UHI is offering a free place worth £500 on a new e-marketing course that will help business people to develop and use their websites in the most effective way.

The place will go to the applicant who puts forward the strongest reason why the course will help their organisation.

Creating a website is one of the first priorities for many new businesses. But once it is up and running, does it meet customer needs and attract sales? Many business people lack the skills to know.

UHI is addressing this professional need with the e-marketing course, starting in April, and the more advanced web value optimisation programme, the only one of its kind in Europe, due to launch in September. This is designed to help business people to measure their site traffic and target customer groups.

Inverness-based web analytics expert Vicky Brock has been contracted for both courses. She explained: “There is an increasing need for businesses to understand how effectively their websites are working, and how visitors behave, to ensure they are getting the best return from their investment.

“In a High Street store, it would be easy to spot if customers were not coming in, or were wandering around lost. Online, you can’t see how your customers behave. You could be wasting your website investment and losing valuable custom.”

The e-marketing course involves practical training for people in the private and charity sector and will be conducted online over 15 weeks. Participants will use and develop their own sites as they learn. They will also have a course blog to communicate with each other and share experiences.

Miss Brock, director of Highland Business Research, said: “Anyone with a business website, or planning to create one, will benefit from this very hands-on course. The goal is to ensure their websites are promoting and generating business.”

The international co-chair for the Web Analytics Association, Miss Brock is also an associate instructor for web analytics at the University of British Columbia in Canada where she helped to develop the first course of its kind in the world.

Her expertise has provided web analysis, strategy advice, training and internet-based research for clients such as HP.com, MSN, Yamaha, the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and the UK government.

Miss Brock will choose the winner of the free place on the e-marketing course along with UHI business dean Kerry Godfrey, and continued professional development manager Euan Black. Applicants should submit a pitch of no more than 300 words.

For further information on the courses, contact cpd@uhi.ac.uk