The Internet

October 19th, 2009

We connect with the internet on a daily basis. Most people however have only a surface knowledge of how it works and how content is produced, transmitted, and delivered. Here we will look into many key areas of the internet.

Outline

1. The History of the Internet
2. On the technical side
3. Then and now (The Internet 2.0)
4. Google
5. Internet Cash flow
6. Looking to the future

Web Marketing Assignment

In order to begin marketing Courticesecondary.ca and to learn about various web marketing techniques students will need to complete the following tasks.

Part A – Quality Content

Each student is to prepare 2 blog posts that can be used on the main CSS website. The posts can be on any topic that could be relevant to students, teachers, parents, or generally interesting information (appropriate to appear on the school website). It could be a news item, an informative post, educational, or an opinion post. The trick will be to create something that students would genuinely be interested in.

Part B – Link Building

This is everyone’s responsibility. Students will search out related sites and find ways to get those sites to add a link to www.courticesecondary.ca. Students are not to spam request any sites rather should focus on convincing them of the value it will provide their visitors. Each student will be rewarded for each link that they can prove returns our site. You will also be required to document what techniques you have tried and which you were successful with. More will be discussed on this in class.

Part C – Choose your medium

In this section students will need to choose 2 of the following methods to market our site. You will need to come up with a plan, have it approved by the teacher (me), and document your progress along the way.

Posters – Prepare an exciting poster to be displayed in our school as well as around other schools, should have a specific them and/or message. Come up with a concept and preliminary design then have it approved by me before proceeding. Generate a quote for the price of printing these posters. You will also need to coordinate the production and distribution of the posters.

T-Shirts – Prepare an exciting T-shirt promoting the school website. The T-shirt design should have a specific them and/or message. Begin by coming up with a concept and preliminary design then have it approved by me before proceeding. Generate a quote for the price of printing these shirts. You  will also need to  need to coordinate the production and distribution of the Shirts.

Announcments – Prepare engaging and exciting announcements for the entire duration of our campaign. The announcements should be more then just someone reading a paragraph about the site. Ideally students will each come up with one amazing announcement and support the rest of the days with updates as to whats going on with the rest of the site.

Press Release – Prepare a press release and coordinate its distribution to many major news outlets. (Local papers, larger new outlets, online new sites). Begin by determining what exactly a press release entails and what information you want to release about the site. Come up with a draft outline then have me review it before writing the press release.

Word of Mouth – Someone in charge of a word of mouth campaign needs to coordinate what information is being released and how the word about the site is being spread throughout the school and community. Students should find out what information they plan on sharing each day with students around the school. Students will need to track their progress and the people they talk to with a daily log recording the number of people they talk to each day, what information was shared, and what some responses from students were.

Student Councill Updates – Coordinate what student council representatives will share with the rest of the school about the site. Prepare messages and coordinate the delivery of the messages. Determine what information you will need to prepare a message for student council updates, remember that student council updates are once a week so your message will need to have enough information to cover the whole week.

Contests – Coordinate a contest to get users registered with the site (every registration gets entered in a contest for a prize). Determine Ideas for prizes and propose ways to actually get them (free is preferred). The main focus of your contest should be based around getting people registered on the site and getting them actively involved in posting comments and engaging in discussions.

Site Reviews – Get our site reviewed by multiple site review organizations. This will help with link building and hopefully creating some positive buzz for the site. Begin by producing a list of as many reputable sites you can find. Then figure out what the requirements are to get our site listed. Most sites will typically need a description, keywords, a contact email. We will create an email account specifically for this purpose. Track what sites you have submitted to and coordinate with other students on the same task so that you don’t double up on the same sites as this can be unfavorable for reviews. Record your progress and track which sites review ours and note review content and comments.

Link Exchange – Contact other website owners that have site related to Courtice Secondary School. Propose running a link exchange program with them to help promote their site.  Come up with an appropriate email message and or comments you can place on a blog. Track what sites you have submitted to and coordinate with other students on the same task so that you don’t double up on the same sites as this can produce unfavorable results. Record your progress and track which sites give links and ensure that they are posted on our site. The best results will come from sites that are related to the Courtice Secondary School site or those that cater to the same market.

Search Engine Optimization Coordination (SEO) - Work with Mr. Vaughan to optimize this site for targeted keywords and search engines. Begin by researching what SEO is and what techniques can be used to get the site optimized for Google and other search engines.  Prepare a list of recommendations and steps that should be taken to optimize the site. Also come up with a suggested list of keywords in which to target in Google. Coordinate with Mr. Vaughan the implementation of your recommendations. Consider yourself outside consultant.

Email release – Produce an email release to be distributed to other teachers in feeder schools, students, parents, and community members and coordinate its distribution. Graphical emails are permitted and encouraged.

YouTube Video Commercial – Produce and market a YouTube Video Advertising the site, multiple students can produce multiple videos, and we can publish an entire channel.

Twitter – Coordinate the launch of a courtice secdondary school twitter profile. Prepare a months worth of twitter posts in advanced (or daily). Get updates from all over the school. See Mr. Vaugan for more info.

Facebook – Coordinate the awareness of our site among the Facebook community. Record your progress and track all areas where you mention the CSS site on Facebook

Stunt Coordinator – Plan and execute a marketing stunt to advertise the web page. Planning is the key to success. Come up with an idea and proposal for the stunt. What will you need? How will you get the word out? How will you judge success.

Volunteer Recruitment – Coordinate the recruitment of volunteers to help with a Web Site Production team to carry out the site development and production after our campaign is over.