Web Marketing and Design Syllabus

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Recommended Reading

Overview
This course was designed to help you design a web site that works for both you and your viewer. By beginning your web development process with an understanding of what makes a web site work, how to bring traffic to your site, and how to make the site attractive and usable for your viewer, you will spend a lot less time spinning your wheels with an unproductive site.

Suggested text: Web Design by Shelly Cashman Kosteba. Published by Thomson Course Technology; ISBN: 0-619-25486-6. This book may seem expensive for its size, but in my opinion, it's well worth the price.

Note: the following schedule roughly corresponds to our class sessions. However, based on class discussion and questions, this schedule should be considered flexible.

Lesson	Class Description
1	Introduction & What's it going to cost?     Why we have this class     Web Development Checklist   Main Topics       How web sites are delivered to viewers       Web hosting services       Domain names       People to pay throughout the life cycle of your web site       Plan for Success Topic: What is your web site model? Web references    - Register.com    - Network Solutions    - GoDaddy.com    - What is a Web Host?    - ModWest Course Text references   pg. 1 - 7, 26 - 28, 203 - 208
2	Overall design features of a web site      Goals Exercise    A Useable Web Site   Discussion: What makes a web site not work? What frustrates you about web sites?      - Bigfork Summer Playhouse      - Local Missoula      - Roll On Trucks - do line drawings work?      - Yankee Trader Online - what is this?      - What is this site??      - Where is this place??      - Are there any humans?      - Where are the humans?       Plan for Success Topic: High Level Web Development Tasks Course Text references   pg. 39 - 71
3	Web site Promotion      Target market exercise    - Marketing your marketing???    - Search engines and making your site search engine friendly    - Pay-per-clicks: Ways to mess up your pay-per-click strategy    - Industry related sites    - Newsletters    - Analytics       Plan for Success Topic: Working with a Web Developer Web references:    - The near future of Google    - WebProWorld - a forum where you can ask your questions    - Search Engine Watch    - Google Analytics    - Overture - pay-per-click    - Yahoo - check out the tools (type site:yourURL)    - MailerMailer - a site to help you manage a newsletter list and send emailed newsletters.    - Site Map 1, Site Map 2    - Food Labels - "one-man" shop - simple site development    - A site that changed it's search engine status Course Text references   pg. 212 - 218
4	The Techie Side      Plan Incrementally      Organization exercise - get together in groups of two or three and suggest a new organization for this site      Find the tables exercise    - Development tools    - File Structure - http://www.wsfpi.com/    - Page Structures: Frames, Tables and CSS      Example of a Framed site      Example of a Template system      Example of a site built completely with CSS    - Record Keeping Web references:   Adobe - just bought out Macromedia   Microsoft (FrontPage) - Microsoft isn't user friendly when it comes to showing prices. If you are looking for another product, you have to find the tiny link that says, "Buy ... " somewhere on the product description page. Course Text references   pg. 23 - 25, 73 - 103
5	Graphics and Programming Understanding colors for the web Understanding graphic formats for the web Image maps To Flash or not to Flash Technical support and documentation Types of programming Forms and database Web Site Security Web references:   Flash - Photo Gallery - what is appropriate for your market?   Image map with JavaScript and server-side programming   Form Security   Web Software Experiences Course Text references   pg. 139 - 198
6	HTML and Design your Site Layout Why you should learn code! What's wrong with this code? HTML exercise Using a text editor and a browser to create a web page Draw out your front page Course Text references   pg. 23 - 25