By popular demand, the Guild has organised a half-day course on “Digital Content: making the most of search engines and social platforms.”
The course will be led by the GMG’s own Matt Peskett, who has worked in e-marketing and web development and now runs Firetop, his own digital marketing service company. Matt writes about gardening at growlikegrandad.co.uk, has been a finalist in the GMG Blog of the Year and Social Media Influencer of the Year categories, and set up the affectionate and very popular spoof Twitter feed, @montysdognigel, an account he retired last year at 41,000 followers due to Nigel’s ‘advancing years’.
For more details of the day’s programme, see below. Matt says the course is not just for bloggers and will be of interest to anyone who writes, since “pretty much everything finds its way online”.
The course will be held at beautiful Borde Hill in Sussex, by kind invitation of Guild member Eleni Stephenson Clarke and her husband, Andrewjohn. It will start at 10 and end at 1, after which there will be a light lunch. After lunch there will be a guided walk of the 200-acre garden and parkland led by Eleni; with luck, some of Borde Hill’s superb collection of magnolias will be in flower.
Tickets for the course cost £20 (£30 for non members) to include lunch and entrance to the garden. Borde Hill is just a few minutes’ taxi ride from Haywards Heath railway station so is easily accessible from London. For more details of how to find it, visit www.bordehill.co.uk.
Places are strictly limited so to book your spot, please email gmggardenvisits@gmail.com
Digital Content: Making the Most of Search and Social Platforms
10:00-11:15am
Understanding Search Engines
• A brief history of search – the evolution of algorithms
• Search engine results real estate/layout
The 4 Pillars of Website Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Technical checks
• Optimising keyword content
• Popularity checks
• Usability checks (analytics)
Tracking Success - Benchmarking Tools
11:15-11:30am (tea break)
11:30-1.00pm
Creating Your SEO Strategy
• Content planning / keyword selection
• Writing for search
• Avoiding search engine penalisation
• Link building
The Value of Social Media
• Traffic
• PR /links
• Staying on topic/utilising hashtags
• Paid social campaign results