How to Use Link Building to Increase Traffic to your website
In this post, I'm going to demonstrate how you can use a popular SEO method to boost the rank of search engines on your site. It's known as linking If done properly, it can help to create a wave of prospective customers who will visit the online course you offer.
The significance of link building in SEO
You've completed some research and you have an idea of what keywords you want your course to rank for. Maybe you've written articles on your top keywords, but you're not able with getting your site to appear on search results. Why isn't it ranking?
This could mean the links
Links are among the most important ranking factors which are taken into consideration by the search engines. It is not solely the amount of links as well as the quality of these links and whether they're 'followed' (the website instructs Google to take the hyperlink into consideration when ranking).
Unfortunately, Google does not specify how valuable a link from any website is as well as how many of them your website has. So how can you effectively benefit from this ranking factor when Google tells you so little about it or the significance it has for every website? There are many tools on the web to help. My personal favorite one is Moz is a program that blends several different SEO tools in one.
In terms of link building, and those unknowns that I mentioned earlier one of the best methods Moz can do is scan the internet for websites that have links to your site (or the sites of your competition). It then uses this information along with some algorithms as well as some other variables for assigning the Domain Authority value out of 100 to every website (this is a Moz-specific metric that is not a officially recognized Google measure).
By looking at your website's Domain Authority, you can begin to create a visual of the value your website has in relation to the quality and quantity of your links. As we can never be certain of the way in which the Google algorithm actually is working, it's impossible to be able to determine how accurate the scores assigned by Moz are to the truth. But, Moz is still a helpful guide.
What are the reasons to give away part of your program to the public for free
Links are crucial for the rank of your website. However, how do you get that other websites to link to your website?
People will also link to your site if they believe that your site is worthwhile to visit. If you give away an informative piece of content for free, then you are increasing the chance that people find your website interesting, thus increasing the chance of other websites linking to your site.
If you are a course supplier, then you're placed in an exceptional situation. There is plenty of useful content that students would like to read on. This is why I suggest to offer a small portion of your work for free. Make a mini-course or create a handful of classes in your primary course available for an initial trial like. By providing freely accessible content to everyone, you are more likely to get someone linking to you.
Pick a keyword with no brand to focus on
Prior to publishing your free online content or asking others to hyperlink to yours, you'll need select a keyword you want to rank for. The keyword should not be brand-named keyword like 'cookery course' because these types of terms are those which will attract new visitors to your website.
After you have chosen the most valuable non-branded keyword to your company, you can start implementing the strategy for building links. In this post, I will continue to use the 'cookery course' as an example.
- URL: jackscooking.com/cookery-course
- Title Tag: Cookery
Next, you need to decide what is going to be included in the body of your website. If you include your free lessons on your page, you are providing an incentive to other websites to connect to your page. Also, make sure that your instructional video is at the top of the page (if not at the most prominent) so that prospective visitors can view the information immediately.
Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that Google assigns a higher value to pages with more text on them. This is because they consider that more text in a webpage will be more beneficial to users. Even though we have put a video on top of the page Google cannot crawl the contents of the video and consequently, we have to put more words on the webpage to show Google that the site is worth a look.
From my experience, it is useful to add between 1000 and 2000 words of text on the page. One easy way to do this is to add a transcript of the video at the end on the webpage. In the event that you require additional words, you can write more about the benefits that come from following the course, such as eating more healthily as well as having more enjoyment cooking.
Link to sites with high Domain Authority
As your first step, create a list of websites with a high Domain Authority that might be open to linking to you.
Conduct a Google search on 'cookery blog sites Make an inventory of the blogs with an Domain Authority above 30. It is also possible to look up 'cookery course comparison' or other search phrases related to cookery classes to make a list of the websites you come across.
This is an image of the first few sites that show up in the Google search results that include "cookery blogs" together with their Domain Authory (DA), because of Moz:
You can also use Moz to search for all sites that link to any website. So another tactic you could use is to create the list of your cookery competition and then see which sites are linking to them. If a site is linked to a specific cookery school the chances are it's going to be open to the idea linking to other cooking courses too, especially when you offer a sweet offer with a complimentary cookery lesson. You could even enroll with Moz for a free 30 day trial and download all the website link profiles that you'll need within that period.
Once you have created an inventory of websites that might be open to linking to you, do some background research about the site and then try to locate an email address from the owner of the blog or site administrator. Hunter is a great tool to do this.
For a better chance of receiving a reply, I would suggest sending a customized email to each website owner or blogger. Your goal is to give them a reason to link to your website by presenting a message that makes sense for them and provides worth to their visitors.
Here is an example of an email you can send:
Hey [name]
I've been following your blog and it's created some fantastic material! I am really impressed by your post [insert article here ].
I've recently put together a free cooking lesson online that you might find valuable. Do you have a desire of exploring it, and perhaps posting a critique of the lessons in your own blog (if you think that your followers would like it too )?
Please let me know whether this is something you're interested in. I'd love to send you the course.
Thank you so much and please keep up the excellent work!
Jack Saville
It is important not to make a request or mention of the link right away however, you should try to increase their interest in your course. If they promote your program on their website They will most likely give you a link, most likely without having to ask. It is possible to provide a discounted rate or additional bonus for the readers of their site.
Include your keywords in the anchor text that hyperlinks your website
The last thing you need to bear at all times when building a link is the anchor text of the links you receive. When you do get to the point of soliciting an additional link (or wanting them to change a link they have already offered you) it is important to ask that the link directs to the page that you're trying to rank for your chosen keywords, and also that the anchor text of that link refers to the exact keyword you are targeting.
So in our cookery course example, we would ask for a link to jackscooking.com/cookery-course from the anchor text 'cookery course'.
When linking to the top ranking page, using anchor text that is targeted The site endorses this page specifically for specifically the phrase 'cookery class'.
High-quality link building helps boost your website traffic as well as sales
Having other websites link to your site, specifically those with a high Domain Authority, will help you to rank higher in the search engines for your selected keyword. This means that people who are searching for that keyword are more likely to find your website and online courses.
It can take time to implement the strategy correctly and begin being ranked on search engines with your chosen keyword. However, what you get is a constant flow of potential clients to your classes. It's a pretty decent deal in my opinion!
Jack Saville is an SEO Specialist for Bynder an online supplier of asset management.