Now that your course is targeting the right audience and engaging with great content, it’s time to incorporate even more tactics to get high quality traffic to your online course.
It’s easy enough to get traffic to your website or sales page, but the right traffic? That’s a whole other ballgame.
Part III of our series on marketing your online virtual learning business is all about generating quality traffic. Let’s get started!
PART 4: TRAFFIC GENERATION
20. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO incorporates everything you can do within your web presence to rank higher in the search engines. As you can guess, when it comes to your virtual learning courses, the better you rank, the more students will find you.
A few optimization best practices you can start incorporating are:
- Optimize your course titles. Your online class titles hold a lot of power. Not only do you want to attract potential students to read the title and purchase the course, but you also want to get the search engine benefits. To do so, incorporate keywords in your title that your target audience will be searching for online.
- Optimize your sales page. Use those same keywords within the copy of your sales page to further ensure that page shows up for your most ideal queries around your course. Don’t forget keywords like “online class” or “virtual course.” These days, the intent behind a search is just as important as the keywords used. Is someone just researching a topic? Or are they looking for a service provider in that industry?
- Optimize your content. No matter what type of content you create around your courses, it’s critical that you always keep SEO in mind. Incorporate the keywords and phrases your target audience is using to search for solutions like yours. Target pain points, share tips and tricks, and so on to gain interest and establish trust. Then, always use your course as the call-to-action.
21. Paid Advertising
Paid ads – whether through search engines (like Google Ads), social media (like Instagram or Facebook), or other online advertising option – can be an incredibly beneficial way to kickstart a new course campaign, improve traffic, and target a unique audience.
When working with paid advertising campaigns, it’s imperative that you’re hyper focused on your audience and message. That’s simply because a budget can go quickly and you want to get the right eyes on your ads.
Instead of directing visitors to a sales page, you might consider a piece of free content you’ve created, such as a download or other great freebie. The reason being: many visitors may not be ready to make a buying decision during their first interaction with you. They will, however, love a free download (and interactions thereafter) as they get to know and value your expertise.
22. Presenting & Speaking
Presenting and speaking are often forgotten opportunities for acquiring an even larger – and very targeted – audience. Giving a presentation can certainly be in person during a seminar, workshop, conference, and so on. But it can also be online during a webinar, live or recorded video, or course.
This form of content creation gives value in whatever you’re teaching, as well as the benefit of visual (or video) form. Talks or speaking engagements are often focused on an extremely targeted subject area, making them perfect for reaching your ideal audience.
It’s also a perfect opportunity to use your course as a call-to-action at the end of your talk.
23. Guest blogging
Want more exposure to your audience? Find a similar blog in your industry and guest post there.
Guest blogging benefits both parties: the blogger gets free content to post (saving them the time and energy to post their own) and you gain exposure to the blog’s audience and a link back to your website.
Do your homework and determine blogs in your niche that don’t directly compete, and also allow guest blogposts. Then, write a simple email to introduce yourself and consider writing a unique blogpost or two so the blogger can get a sense of your writing. (And don’t forget to include at least one link back to your website.)
Create content related to your online classes and consider linking directly to the course page in order to increase traffic and interest in it.
24. Collaborate with other instructors and cross-promote
Similarly, there’s always an opportunity to find and work with course creators in your niche. You could create a larger workshop or online conference and offer participants the value of multiple experts.
This way, you can combine the power of all of your audiences for a common goal, gaining much more traffic in the process.
25. Bloggers for reviews
Consider reaching out to bloggers in your niche to give a free (or low cost) preview of your course in exchange for a blogpost review. This not only helps you gain a whole new audience, but you can also use positive quotes from the blogpost to market your course.
26. Post the link everywhere
Don’t be shy when it comes to marketing your course. Share the link everywhere and anywhere you can, including:
- Business cards
- Email signature
- Landing page(s)
- Social media
- Website
Generating relevant and powerful traffic doesn’t need to be overwhelming. Start with a few of these ideas for your online course and start improving the buzz about your class. In the final part 4 of our series, we’ll talk about virtual learning pricing and ongoing measurement of your course marketing.
And if you need help creating a digital course that represents your business and reaches your target market, contact us at OSC Web Design.
