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Start Your Own Business > Marketing Your Business on the Internet
 Find out how to market your business on the Internet from an e-commerce expert, even if you have little or no money to spend. In this practical, hands-on course, you'll learn little-understood secrets about the types of businesses that thrive on the Web. Then, you'll discover proven methods that will help you establish an Internet presence and build an online brand identity. You'll even learn several low-cost promotion strategies that you can use to drive visitors to your site, and you'll find out how a media kit can help you earn extra revenue by selling advertising space on your site.
Throughout the course, you'll learn to think strategically about marketing your Web site, products, and services using Internet technologies. You'll know how to use an Internet marketing checklist and other tools and materials to develop a sound online business strategy. Before you know it, you'll have the skills and knowledge you need to develop a winning Internet marketing plan for your own business.
This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Lisa Heath.
 Lisa Heath is an accomplished writer and editor specializing in business, marketing, and creative writing. Known for her exceptional command of the English language, grammatical precision, and unflinching dedication to excellence, Lisa has won numerous awards for her creative, professional, and scholarly writing. Her diverse body of work -- which has been published in print, on the Web, and on television -- includes award-winning documentaries and two books: Why We Read What We Read: A Delightfully Opinionated Journey Through Contemporary Bestsellers and S'mores: Gourmet Treats for Every Occasion.
To purchase this course, click the Enroll Now button below:
Requirements:
An understanding of basic marketing principles, completion of Patricia Franks' Designing Effective Websites online course (or equivalent experience), completion of Craig Power's Creating Web Pages online course (or equivalent experience), Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader).
Syllabus:
All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.
A new section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.
| Week One |
| Wednesday - Lesson 01 |
With millions of pages already on the Web and more posted online every day, getting your Web site noticed isn’t easy. When students ask me what they can do to increase traffic to their sites, I encourage them to learn all they can about Internet marketing. In this lesson, you’ll receive a brief introduction to the Internet, learn the difference between e-commerce and e-business, and explore different types of business sites on the Web.
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| Friday - Lesson 02 |
The terms "Web site" and "Web presence" can be used interchangeably, but there's a subtle difference. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to establish a Web presence. In order to do that, you’ll need to understand your goals and your customers’ needs and interests, accurately identify your target audience, and establish a market position that makes you stand out from the crowd. We'll go over how to do all of that in this lesson.
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| Week Two |
| Wednesday - Lesson 03 |
In today's lesson, you’ll discover the importance of selecting the right domain name for your site. You’ll also find out how search engines work. And you’ll understand how you can use what you learn to drive visitors to your Web site.
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| Friday - Lesson 04 |
High-quality content will keep visitors at your site longer and encourage them to return more often. In this lesson, you’ll learn the importance of helpful, informative, educational, entertaining, or useful content. You’ll also discover how search engines use the following factors to determine ranking in response to a query—text viewable on the screen, code not viewable on the screen, and external factors.
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| Week Three |
| Wednesday - Lesson 05 |
In this lesson, you’ll discover the elements that make up "The Marketing Mix"—the four Ps. You’ll learn how the elements of product, price, place, and promotion relate to each other and to your target audience.
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| Friday - Lesson 06 |
Today, you’ll learn how to develop a message that will cause the members of your target audience to take the action you want. And you’ll become acquainted with online strategies you can use to advertise your Web site, products, and services.
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| Week Four |
| Wednesday - Lesson 07 |
A lot of people are making a lot of money on the Web by selling advertising. But before you can become one of them, you'll need to build Web site traffic first. When you decide your site is popular with enough visitors to encourage others to advertise on your site, you'll need to create a media kit that you can post to your Web site to announce your services. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to create a media kit and find out how you can make money by attracting advertisers and selling banner and classified ads.
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| Friday - Lesson 08 |
In spite of the growing number of junk e-mail messages filling in-boxes, e-mail is a thriving medium. So it’s important to understand how you can use e-mail marketing to keep current customers and acquire new ones. In today's lesson, we’ll examine ways that you can use e-mail to promote your business.
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| Week Five |
| Wednesday - Lesson 09 |
If you want visitors to spend more than 30 seconds at your Web site, you'll need to make it interesting, entertaining, and informative. The factor that causes visitors to spend more time at your site is called "stickiness." In this lesson, you’ll learn the advantages of building a sticky site. You’ll also learn how to use content to make your Web site sticky.
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| Friday - Lesson 10 |
In the previous lesson, you learned to build site stickiness through the use of content. In this lesson, you’ll learn to build site stickiness through community. You’ll also become acquainted with synchronous and asynchronous tools you can use to develop a community experience for your visitors.
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| Week Six |
| Wednesday - Lesson 11 |
The last element you can use to build site stickiness is commerce—in this case, e-commerce. You’ll learn how to use commerce to keep visitors at your site longer and return more often. In this lesson, you’ll become acquainted with technology you can use to create an online store, including online catalogs, shopping cart software, and online payment systems.
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| Friday - Lesson 12 |
In our final lesson, you’ll have the opportunity to pull together all of the information you gathered during this course to complete an Internet marketing plan. To help you do this, I’ll provide you with an Internet marketing plan checklist and samples of the following documents: Internet marketing plan outline, a calendar, and a budget spreadsheet. You'll want to use this opportunity to complete an Internet marketing plan that you can use to promote your business.
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To purchase this course, click the Enroll Now button below:
Student Reviews:
"Great class! I enjoyed it immensely! It was well structured and offered everything you need to start your own business on the internet. I don't think I could have found a better course anywhere else. Thanks!"
"I enjoyed the class materials and discussion areas. I found the information very helpful to my work responsibilities."
"I enjoyed the course a lot since I was just putting together a web site for my company and found it really helpful by explaining the process and options. The course should be marketed to Chambers of Commerce as a good resource for their members."
"I enjoyed this class greatly and looked forward to each lesson. It has given me so much information in all aspects of internet marketing; I know my website will succeed. This class will prove invaluable to anyone looking to create a website for any purpose."
"Pat is a great instructor!!! She provides clear, detailed, useful information as well as the opportunity to put it into practice. She also provides lots of helpful links to sites to build on that knowledge. She's very helpful in the discussion area too! Couldn't ask for a better instructor!"
"Thanks for the great course. I really put to use a lot of the information. I have no doubt that I will refer to it again and again."
"The instructor was very encouraging and her assignments were applicable to real-time efforts. I have had an online storefront for four years, and the Instructor's knowledge of current applications of Internet marketing was quite helpful."
"This course is excellent. I got more information than I ever imagined. The instructor's writing style enabled me to absorb lots of material because I understood it and enjoyed it. Useful course, great instructor."
"This course offered good basic information to get me started with an online marketing plan. Just what I needed!"
"This course was amazing in how all this information was compiled into one place. I got way more than I expected out of this course and I am off and running to execute things I didn't know existed related to Internet Marketing. I can't wait to execute my plan, step by step."
To purchase this course, click the Enroll Now button below:
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