Digital Marketing Course

ruaille buaille

Hi Im looking to learn more about digital marketing - eg. SEO, blogging, social media, Google adwords & analytics etc. I've been looking at courses run by the irish times (diploma in digital marketing) however the cost is 1,495 for an 8 week course :eek: Just wondering if anyone has done this course and would say its worth it or if anyone would have any suggestions for me.

Thank you!

Draper666

Hey man
If I was you I would get the training DVDs/books/eBooks for adwords,SEO,Web development, wordpress etc. Spend 8 weeks by yourself learning these. You can get good ones from lynda.com they cost but i was told there is a bay of pirates somewhere that you can get free stuff but I don't know about it really. After 8 weeks of 5 hours a day learning this stuff you will know a good bit. Also its a web based thing so google will be a good friend. Best thing to do after this is buy a domain and try get traffic etc and iron out your skills. Then I would go ahead and try for adwords and analytics certification from Google. A diploma in digital marketing cannot really stand to up against an unemployed comp science degree holder or master of digital media and we have alot of them.

Good luck !

degsie

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ruaille buaille

Great advice Draper 666 thanks!

bdo

ruaille buaille wrote: »

Hi Im looking to learn more about digital marketing - eg. SEO, blogging, social media, Google adwords & analytics etc. I've been looking at courses run by the irish times (diploma in digital marketing) however the cost is 1,495 for an 8 week course :eek: Just wondering if anyone has done this course and would say its worth it or if anyone would have any suggestions for me.

Thank you!

You will learn more by just doing it for 10 weeks than doing a course. Get a friend with a small business to allow you to work on social media/digital marketing tactics for their business for free for a while ... or a small charity ... or an internship ... and you'll work out soon what you'll need to fill in your knowledge gaps on.

ruaille buaille

Thanks so much for all the great advice! The more I think about it, Im sure that the Irish Times course is just a money making racket !

Draper666

Thanks!
I have been doing this for a little while. I am actually gonna go ahead and do a Post Grad diploma in digital marketing but this is mostly because I want to iron it out, make contacts and look good to employers etc.

Money making racket it may be but people often don't know where to start in these things and they can be good for small business owners etc. If you do ever decide to do a course make sure you are the top student and make the most of it

PaulPinnacle

Have to agree with Draper666 on both posts.

There are very good reasons to do a course like the one mentioned. If you're seeking employment in the area, some employers (a stance I personally disagree with, but that's a different matter) highly value a formal qualification. For others, it could be a case of they're simply not comfortable or confident with self paced and non curriculum based learning, they're looking to build contacts in the area (if so, do be sure to engage with both the lecturers/staff and the other students via social media - few actually do) or a variety of other personal reasons.

If you are willing to do the leg work on the learning yourself, this is obviously a big money saver. You'll also be able to get a far more detailed understanding of the various areas (the 3 hour courses are a great overview, but it's only possible to scratch the surface of many areas and further self learning would/will/must always be required to round off knowledge gained on a course like this).

Draper666

Very true Paul. Also like to point out there are many ways to shoot yourself in the foot with SEO and Digital marketing. Google blacklisting to wild overspends on Adwords a formal course will help you learn best practices and current trends

deisedude

ruaille buaille wrote: »

Hi Im looking to learn more about digital marketing - eg. SEO, blogging, social media, Google adwords & analytics etc. I've been looking at courses run by the irish times (diploma in digital marketing) however the cost is 1,495 for an 8 week course :eek: Just wondering if anyone has done this course and would say its worth it or if anyone would have any suggestions for me.

Thank you!

Just finished their 13 week course in Galway. Some fantastic speakers and some dodgy ones. Overall i felt it was a good investment but feel free to Pm me for any questions

bacon?

Why not train online, a lot cheaper.

Free training, I'd recommend, http://challenge.co/

This was the first IM training I did, back in 2010, learned a lot, and there's a large active community, it's all free, but expect to sold some tools, they're usually quality anyway.

Paid, I've heard very good things about, http://www.wealthyaffiliate.com/

Good luck

RobGJ

Like others have pointed out there is no substitute for just doing it and teaching yourself. There is a myriad of very useful online resources and following on from what Draper666 said, if you're going to go it alone read up on the key things not to do for SEO, otherwise you could be hamstrung from the get go.. Best of luck with it.

starlit

Was the course an online or day course op? Iv looked into similar courses. I be in favour of classroom/night course with work placement but dont know if it suits. Springboard have digital marketing courses. Is digital marketing worth pursuing?

There is a lot to be said for self learning but depends what you want from it.

What background you coming from if you have marketing done it be good to add to it but all depends. Is it flash in the pan jobs in that area as traditional marketing isnt enough to get jobs in that area.

dgerryd

Do not pay for any marketing course online because its all bull.... there is no course that can cover a wide variety of online strategies of whatever they say they can, you would be better off researching it for yourself by pinning down exactly what you want to learn. Believe me anyone that knows anything about anything online did not learn it from any course they did they learned by either realising to stop buying courses and start doing or to teach yourself. Here are some free AAA learning sites.
http://www.selfmadescholar.com/
http://www.w3schools.com/
http://www.codeschool.com/
https://www.udacity.com/
There are many many more but these will teach you far more than any paid course, the real secret to online learning is doing hope this helps.

Gaolcon

Some great advice here but
Surely there are one or two day courses available in Dublin?.
At a more affordable price !

ruaille buaille

There's not really a lot of day courses available. Unless u want to go back to college full time. I wouldn't mind doing a year long course to learn these skills and maybe webdesign aswell but I cant really find any. I'm just starting to learn these things on my own now. Got some books off amazon, the ones that were recommended above. It's hard to keep motivated, I'd prefer to have someone to teach me but I couldnt afford any of the courses that are around.

Gaolcon

Found this course looks good
[url]Http://wordpresscourses.ie[/url]
They have a one day course in digital marketing for Wordpress
Might check this out

dgerryd

Hey Ruaille.
I would be willing to teach you what I know and have picked up. I do all my own Seo/linkbuilding wordpress web design youtube video marketing. I'm no spring chicken or claim to know it all but you would learn much quicker than I have. Straight up what's in it for me, if your interested and if you are willing to type articles on certain products for me nothing major then just let me know.

JJ10

Try looking for an internship with an agency. You will learn loads. try looking at doing two different sets of 6 months in different agencies as it will allow you to be exposed to more ideas, thoughts and processes. Courses cost a hell of a lot of money and will not allow you to learn as much as the experience. Any objections to doing an internship?

RedFly

I'm cross posting this from another similar thread as I believe it's important. Mods, please remove if I've broken the rules:

As someone who employs "SEOs" I can tell you that an IT degree wouldn't even register much when looking at a CV (and I receive about 10 a week). What I'm looking for in a CV is below.

First of all, SEO in it's current form is dying. Many will disagree with me, but I've been in the business a LONG time and I know what I'm talking about.

The ideal candidate for a digital marketing role in my opinion is someone who has some sort of journalistic skills.

In order of preference and all if possible:

1) Ability to write, creatively and technically. This can be learned online but an official qualification and experience would be best. This doesn't need to be national newspaper experience, but a blog will do. Having your own blog and learning how to write content that generates interest is a great start. If you've supplemented your blog with advertising and optimized that, even better. Researching industry trends (whatever your site/blog is about), writing about them and having the wherewithal to add video and images where necessary to illustrate your theories is essential.

Reading and understanding this piece of research is absolute key: http://moz.com/blog/what-kind-of-con...-links-in-2012
Print it out and read it 100 times. It's what makes or breaks businesses.

2) Google analytical skills. If you've got your own website (hobby, blog or even ecommerce), the ability to use and understand Google Analytics (not just as a hit counter!) is a huge plus. If you can tell me how you would implement advanced segments and custom variables (and the use cases for each), you're practically hired. If you can make decisions based on MFC reports and build your own attribution models based on a particular business, I'll hire you today. Regardless of the skills below. If you don't know what content experiments are in GA, don't bother applying. Get the GAIQ certification (it's super simple, but shows you know the basics). There's a Lynda.com course on Google Analytics, it's not great but it will give you the basics at least. Nothing beats playing around with live data though. I actually own some pretty large Irish sites, so I'll usually give candidates or new hires restricted access to many profile for those sites so they can play around with live data and get a feel for what it's working with large data sets in GA.

3) MS product skills. Excel skills especially Pivot tables and basic graphing really.

4) An interest in search. Knowing who the players are and knowing Google's ever changing search quality guidelines. If you've read and understood any of the leaked quality rater documents, you're got a HUGE advantage.

5) Advanced knowledge of Google Webmaster Tools. Many of you know what this is. If you don't, you should. It's an essential part of any digital marketers daily routine.

6) Intermediate/Advanced knowledge of Google AdWords. This especially includes the MASSIVE list of AdWords policies. This PDf is a good start: http://goo.gl/9dvnkZ
AdWords Certified Professional status is an absolute MUST. We don't hire anyone without it. The exam is far too easy as it is and we're trying to influence that but it's a struggle. Also, if you don't know what AdWords editor is, don't bother reading any further.

In depth knowledge of all these policies is also a huge advantage, although most are common sense: https://support.google.com/adwordspo.../1316548?hl=en

7) Basic HTML, PHP, Javascript, JSON (webservices in general) is an advantage, but nothing that can't be taught on the job if you fall into one of the above categories.

8) The digital marketing institute runs some great courses and I've sent some staff there but because of the nature of digital advertising, the info gets stale pretty quick. A bootcamp should get someone up to speed and would make them stand out in the hiring process.

9) Someone that's not afraid to speak or be on camera. This is going to be huge going forward. Basic video editing skills and familiarity with Vimeo and Youtube is advantageous. The ideal candidate must be comfortable being the face of the company if required.


10) Node.js, JQuery, Bootstrap all huge benefits. Basic photoshop skills and basic PR skills are the icing on the cake.

11) I answered this question because the OP is a Java developer. You have NO IDEA how much in demand you are right now. If you can work with the Google API java client libraries, (https://code.google.com/p/google-api-java-client/), especially the new analytics real time API libraries, use eclipse or android studio and know how to use these in (basic) android applications , especially in conjunction with the technologies I outlined above, you're in REALLY GOOD SHAPE.

12) Project management skills. Basic. Not basecamp simple, but MS project or similar skills. Not essential though.

13) An active presence in the search community. Blog, forum posts, G+

14) A mastery of G+, knowing what author rank is and being able to show a screenshot of your author stats (where to find them and how to display them).

15) A knowledge or what real time bidding networks are. If you have experience using them in a previous role as an ad buyer, even better.

16) Community management skills.


I'd avoid SEO training courses like the plague. Not saying they're useless, but I am saying that most of what they teach is irrelevant by the time it gets published.
The SEOmoz training DVDs were FANTASTIC (you can borrow them if you want) but they're a little dated. I'd start here: http://moz.com/learn/seo

Then, if you're interested in more, I'd HIGHLY RECOMMEND the Distilled University course: http://www.distilled.net/u/

Anyone with all the above skills I mentioned, even 50% of them should actually reach out to me. I know it's a lot to ask, but I believe that if you want what you're looking for in your OP, as someone who'd been doing this a long time, that's where I'd focus.

Finally, we'll be taking on two interns between November and January (Paid), so if you fit the bill, let me know. Mods, I know this isn't a recruitment section so please feel free to remove this.

Nora115

deisedude wrote: »

Just finished their 13 week course in Galway. Some fantastic speakers and some dodgy ones. Overall i felt it was a good investment but feel free to Pm me for any questions

hi Deisedude, I'm thinking of doing this course in Dublin. Would you say is good for small business people? I have been asked to help a couple of shops on their social media/web promotions (plus doing a bit of web updates/ admin) and thought this was quite complete.

deisedude

Nora115 wrote: »

hi Deisedude, I'm thinking of doing this course in Dublin. Would you say is good for small business people? I have been asked to help a couple of shops on their social media/web promotions (plus doing a bit of web updates/ admin) and thought this was quite complete.

Ya, its a good course for someone with a very basic grasp of digital marketing and will give a quick overview on everything. Make sure to look at what the modules are first to see if they meet your needs.

fortjames

I am doing one in st. Johns college cork, going very slow hope to get there. Anyone in Cork would like to meet up for coffee as i really want to get into the real world of digital marketing. I am learning a lot from flippa.com though

dgerryd

Just said I would post this here if anyone wanted to learn Seo or website architecture best practices an Seo firm named Distilled is having an open free day to all their training course material I have been going through it all day it's better than any other material I seen so it's worth going through free today https://www.distilled.net/resources/

RedFly

dgerryd wrote: »

Just said I would post this here if anyone wanted to learn Seo or website architecture best practices an Seo firm named Distilled is having an open free day to all their training course material I have been going through it all day it's better than any other material I seen so it's worth going through free today https://www.distilled.net/resources/

Nice find Gerry.
I second that. Distilled really know their stuff and would encourage anyone interested in search, especially the advanced stuff, to give them your consideration.

dgerryd

I'm stunned at what's in the course that I thought I was up to par on :eek: Learning I still have a lot to be learning Lol onwards.

!Jules!

Hi, if you are looking into comparing a couple of the courses, I have put together a big sheet of all courses in Dublin comparing prices etc. It is published on my blog which is called "The Aspiring Digital Marketer" (just google). Hope you find it helpful.

GBrownie

I prefer Udemy, have the lot of good and effective material on there, paid and free. If you are the beginner then you should make mentor online like Nail Patel, Brain Dean, Brain Clark, Belle Beth Cooper, Matt Cuts, Rand Fishkin and so on. Learn from then, they give the update to the world and help to learn about Digital Marketing.

GBrownie

I prefer Udemy, have the lot of good and effective material on there, paid and free. If you are the beginner then you should make mentor online like Nail Patel, Brain Dean, Brain Clark, Belle Beth Cooper, Matt Cuts, Rand Fishkin and so on. Learn from them, they give the update to the world and help to learn about Digital Marketing.

uck51js9zml2yt

The digital print and packaging skillnet run an 8 day course with assignments to give you a diploma in digital marketing.
Great course.