The key to success is learning how to effectively market your course. You may have the best material available, but if your potential customers can’t find your website, all of your efforts are worthless. Marketing your business requires constant attention, so it is important your marketing efforts are given the time necessary to be properly developed and executed.

Online Marketing

When selling courses online, it makes sense to market them online also. The Internet is an enormous resource to discover companies that offer online courses and having a strong presence will ensure potential customers can find your courses.

Your Website

Your company’s website is the foundation on which all of your online marketing efforts are built. Your website plays an important role representing your company’s public persona as well as the primary source for people to come learn more about your online courses. It’s simple: your website should be professional looking, easy to use, and informative.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

This is the term used to describe the efforts that make your website visible when people use sites like Google, Yahoo, and Bing to find information they are looking for. Paid ads appear at the top and right of the “organic” search results. “Organic” search results are non-paid search engine results, and fall under the realm of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Search Engine Marketing is an umbrella term that refers to both paid and non-paid online marketing.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This refers to designing your website so that it appears in the non-paid, “organic” section of search results when people search key phrases on sites like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing your site for phrases that people use when searching so that your website is displayed in the “organic” search results. The rank of your website is related to the key phrase searched for and is based on indexable content, keywords and titles, amount of content, and back links.

Tracking Your Results

The ability to track your efforts accurately is one of the biggest advantages to having an online-based business. Every visit to your website and the activity by each visitor can be recorded and analyzed. This tracking information gives you a lot of power in making great, informed decisions about your online marketing and SEO efforts.