure your business is making the most of every opportunity the Internet can offer as part of your marketing strategy.

You will learn:

• How to manage a successful search engine optimisation campaign
• Best practice email marketing techniques
• Principles of Pay Per Click Advertising using Google AdWords
• Business blogging for customer acquisition and retention
• Effective business use of the Social Internet

Date

Friday, 5 December 2008

Times

09:00 – Registration & Coffee
09:30 – 16:30 Course
16:30 – 17:00 Informal Q&A

Venue

Euston House:  opposite Euston rail station
24 Eversholt Street
London  NW1 1AD

Fee

£365.00 + VAT (payable by credit card or cheque).
Includes comprehensive course notes, lunch, drinks and snacks.

Click here to book your place now via email

About this Internet Marketing Masterclass

This one day Mastercalss will give you a solid understanding of the breadth of online marketing tools and techniques, and how you can use them to benefit your firm.

Search Engine Optimisation

Ranking well in Google is now, more than ever, an essential part of any website marketing strategy. Learn about the interplay between the key factors influencing the “organic” or “natural” results in Google. Identify the specific steps required to improve search engine rankings. Become familiar with the services offered by search engine optimisation partners.

Email Marketing

Learning how to master email marketing in the age of spam is difficult but achievable. Find out how to improve the content of your email marketing messages, ensure your messages get delivered to the desktop, where to rent email marketing lists, and how to automate the management of your subscribers.

Online PR

PR has moved onto the web. Your audience is online, so make sure you know how to reach them. Learn how you can use online press releases to get better search engine visibility, as well as traditional media attention. See how to write an optimised press release. Understand how online PR services work and their benefits.

Blogging

When the Financial Times writes about the benefits of corporate blogging, you know its time to consider it as part of your Internet marketing strategy. Explore case studies that identify why some blogs are successful, and why some are not. Understand the technologies and processes associated with successful blogs.

The Social Internet

Facebook, Linked In, Digg, Technorati, Stumbling,Second Life.  What’s that all about?  The explosion of the Social Internet has changed the Internet marketing landscape.  What impact are social technologies having on your business, and how can you harness the buzz to acquire visitors to your website, convert them into customers, or keep them loyal to your business?

Summary and questions

This Masterclass encourages a free flow of questions and answers throughout the day. Small group settings means your instructor is readily accessible for informal one-to-one discussions about your website.  This summary session will provide the opportunity to discuss your views and answer any remaining questions.

The Trainer

Susan Hallam one of the UK’s leading Internet marketing trainers and consultants, with more than 20 years experience in the information industry.

She is a regular speaker at conferences including Search Engine Strategies, InternetWorld, and the East Midlands eBusiness Club’s Web Academy and eBusiness Expo.

£365.00 – Internet Marketing Masterclass £365.00 – Successful Search Engine Optimisation

Avoid those email marketing disasters – run through this best practice checklist