How to Utilize Link Building to Increase Traffic to Your Website
In this article I'll be able to demonstrate how you can employ a widely-used SEO method to boost the rank of search engines on your site. This is known as linking If done properly, it can aid in attracting a flood of potential customers to your online courses.
The significance of building links in SEO
After a few hours, you've got an idea of what keywords you'd like your site to be ranked for. You might have even written articles on your top keywords, but you're still struggling with getting your site to be found by search engines. What's wrong with it?
It could be the links
Links are one of the most important ranking aspects taken into account by Google and other search engines. The importance of links isn't just the quantity of links that matters however, it is also the quality of those links as well as whether or not they have been 'followed' (the site instructs Google to take the hyperlink in consideration for purposes of ranking).
But, Google does not specify the value of a hyperlink from the website you are linking to as well as how many of them your site has. So how can you effectively take advantage of this ranking factor when Google provides you with so little information about it or the significance it has for every website? There are many tools on the web to help. My personal favorite can be Moz which integrates a variety of SEO tools in one.
In terms of link-building, and also the unknowns mentioned above, one among the methods Moz does is to scan the internet for hyperlinks that point to your website (or websites of competitors). This information is then used together with machine learning and some other variables for assigning an Domain Authority value from 100 points to each website (this is a Moz-specific metric, and not an officially recognized Google measurement).
By looking at your website's Domain Authority, you can begin to create a visual of the value your website is in terms of the quantity and quality of hyperlinks you've got. As we can never be sure of how the Google algorithm really is working, it's impossible to know how close the values assigned by Moz are to the truth. That being said, Moz is still a helpful guide.
What are the reasons to offer a portion of your program to the public for free
Links are crucial in determining the position of your site. But how can you convince others to add links to your website?
Other people will link to you when they feel your website is worth visiting. If you offer a useful piece of information for free, you are increasing the chance that other people will find your website interesting, thus increasing the chance that other websites will link to your site.
If you're a course supplier, then you're placed in an exceptional situation. You already have plenty of valuable content that users want to get their hands on. So, I would encourage you to make available a portion of your material at no cost. You could create a mini-course. Or make a few of the classes in your primary course accessible as a free trial, like. If you make your content accessible for everyone, you're more likely to get someone linking to you.
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 select a key phrase you'd like to rank for. This should be a non-branded such as 'cookery' for example, since these kinds of terms are those which will attract new visitors to your site.
When you've decided on which non-branded keywords are most effective for your organization, you can start implementing your strategy to build links. In this blog, I'll keep using the 'cooking course' keyword as an example.
- URL: jackscooking.com/cookery-course
- Title Tag: Cookery
The next step is to choose what information will be included in the body of your page. If you include your free lessons on your page, you are providing an incentive to other websites to connect to your page. Make sure the course video is near the top (if it isn't at the top) to make sure that potential linkers see the valuable content straight away.
Another factor to bare to be aware of is the fact that Google places a higher priority to pages with more text on them, as they believe that having more content in a webpage will be more beneficial to the user. While we've placed a video in the upper right corner of our page, Google is unable to crawl the video's content of that video, and so we need to add more text to the webpage to show Google that the page is worthwhile.
From my observation, it's beneficial to include about 1000-2000 words of text on the page. An easy method to accomplish this is to include the transcript from the video on the bottom section of your page. If you require more text, write a bit more information about the advantages from the cooking course, including being healthier and having more enjoyment in the kitchen.
Link to websites with a an excellent Domain Authority
The first thing you should do is start by identifying websites with a high Domain Authority that might be interested in linking to your site.
Do an Google search for 'cookery blogs Make a list of all the blogs that have the Domain Authority above 30. It is also possible to look up 'cookery course comparison and other terms related to cookery courses as well. Then, make a list of the websites you come across.
Below is a picture of some of the websites to show up in the Google search results that include "cookery blogs", along with their Domain Authory (DA), due to Moz:
It is also possible to use Moz to search for all sites which link to a website. So another tactic you could utilize is to compile a list of your cookery competition and then see which sites are linking to these courses. If a site links to a particular cookery class the chances are it's going to be open to the idea of linking to other cookery classes, particularly if you sweeten the deal by offering a no-cost cooking lesson. It is possible to join Moz to get a no-cost 30-day trial, and then download all website link profiles that you'll need within that period.
When you've compiled an inventory of websites that may be interested in linking to you, do some investigation on the website and try and find the email address for the site owner or blog director. Hunter is a fantastic tool for this.
For a better chance to get a response I would suggest sending a customized email to every website's owner or blogger. The goal here is to give them a reason to link to your website by presenting a message that makes sense for them and adds the value of their customers.
Here's an example of an email you can make:
Hi [name],
I've been reading your blog and it's produced some excellent information! I really like your article [insert link here] ].
I have recently developed a no-cost online cooking class that I think you will find helpful. Do you have a desire of exploring it or perhaps writing a review of the course for your website (if you believe your visitors will enjoy it as well). )?
Let me know if this interests you. I'd be happy to send you the lesson.
Thanks so much, and keep up the great work!
Jack Saville
It's not necessary to mention or ask about a link straight away, but to nurture their interest in your course. If they promote your program on their website it is likely that they will give you a link, likely without asking. It is possible to offer a special discount or an additional incentive for the readers of their site.
Make use of your keyword as the anchor text that hyperlinks your website
The last thing you need to bear to keep in mind while building links is anchor texts of the links you receive. Once you reach the point of soliciting the link (or asking them to alter an existing link that they've given you) it's important to ensure whether the link will lead to the specific page you're trying to rank on for your selected keywords, and also ensure that the anchor text in that link refers to the exact keyword you're trying to rank for.
So in our cookery course example, we would ask for a link to jackscooking.com/cookery-course from the anchor text 'cookery course'.
In linking to the rank page with targeted anchor text, the site is endorsing this page specifically for the specific term 'cookery course'.
Quality link building can increase your site's traffic as well as sales
Linking other sites to your site, particularly those which have a strong Domain Authority, will help your website rank better in Google for the selected terms. That means that those who search for that phrase are more likely discover your site and classes.
It is a long time before you can implement this method correctly, and then start being ranked on search engines with your chosen keyword. However, the end result is constantly flowing potential customers to your courses. Pretty good deal, according to me!
Jack Saville is an SEO Specialist with Bynder, a digital supplier of asset management.