SEO Class – Spring Quarter, UCLA Extension

I’ll be teaching my SEO class starting April 7th. The class in entitled, “Building Smart Websites That Get Results.” Here’s the description from the catalog:

This course presents the web development strategies and tactics that can maximize your site’s marketing potential. Learn what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve your ranking immediately. Students act as clients and their websites are reviewed by an expert consultant. Topics include keyword development, site navigation and content, coding techniques to assist search engines indexing your site, linking strategies, and search engine marketing tools and services to increase conversions. The course meets once a month for three months to allow for enough time to achieve demonstrable results. At the conclusion of the course, students have an understanding of search engine marketing and how site architecture and construction can impact website visibility.

For more information, visit www.uclaextension.edu.

Maximize Conversion With Your Landing Page

Landing page selection in a key factor in maximizing conversions via pay-per-click search marketing programs. It’s not always the “home page” that works best. The ideal landing page gives searchers exactly what they are looking for based on the keywords they use to get to your site.

Jacqueline Gill, a paid search specialist at iProspect, describes how to find the best landing page to maximize conversions: “Destination: Landing Page“.

$9.45 Billion Spent on SEM in 2006

SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, reports today that North American marketers spent over $9 billion on Search Engine Marketing last year. Approximately $8 billion went for paid search and $1.1 billion was spent on search engine optimization (SEO). Particularly interesting is the fact that 76% of respondents said they used SEO tactics, while SEO only accounts for 12% of the total expenditure.

A lot of people talk about SEO, but few marketers really understand it. I believe we’ll see a big increase in total $’s spent on SEO in 2007 as that gap begins to close.