OnlineXcellence with Rand Fishkin at Central College

An intensive training course to help Scottish businesses win a bigger slice of the £4 billion UK consumers spend online every month was launched today (Friday 12) at Central College Glasgow during a seminar delivered by one of the world’s leading search engine optimisation gurus.

Under the new OnlineXcellence programme, around a dozen Scottish businesses will be put through an internet boot camp to transform the performance of their websites and drive in more business.

The OnlineXcellence programme was unveiled today at a seminar delivered by Rand Fishkin, of seomoz.org one of the most respected SEO experts in the world.

BusinessWeek named Fishkin as one of the 30 Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs Under 30, and the ecommerce website invesp voted him one of the top ten most influential marketers of 2009.

Secretary of State for Scotland Jim Murphy, who was unable to attend today’s launch, said: “I support the OnlineXcellence initiative and I’m convinced that bringing the globally renowned expertise of Rand Fishkin to Scotland will be a terrific boost for internet marketing here.

“Today may mark a milestone on the journey for businesses who are still not exploiting the internet’s full potential. I believe that Scottish businesses can achieve significant growth through greater web based sales. There are vast markets to reach out to, not just in the UK, but worldwide too.

“Scotland must use its full skills set. Our businesses must maximize their web marketing potential alongside more conventional marketing techniques. Today’s event is a big step to realising that goal.”

Fishkin said today: “I'm immensely excited to be a part of the OnlineXcellence Programme. As the Internet and e-commerce continue to drive global economic growth, I believe that the investment Scotland makes in the ecosystem of entrepreneurship and technology will yield remarkable results.

“Scottish businesses have tremendous online marketing opportunities ahead of them and it's my honour and privilege to contribute to this endeavour.”

Over the coming year, a group of Scottish companies will be given a series of detailed workshops to optimise the performance of their websites. The OnlineXcellence course is being delivered at Central College Glasgow by Scottish SEO experts Brian Mathers of ICTAdvisor.com and Adrian Bereziuk of SMART Partnerships.

Mathers, Director of ICTAdvisor.com, said: “Four billion pounds is spent online in the UK every month and we want to ensure that Scottish businesses are optimising their websites to win a bigger slice of this.

“Through the OnlineXcellence programme, we will be giving Scottish companies the knowledge, tools and training they need to win more of this lucrative business. In doing this, we will help grow our own economy, create more jobs and provide Scottish workers with vitally important new skills that will make them highly employable.

“As part of this course, we will be giving the business community impartial advice using the best practice available to help them avoid making expensive mistakes when they do business online.”

The workshops will cover topics such as:

• assessing how viable it is to launch an e-commerce strategy
• auditing existing websites and those of competitors
• how to properly brief a web developer to ensure the website functions properly from day one
• training an in-house company champion to manage day-to-day online marketing, content management and analysing data
• assessing how an online strategy will effect other parts of the business such as existing databases.

Roy Gardner, Head of Marketing, Business and International Partnerships at Central College, said: “There are some genuinely exciting opportunities for Scottish businesses to grow through e-commerce and the new OnlineXcellence course at Central College will help them to succeed.

“E-commerce will form a bigger part of the global economy in coming years and I am delighted that we are able to assist Scottish companies to take full advantage of these new business opportunities.”

Find out more about the OnlineXcellence programme