You’ve spent tons of hours creating a dope and value-packed online course. Great job! Have you even created an aesthetically and visually appealing website for it? Awesome!
However, things only end there if no one sees your website. Don’t doubt this: thousands of new courses are uploaded monthly, while almost 252,000 websites are created daily.
And that means your course can easily get lost amidst the pool of several thousand e-learning materials out there.
To help you scale this hurdle, we have compiled a simple-to-follow guide on building your website for SEO below.
1. Design For Mobile Users
According to Outerboxdesign, 79% of mobile phone users have completed online transactions using their smartphones in the past six months.
Moreover, this percentage will continue to increase over time as more people adopt the mobile purchase approach.
To back this up, Google’s algorithm in 2015 made sure that websites with mobile versions or 100% responsiveness are given a ranking advantage over websites without mobile versions.
So, mobile responsiveness should be your priority if you want to build an SEO-friendly website or you can alternatively look for online course platforms that are already mobile-friendly to remove responsive design hassle. The benefits of an online course platform are that both students and teachers can track the students’ progress through the course material, and everything is neatly organized in one place. Also, students may also have an option of interacting with each other on the platform.
When designing for mobile responsiveness, keep these tips in mind:
- Mobile content must be visible without zooming.
- Responsiveness software for mobile devices like a flash can’t be used.
- There must be considerable space between the two links.
- Site content must fit the mobile screen regardless of the device type.
Doing these will ensure your website is easily crawled by search engines and indexed for visibility.
2. Make Use Of Visual Appealing Elements
Oh great! What does aesthetics have to do with SEO?
Well, probably a lot! Take a peek at this scenario:
Suppose a lady puts on make-up, ties her hair into a bun, and dresses in a colorful yet elegant manner with some fashionista accessories. In that case, she will likely garner more attention than another lady in a black and white dress with zero accessories.
When potential leads visit your already-launched website, their greatest point of interest is how your landing page looks.
Is it dull or modern? Monochromatic and unappealing? Empty without aesthetic elements or icons?
Visitors’ first impression of your website determines if they stay or leave. Note that a continuous quick exit of your website by potential leads will automatically result in a low dwell time and high bounce rate.
Moreover, dwell time and bounce rate are both vital metrics used by search engines and Google to determine your ranking.
That is why you must prioritize your website’s aesthetic design as much as you invest in other SEO technicalities.
Scalable icons, quality images, relatable visuals, and colors should be used when developing your web pages.
3. Introduce Targeted Keywords
Sections such as your website title, meta tags, URL, and others should contain keywords related to your course and website as a whole.
Inserting primary keywords in your domain name is equally essential.
Take Copywritingcourse.com as an example:
If an internet user searches for a “copywriting course,” Google is more likely to pop this website up because its domain contains the two relevant keywords.
Interestingly, copywritingcourse.com currently ranks second after Udemy on Google for the same keyword.
Your keywords should be directly related to the topic idea you choose. A good rule of thumb is to find out relevant keywords that can be included in your domain name when checking for online course ideas. Note that your preferred domain name might be unavailable. Just play around with your topic ideas and keywords until something suitable is formed.
4. Get Your Content Marketing Strategy Right
Building your online course website for SEO is not only about coding or the pre-launch processes alone. You need the content too.
Check this out:
- Jake published a course on his website. Asides from the course title and purchase link, there is nothing else on the page.
- Amy Jordan placed a jungle book on her website. She added landing page content, check-out instructions, informative blog posts, and email follow-up for potential buyers.
There’s no need for much fanfare. Amy Jordan will generate more organic leads and convert leads faster than Jakes.
The reason is simple – Google and other search engines crawled Amy’s website and found valuable content there. As a reward, her website is ranked higher and made visible to more people.
On the other hand, Jake has no informative content. And that’s not good feedback for search engines. So, Jake’s website is kicked down.
To avoid getting the same results as Jake, you should utilize content like blog posts, e-books, white papers, and social media.
Of course, you don’t need to do it all at once. But using one or two of these listed examples will greatly improve your website’s SEO.
Topping the list, blog posts are crucial to scaling your SEO game. Fill your website with articles related to the course created. Give instructional how-to’s and educate visitors.
Content marketing is crucial for any business to get online visibility. In fact, it’s crucial for you to systematize your content marketing and use your course website for SEO purposes as well.
So, make sure you create a content plan for your online course website that sticks to a schedule and focuses on the keywords related to the courses you offer. This will help optimize your overall organic search rankings.
In order to scale your content production further, you can make use of tools like Notion. It helps you track and plan content, making it easier to publish on a regular basis. You can consider using some project management templates to help you get started.
5. Build Quality Links To Your Website
Once your website is launched, you need to establish its authority. And the best way to do that is by building links. In a simple illustration: more links = more authority = quality SEO.
If a credible and topic-related website links to your site, Google will take it as a sign of relevance and automatically use it to improve your ranking.
And, of course, you can decide to hire a link-building expert or paddle the boat yourself by following these steps:
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Insert Your Site’s Link On Social Media Bio
Create social media accounts for your online course. Then include your website link in the bio section.
Search engines will trace this link, especially if it has reasonable clickthroughs.
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Use Quora And Reddit
Social platforms like Quora and Reddit receive tons of questions for users to answer daily.
Create an account there, find questions related to your course, and answer them while leaving a link to your online course website.
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Guest Posting
Guest posting means writing content for another website. Search for websites with strong domain authority and topic relevance.
Pitch them to see if they allow guest posting. Anytime you guest post, ensure your link is seamlessly included in the content written.
Conclusion
SEO is getting easier, and you can take advantage of it to boost the sales of your online course(s). Ensure your website design is visually appealing and mobile-friendly.
Use targeted keywords in your domain name and start building links to establish authority. Employ content marketing to boost your website’s SEO and see how the sales of your course roll in effortlessly.