Specialist Certification in Search Marketing

The course is broken down into 10 modules to complete in 6 Months. Each module goes through different aspects of understanding Search Marketing.

The modules in this course are designed to teach you how to:

• Differentiate between strategy types
• Define your business value proposition
• Identify ways to maintain a long-term strategy and improve it over time
• Recognise resources you need and outsource specialist skills and knowledge
• Perform necessary research and map your communications and business plan and objectives
• Familiarise yourself with the tools and timelines associated with a digital campaign and digital PR activities.
• Contextualise the different social media platforms within the digital marketing landscape
• Assess the strengths and weaknesses of email marketing.
• Strategise, build, measure and scale an enterprise-level Social Customer Service operation.
• Assess the function of P2P support communities in Social Customer Service and become familiar with their creation, maintenance and growth.
• Describe the elements and practices that make up an efficient analytics approach and the main considerations when seeking to construct a formal analytics program for your business. ·Identify the key concepts of big data, automated data-driven decision-making and artificial intelligence.
• Measure the ROI of digital and align it to the overall goals of your organization.
• Monitor the social footprint of team members using social KPIs
• Create a SWOT analysis and develop SMART objectives in order to decide on the tactics that are most appropriate for the objectives decided upon and how best to implement them.

Introduction to Search Marketing:
The Introduction to Search Marketing module introduces you to the world of search engine marketing (SEM). As search is one of the more technical streams of the post graduate certificate, this module will cover key concepts of SEM to provide you with a solid understanding before diving deeper into the individual modules. On completion of this module, you will be able to:

• Set up your own website so you can follow along with the lecturers throughout the course, putting key learnings into practice as you go
• Understand how each discipline within search marketing interacts with and affects the others
• Understand how search marketing sits within the wider digital marketing practice

SEO Setup:

The SEO Setup module covers the key concepts relating to Search Engine Optimisation, how search engines work and the key components of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). You will begin by setting your business, website and SEO objectives and become aware of free, paid and keyword research tools you can use in your SEO activities. On completion of this module, you will be able to:

• Develop well-optimised websites (on-page)
• Explore off-page optimisation techniques to improve ranking
• Optimise your websites for both mobile and local
• Analyse and report on your SEO performance

SEO Content:

The SEO Content module teaches you about the importance of distributing relevant content marketing messages in order to enhance search traffic, and develop broader engagement levels across different digital marketing channels. On completion of this module, you will be able to:

• Set goals, establish audience personas and best practices
• Conduct keyword research to identify topics and priorities
• Format and repurpose content to increase visibility, engagement and interest
• Create strategic content campaigns
• Measure goals, follow reporting deadlines and evaluate goals

SEO Workshop:

The SEO Workshop takes the learnings from SEO Setup and SEO Content and combines them into a practical workshop on SEO. On completion of this module, you will be able to:

• Conduct an SEO audit
• Analyse what is and what is not working for you
• Use these insights to tweak your SEO strategy from both a technical and content aspect to improve your overall ranking

Paid Search:

The Paid Search module introduces you to the fundamental concepts of Paid Search. It takes you through how to setup your Google Ads (Previously known as AdWords) account, how to track conversions and link to your analytics account for accurate reporting and analysis. On completion of the module, you will be able to:

• Create ad campaigns in Google Ads
• Include extensions in your ads
• Optimise ads by considering different bid types and remarketing lists
• Determine success by measuring engagement and transaction data within Google Analytics against Google Ads campaign performance metrics

Display Advertising:

The Display Advertising module teaches you everything you need to know about display campaigns from creation to optimisation and then on to reporting. On completion of the module, you will be able to:

• Prepare a creative strategy
• Advertise on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
• Explore the Google Display Network (GDN)
• Remarket to potential customers
• Create Gmail and engagement ads for maximum reach

Video Advertising:

The Video Advertising module will give you a thorough understanding of the opportunities for advertising provided through video hosting and mobile platforms. It will inform the video advertising lifecycle from planning to implementation and measurement. On completion of the module, you will be able to:

• Create a YouTube channel that reflects your Brand’s identity
• Upload a video to your channel
• Link YouTube & Google Ads to report on how your video content performs in your PPC campaigns
• Refine and optimise video campaigns in the process
• Report on campaigns to inform further iteration within the campaigns to ensure constant improvements in performance

Analytics Setup:

The Analytics Setup module provides a foundation to analytics which you will then build on in Module 9. You will understand the full range of features and capabilities associated with analytics and how it can be used to optimise website performance. On completion of the module, you will be able to:

• Implement Google Analytics code to track visitors to your website
• Set up accounts and goals
• Track additional user interactions through Event Tracking code
• Plan Event Tracking reports

Applied Analytics:

The Applied Analytics module will help you to develop your understanding of the more technical aspects of Analytics. On completion of the module, you will be able to:

• Analyse how different Google Ads campaigns are working
• Understand conversion analysis and apply campaign attribution and tagging
• Understand different goal types
• Output detailed conversion reports with regard to goals, funnel pathways, conversions and e-commerce

Strategy and Planning:

The Strategy and Planning module will teach you how to devise an all-encompassing search strategy using the PROPEL strategy model. You will learn how planning, researching, setting objectives, preparation, execution and learning are the key components of a successful social strategy and ROI. On completion of this module, you will be able to:

• Conduct a situation analysis, containing an assessment of your competitors, the size of the market and your current performance
• Develop a high level, simple clear strategy for all search marketing channels
• Maintain a successful strategy by continually incorporating new information and adapting to a changing landscape