How to Utilize Link Building to Increase Traffic to Your Site
In this post I'll be able to show you how you can make use of a well-known SEO technique to improve the search engine ranking of your website for courses. It's called linking, and when done properly, it can assist in creating a wave of prospective customers who will visit your online courses.
The significance of building links in SEO
You've completed some research and you're aware of what keywords you want your course to be ranked for. Perhaps you've even composed articles on the top keywords. However, you're struggling with getting your site to appear on search results. Why doesn't it rank?
This could mean links
Links are one of the primary ranking factors taken into account by Google and other search engines. The importance of links isn't solely the amount of hyperlinks that is important however, it is also the quality of those links and whether they're 'followed' (the website instructs Google to take the hyperlink into account for ranking purposes).
Unfortunately, Google does not specify how valuable a link from any website is as well as how many of them your site is able to get. So how can you effectively benefit from this ranking factor when Google gives you only a few details about it or what it means for each website? There are a number of websites that can help you out. My personal favourite one is Moz is a program that integrates a variety of SEO tools in one.
In terms of link-building, and also those unknowns that I mentioned earlier One among the aspects Moz performs is scanning the web for any hyperlinks that point to your website (or your competitors' sites). It then uses this information together with algorithms and a few other factors in order to assign a Domain Authority value for each site (this is a Moz metric that is not a officially recognized Google one).
If you examine your site's Domain Authority, you can start to build a picture of the value your website is in relation to its quality and the number of hyperlinks you've got. Because we aren't sure of how the Google algorithm actually is working, it's impossible to know how close the values given by Moz are to the truth. However, Moz is still a useful guide nonetheless.
The reason you should offer a portion of your course to the public for free
Links are incredibly important in determining the position of your website. How do you convince others to add links to your site?
People will also link to you when they feel your website is worth visiting. If you offer a useful piece of content for free, then you increase the likelihood that other people will find your website interesting, thus improving the likelihood that other sites will link to you.
If you're a course supplier, then you're placed in an exceptional position. You already have an abundance of valuable content that users are eager to grab their hands on. This is why I suggest to share some of your content for free. Create a mini-course, or create a handful of classes in your primary course accessible as an initial trial such as. In providing content that is freely available to everyone, you are increasing the chance of someone sharing your content.
Choose a non-branded keyword to target
Before you start publishing free content online or asking other websites to link to your site, you'll have to pick a specific key phrase you'd like to rank for. This should be a non-branded keyword like 'cookery course', as these types of terms are those which will attract new visitors to your website.
After you have chosen which non-branded keywords are most effective for your business, then you are able to begin implementing the strategy for building links. In this blog, I'll remain using the 'cooking course' keyword as an example.
- URL: jackscooking.com/cookery-course
- Title Tag Description Tag
You must then choose what information will go into the body of your website. By putting your free lesson on your page that you provide incentives for other sites to connect to your page. Make sure the course video is near the top (if not the top) so that prospective users can see your valuable information immediately.
Another thing to keep to be aware of is that Google places a higher priority for pages that have more text on them, as they believe that content in a webpage is more useful to a searcher. Even though we have put an image at the top of the page, Google cannot crawl the contents of the video and so we need to add more text to the webpage to show Google that the site is worth a look.
According to my personal observation, it's beneficial to have around 1000-2000 pages of text page. A simple way to accomplish this is to include a transcript of the video at the end of the page. If you require more text, write a bit more about the benefits that come from following the program, like eating more healthily and having enjoyment cooking.
Link to websites that have high Domain Authority
In the first place, make a list of sites having a high Domain Authority that might be interested in linking to your site.
Do an Google search for "cookbook blogs' and make an inventory of the websites with an Domain Authority above 30. It is also possible to look up 'cookery course comparison' or other search terms related to cookery courses, and then make a list of the sites that you discover.
Below is a picture of the first few websites to show up in Google's search results for "cookery blogs" together with the Domain Authory (DA), thanks to Moz:
There is also Moz to search for all sites that link to any website. Another strategy you can employ is to make the list of your cookery competition and then see which sites are linking to these sites. If a site is linked to a particular cookery class It is most likely to accept the possibility of linking to different cookery courses too, especially when you offer a sweet deal by offering a no-cost cookery lesson. It is possible to join Moz for a free 30 day trial. You can download all of the site link profiles you need to in that time.
When you've compiled a list of sites that could be willing to link to your site, conduct some investigation on the website and then try to locate the email address for the site owner or blog administrator. Hunter is an excellent instrument for this.
To increase your chances of receiving a reply, I would suggest sending a customized email to every website's owner or manager of a blog. It is important to give them a reason for linking to your site, in a way which is sensible for them and adds the value of their customers.
Here's an example of the kind of email you could use to send an email:
Hello [name]
I've been reading your blog, you've created some fantastic content! I am really impressed by your post [insert the article here] ].
I have recently developed a no-cost online cookery lesson that you might find valuable. Do you have a desire of taking a look as well as posting a critique of the lessons for your website (if you think your readers would like it too )?
Let me know if this interests you. I'd be happy to send you the course.
Many thanks, and keep up the great work!
Jack Saville
It's important to not make a request or mention of an immediate link and to maintain the students' interest in your program. If they promote your program on their website it is likely that they will give you a link, likely without asking. They may even give a discount or additional bonus for the readers of their site.
Include your keywords as the anchor text that links to your website
One final thing to bare at all times when building a link is anchor texts on those links you obtain. Once you reach the point where you're soliciting the link (or asking them to alter an existing link that they've offered you) it's important to make sure that the link directs to the specific page you're trying to rank on for your selected search term, and ensure that the anchor text in the link matches the keywords that you're aiming for.
So in our cookery course example, we would ask for a link to jackscooking.com/cookery-course from the anchor text 'cookery course'.
By linking to the ranking page with targeted anchor text this site has endorsed this specific page for specifically the phrase 'cookery class'.
High-quality link building will increase the number of visitors to your site and sales
Having other websites link to your site, specifically those that have a good Domain Authority, will help you rank better on Google for the selected keyword. That means that those who search for that keyword are more likely to locate your website as well as online courses.
It is a long time before you can implement the strategy correctly and begin ranking in search engines with your chosen keyword. However, what you get is an ongoing flow of prospective students to your course. It's a pretty decent deal to my mind!
Jack Saville is an SEO Specialist at Bynder the digital company that manages assets.