Two and a half years ago, I taught the pilot course for Google's AdWords in the Curriculum program. The idea behind the course was that Google would pair university courses on AdWords with non-profit recipients of Google Grants. The Google Grants program provides qualifying non-profits with up to $10,000 in monthly AdWords advertising shown on Google's search engine results pages. The non-profit was to provide a training ground for students, and students were to provide lacking manpower to the non-profit, transferring the knowledge they had gained back at the end of the course.

From the university's perspective, we saw the chance to provide our students a unique hands-on experience to understand the web business ecosystem from visitor acquisition through to conversion. Once we had a program established, our students would walk out not just having heard concepts but having a real working knowledge of how those concepts could be put into action because they had actually done it in class working with real organizations.

Fast forward to present day. Each semester, under the heading of the AdWords in the Curriculum rubric, we're teaching two sections of a course on search engine advertising and one section of a course on landing page optimization. All sections are full. This summer, we're inaugurating a search marketing practicum. It's worthwhile to lay out the outline of the main concepts conveyed in each course.

Search Advertising (with Google AdWords)

• All material is delivered in the context of working with clients who have $10,000 monthly search advertising budgets.
• Discovering search-based segments for your business.
• Developing effective appeals for those segments.
• Harnessing visitors' revealed intent in developing effective landing pages.
• Developing candidate landing pages using web-standard html and css.

Landing Page Optimization (with Google Analytics and Website Optimizer)

• All material is delivered in the context of search marketing campaigns that deliver between 4,000 and 12,000 visitors per month to the clients' websites. These campaigns have been previously developed by other students.
• Articulating visitors' revealed intent relative to organizational goals and objectives.
• Analyzing the extent to which visitors are achieving their objectives on the current landing pages and conversion funnel.
• Development and testing of hypotheses in the form of landing pages for improving visitor experience and increasing conversion.
• Articulation of final recommendations and implementation.

Search Marketing Practicum

• Hand-picked, strong performing students work with search marketing clients who have been with the program through at least one course.
• Students manage the clients one-on-one to gain transaction credit that can be used toward professional certification.
• Review and recalibration of search marketing campaigns based on performance to date and changed client expectations.
• Introduction of Google Analytics and integration into search marketing planning where possible.
• Development of online profiles and online and offline networking strategies for reputation development.