Overview

Next intake: TBC

Starting in September 2012

Application deadline 20-August-2012

Cost: £2450 (+ VAT)

The digital industry is much too complex and moves much too fast for any one person to stay ahead of every discipline. But employers need to hire people who can hit the ground running.

That's where the Econsultancy Digital Certificates come in. Whether you're looking to break into the industry, to sharpen a specific set of skills, accelerate your career or 'upskill' your team, you’ll find the fastest route to current best practice right here.

The programme delivers a challenging series of academically accredited courses, each covering a specific digital discipline. The emphasis is on practical skill development combined with rigorous academic understanding. You'll learn the most up-to-date strategies, tactics and technologies from top practitioners in a curriculum that combines face-to-face classes, distance learning and intensive on-the-job assignments.

Course Description and Schedule

Achieving good search engine visibility is an essential part of an effective digital marketing strategy. Although the basics are fairly widely understood, having a solid advanced knowledge of search engine optimisation techniques can set your business apart and have a significant impact on customer acquisition.

This certificate guides participants through the entire SEO process, from building awareness of the importance of SEO in acquiring customers to undertaking initial keyword research, website auditing, planning and strategy and hands on implementation (both on and off site). Participants will graduate with a thorough understanding of all aspects of SEO and practical experience of achieving SEO success.

The course is taught over two modules (12 weeks each) and assessed via two written assignments. All training and tutorial days will be held in Manchester.

Module One: Search Engine Fundamentals 

Day One: Build a Search Engine and hands-on exercises to reveal the complexity of search engine indexing and result management

Day Two: Designed to give a robust, evidence-based grounding in the fundamentals of SEO, keywords, keyword clusters, authority pages, and reputation management for engine optimisation

Day Three: Learning by doing: keyword research, search engine optimisation cycle and simple bullet point SEO strategy

Module Two: SEO Competency

Day One: Rebuild a search engine in a day – a series of challenging hands on exercises to take understanding of SEO to a higher level, including semantics, the PageRank algorithm and our own version of a Panda update

Day Two: Real world SEO; What do SEO managers actually do and what makes the different between doing it well and doing it badly? Topics include keyword research, on-page optimisation of authority pages and link-building strategies.

Day Three: Building an SEO strategy for a site with a diverse range of keywords

In addition to the teaching days, each module has two tutorial days at Manchester Metropolitan University

The Application Process

Applications are open year round and applications for any given intake will be accepted up to four weeks before beginning the course. The application process is the same for all our qualifications (including the MSc programmes) and successful applicants will be eligible to start any of the courses they qualify for providing the start date falls within 18 months of receiving the official offer letter. Speculative applications are welcome.

Contact us at training@econsultancy.com for an application form, along with full details of the content and a timetable.

Learning Outcomes

Module One: Search Engine Fundamentals 

Upon completion of the module participants will; 

  • Understand the principles of search indexing and the relevancy ranking of results, including the concept of PageRank
  • Understand the central importance of key-phrases and how the operation of search engines revolves around them
  • Demonstrate their ability to understand basic search marketing research, including keyword traffic analysis and landing-page keyword assessment
  • Understand the role search has in web browsing and key factors in maximising search marketing performance
  • Demonstrate their ability to assimilate their knowledge in developing a simple bullet-point SEO strategy for a highly keyword focused niche website

Module Two:  SEO Competency

Upon completion of the module participants will;

  • Understand the principles of link equity to a sufficient extent to be able to explain differences in search ranking due to inbound links
  • Understand how search engines rank different on-page signals for key-phrase significance
  • Demonstrate their ability to audit the SEO performance of two web sites and make distinct, relevant recommendations for their improvement
  • Understand the role search has in the buying cycle and how attribution modelling is essential to assessing business performance across different online acquisition channels
  • Demonstrate their ability to assimilate their knowledge in developing a multi-facetted SEO strategy for a diverse keyword ecommerce site

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Trainer

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Mike Baxter

Dr Mike Baxter originally trained as a psychologist (BSc and PhD), but has been an ecommerce consultant specialising in the online customer experience since 2001.

Mike’s client list includes Google, Avis, Santander, Littlewoods, HMV.com, Dixons, Comet, British Airways, John Lewis, Play.com, Argos, Tesco, Sky, Sony, Shop Direct Group, More Than, Dell, M&S,

Debenhams, eBay and Crabtree & Evelyn. Work undertaken with these various clients has ranged from web analytics (e.g. analysis of customer journeys for Net a Porter, customer segmentation for Republic clothing and sales conversion analysis for Flowercard) to technology (e.g. specifying e-commerce platform requirements for Crabtree & Evelyn, specifying on-site search technology for Argos, designing and coding a new account application process for Santander) to online marketing (running PPC campaigns for over 4 years for Sky, devising an SEO strategy for Avis).

Mike was also a Consultant to Google for over a year – helping to research, benchmark and set up Google Conversion Professionals. Mike has developed streamlined processes for auditing conversion journeys, identifying potential improvements and designing split-tests to evaluate their effectiveness

Mike has written four in-depth customer experience benchmarking studies (published by Econsultancy) and is also co-founder and Director of Moneyspyder, an ecommerce platform provider for multi-channel retailers. http://uk.linkedin.com/in/mikebaxter