New course at Ohio State teaches search engine marketing
Laura Thieme, president of search engine marketing company Bizresearch, is teaching a course at Ohio State on Electronic Marketing, hoping to alleviate the shortage of workers with knowledge of such subjects as paid and organic search, search engine optimization and web site analytics.
“I have a shortage of staff, and I don’t know of any search engine agency that isn’t struggling with it,” says Thieme, whose company is based in Columbus, home of Ohio State University, her alma mater. Thieme proposed the course to Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business and the first group of two dozen students began classes last month.
At the beginning, Thieme says, few of the students understood the distinction between paid and organic search, or other intricacies of online search technology. She says several knew they wanted to live in Boston or in a warmer climate, and all were interested in marketing. She says the students initially were much more interested in organic search than in paid search. “The reason is they ignore paid ads,” Thieme says.
Thieme says she is introducing the students to such web site terminology as page title and meta-tag, and teaching them to use such technology as the site analytic tools from Web Tracker and search engine optimization tool WebPosition Gold. “They have to be good at getting rankings,” Thieme says. “That’s why they have to understand the jargon to be able to interact with programmers and web site designers.”
Thieme says four companies have already expressed interest in discussing job openings with her students, including some major retail brands. She says “every single retailer I know” is looking for employees with search engine marketing expertise.
Back...
