2008 Internet Business "Brown Bag" Workshops
Held the last Friday of every month (except December), 1-3pm.
Whether you’re an Internet newbie or want to use your website to promote, operate and grow your business, these sessions are for you. Part presentation, part creative exchange, part Q&A, we’ll cover different topics each month, exploring tips and techniques for being successful on the Net. And feel free to bring your lunch!
Instructor Robbin Block: Energetic, insightful and informative
Robbin gives presentations that clearly make the point, but never put her audience to sleep (almost never!). She specializes in marketing strategies that integrate free and low-cost Internet technologies (for the non-technical). Attendees leave motivated, inspired and with real tools they can use to take their businesses to the next level. more about the speaker
Sign up for one or several of the following at Seattle SCORE:
January: Internet Basics & the 3-Part Story of Search Engines
Before you can use the Web for your business, you’ll need to understand domain names, hosts, code and content. Then we’ll explain Search Engine Registration, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and SEM (Search Engine Marketing). This workshop also includes an introduction to Google Business Solutions – valuable free tools designed for small business.
February: Build Your Website -- No Muss, No Fuss
You've got a great business idea, need a website, but don't know where to begin. Before you hire designers, coders or your nephew, we'll show you how to get a site up quickly and inexpensively. We’ll introduce you to tools to build a site fast and make it easy to maintain too – without the need for much technical expertise.
Plus we’ll talk about how to hire the right people when you need help.
Drive Traffic to Your Site Triple Play
March kicks off the 3-part series where we teach you about low-cost methods to get people to visit your website.
March: Linking
Getting high-traffic websites to link to you is an important tool for driving traffic to your own site. There are many ways to make that happen on the Web, including contributing to blogs and forums, inclusion on directories, getting product reviews, and more. We'll also show you methods for finding the best websites for your site to link to. If you don't have a site yet, you’ll want to attend our February workshop.
April: Content & Publishing
Creating materials for PR, publishing through RSS, as downloads, and link-bait, is a great way to build traffic and your reputation. In this session, we'll also help you discover topics that will be especially interesting to your prospects and site visitors.
May: Online Advertising
Using advertising to drive traffic to your website can be an effective option. But if you don’t place it wisely, you could end up spending a lot of money with poor results. Do you know the difference between CPC, CPA, CPM and CPV? We’ll explain all that, the value of display advertising, and the role of ad networks at this workshop. Note: if you’re interested in selling advertising space on your site, come to our July workshop.
June: eCommerce
Want to sell stuff at your site? There are a lot of options. To choose the right technology and deliver a good customer experience, you’ll need to understand all the moving parts, like catalogs, shopping carts, gateways, and merchant accounts. We’ll be addressing all the basics of building ecommerce into your site, but this workshop is not for people using eBay exclusively.
July: Monetize Your Website
There are more ways to make money with a website than ecommerce, but sometimes it’s difficult to make them work. We’ll discuss a variety of business models, like affiliate marketing, selling ad space and pay per click, subscriptions, and more. We’ll look at sites that have made it work and review what your site needs to make these strategies successful.
August: Web Makeover Show: Take Your Site from Good to Great
Is your site all it can be? We'll surf to your live websites to look at the good, the bad and the ugly, and talk about how to make them better. Even if you don't have a website yet, you're sure to learn a lot at this event.
September: All About Email
There’s a lot of grumbling that goes on about email. And yes, it can be spam. But if people really want your information, they’ll be happy to sign up and stay on your list. Learn about what makes email an effective tool for driving traffic and making your customers happy. We’ll also be talking about lists – how to develop them and how to buy them too.
October: Web Analytics: So who’s visiting your website anyway?
All those numbers have your head in a spin? At this workshop, we’ll look at the tools you can use to collect statistics on website traffic. You’ll also learn how to analyze the information, so you can make improvements in your website and your marketing for the coming year.
November: Get ‘em Off the Homepage
Statistics show that the more time someone spends at your site, the more successful it is. Does it seem like you get a lot of visitors, but they don’t go beyond the home page? At this workshop, we’ll explore the reasons why this happens and what you can do to improve your results. We’ll also look at interactive tools you can add to your site to make it sticky – that is, getting visitors to return to your site again and again.