The internet is everywhere; we have it on our laptops, tablets and phones. We use it watch a film on the train, to shop for groceries from our living rooms and even to check our Facebook profiles before we get out of bed in the morning. So, for anyone looking to sell a product, advertise a service or simply tell the world your thoughts with a blog like this one, knowing how to get people to see what you are about is key to the success of your endeavours.

With this in mind, and combined with the fact that marketing is my bread and butter, I thought it was high time that I brushed up on my skills with a search and social media marketing course that would help drive traffic to the University of Salford website.

Success is in the search

I write a lot of content as part of my job and so personally, I was keen to use this course to get a better understanding of the processes behind creating optimised copy to maximise my SERPs rankings.

I’ve learned a lot about how you can use optimisation tools such as Google Adwords Keyword tool and WordStream in order to generate key words for content and PCC campaigns that can really make a difference to the volume and type of traffic you are attracting to your site. By using these tools to identify appropriate phrases it really is possible to increase traffic through both organic and paid for results rankings.

What your traffic says about your site

If you have ever looked at a page of analytics and had no clue what was going on then I can sympathise, but analytics tools such as Google Analytics are essential to find out more about how well your website is working and who’s looking at it.

For one, if you have just set about optimising your site, you can see exactly how your changes are affecting your traffic in real time. You can how well your landing pages are performing, work out what content is attracting people to your site and what they are doing once they are there.

The optimisation process is always ongoing, you need to tweak, review and tweak again to keep your site at its best and understand what your audience are looking for from your offering. SEO support tools such as SEOmoz can help, offering comprehensive services to keep track on what is going on behind the scenes. This in turn will help to maintain quality traffic and enhance your sales and conversion rates meaning you will (hopefully) start to see a tangible ROI for your time and effort.

It pays to be social

The world of social media can also be a confusing place, especially if you grew up in the days before the internet became a staple of everyday life and the only place you’d ever seen a mobile phone was in a film.

But today, a well co-ordinated social media campaign can really help you to get noticed online. It’s all about creating communities, starting conversations and getting your brand on people’s browsers through continued engagement.

Everyone’s heard of Facebook and Twitter – they are both great platforms where you can create a presence and start to build a following for your brand, but there are many other platforms out there that can be of use. Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare and Pinterest are just a few examples that can help you to create new communities and expand your existing following.

Putting theory into practice

After completing the search and social media marketing course, I feel it has helped me to consolidate my existing knowledge in these areas and allowed me to take a more co-ordinated and comprehensive approach to social media. The SEO processes I have learned are already helping me to write more effective copy and I have already started to think of new ways to engage with my target markets, such as taking advantage of emerging platforms like Google+.

Moving forward, I am looking forward to developing my new skills and hopefully seeing an improvement in the effectiveness of my online activities, and my continuing to review and refine my activities, I am sure I will be able to see a positive return for my endeavours.

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