How to use SEO and PR to increase The Sales for your online course
The process of creating your online course is just the beginning. After your course has been created then the next thing to do is to enroll students (easier to say than done! ).
Do you have a marketing plan? Have you ever made the mistake of thinking that just since your online course is available and other users will automatically discover the course.
Sorry to bring terrible news, but If you're looking to get the most your return on the work you put into creating your course, then you need to advertise it.
The two most efficient ways you do that is by using the PR (Public Relations) as well as SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
There is no longer a time where you had to reach deep into your pockets and engage a PR agency that is expensive to help your business get exposure. If you're familiar with what to, you can make it happen by yourself.
Keep an eye out.
Same goes for SEO. There is no longer a need to pay huge amounts of money on the services of an SEO agency. When you know how to keep your readers engaged by providing valuable content, then you will be able to communicate clear messages to the search engines.
In this comprehensive guide, I'm going to give you some tips for actionable ways to use PR and SEO to increase the number of people who purchase your course online.
PR Tips and Tools for increasing the sales of your course
Step 1: How To Find Journalists
If you're working on yourself PR, the first stage is to locate journalists who are in your field. If, for instance, the course you're taking is Social Media Marketing you'll want to locate journalists that specialize in writing about marketing via social media.
Guess what?
Google is as good a place to start like other...
Find the search results in Google and then click on the tab 'News' for journalists that write about your course topic.
Similar to this:
Now start checking the authors of these articles to determine if they can help you in your PR campaigns.
It is worth a moment to verify whether the person who wrote the article of the story is a well-known journalist in your niche.
After you have viewed your results, you can start building an Google Spreadsheet with the following columns:
- The name of the journalist
- URL of the article
- Links to the Twitter profile for the reporter
- Link to the individual website or blog for the reporter (if available)
- Email address (if it is available)
- Your Notes
So, in our example, you might have:
- Jayson DeMers
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2016/09/28/9-things-social-media-marketers-get-wrong/#5107342a4b2f
- https://twitter.com/jaysondemers
- http://www.audiencebloom.com/
- Email?
- The founder and CEO of AudienceBloom which is a Seattle-based content marketing firm. An ongoing writer for Forbes.
Here's an example a report's spreadsheet that I compiled:
>> Your aim is for you to make a an inventory of 20 reporters within your field.
Google can be good, but it isn't always the best. The trick is to understand the topic of your conversation be when you meet these journalists What are their typical topics of interest you have with them, who are the most important journalists to contact now and why.
JustReachOut helps you identify the most relevant journalists and give you a reason to contact them. You enter a keyword and the tool shows you who is creating an article on the keyword, and also why you need to reach journalists. Additionally, it provides email pitch templates to use to create your pitch. help with email messages from our staff of reporters to help users send direct emails to journalists from the platform, and the team of experts who check every single email before it's and sent.
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Step 2: How To Get In Touch With Journalists
Once you have your list of relevant journalists then you're prepared for the next step: Connecting with them. connect with them.
Below, you will see that this specific journalist is willing to receive solicitations. She even lists her contact details (Email/Twitter/Website):
If you don't have your contact information it is necessary to investigate a bit further. Don't be concerned, there are several instruments that could aid.
1. Hunter
Enter the company website into Hunter The program will show you the format as well as known email addresses.
For example, if you try entering the site will show:
58 email addresses found.Email pattern: [email protected]
When you have a known pattern, you are able to determine the details of your journalist's contact.
When you search for your chosen publication on Email Format, it suggests which format it is most sure is accurate.
Here is the data it gives for :
Once you have an idea of the potential email address of the journalist, then make use of this tool to confirm it.
Step 3: How To Build Connections with Journalists
So far you've identified prospective reporters in your field and created a spreadsheet with their contact info.
You may be tempted to begin pitching immediately.
But don't.
The first step is to build relations with those you are in contact with. It is best to give before you start soliciting.
These steps are to be followed:
- Respond to journalist queries via the HelpAReporter or JustReachOut
- Ask journalists to write articles for your blog
- Answer an inquiry on Qora and then ask journalists to respond to the same question
- Follow the journalists you want to contact on Twitter
- Tweet relevant content and share it with others.
- Send a thoughtful response via Twitter or a post on their blog. Be open about your personal style to help them get acquainted with your style.
- Offer them an idea or story which isn't about the you. You're right. give them something that is newsworthy. They're journalists. They want stories.
Not long ago a recorded video in which I describe a step by step of how to develop relationships with journalists. Here it is for your reference.
Here's what Rebecca Grant, a former reporter at VentureBeat, said about developing relationships first:
"If you've got an idea or a suggestion to write an article that *gasp!* doesn't involve your company, then share it with a journalist. We're always on the prowl for good stories ."
Step 4. How To Suggest Your Story to Journalists
At this point, you'll be establishing a rapport with the journalists you want to pitch to. The time you spend to break the ice isn't a requirement to email cold right now.
What exactly do you intend to write in your email?
The last thing you wish to share with reporters about your new course.
This is a huge NO.
Go back to the top of the page.
What is the goal of journalists?
-- Good Stories.
Have you heard of the phrase: "Stories sell newspapers."
The same applies to the world of online.
Stories that are good get shared and visitors.
It's time to start sharing your experiences with media. Where are you planning to find them? Your blog.
In the next section in the next part, we'll explore content marketing. However, prior to that, let's take a look at some of the tools you can use to aid in the email marketing pitching.
Digital marketing agency Fractl conducted a survey of over 500 journalists on top websites including BuzzFeed, TIME, Lifehacker, Scientific American, TechCrunch and many more to find out what they are looking for to hear in a pitch.
Here are some of the key findings:
- 81% would rather be pitched via email
- 69% would prefer to be pitched in the morning
- 39% want an exclusive study to publish
In this regard it is important to make sure that you track the progression of your email pitch. There are two methods to test:
MixMax is a free plugin for Gmail which includes the ability to track emails for an indefinite period of time. You can select which emails you would like to be tracked all your emails or specific ones.
The lightning symbol with numbers in front of your messages will indicate that someone has opened your email plus the number of times they have opened it.
2. Yesware
Yesware is a different Gmail plugin which lets you keep track of email opening and reply rates, clicks to links and attachment openings. Click the "track" button just before sending and Yesware handles all monitoring. Yesware allows you to try different variations for your subject line for emails as well as save email templates for later to use later.
No matter if your online course has been completed or not, then now is the best time to start planning the strategies. Think about which journalists you can connect with and start building connections. Remember to offer them great content.
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SEO Tips for Increasing your Online Course's Sales
SEO refers to the method that aims to maximize the amount of people who visit a website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by the search engine. For instance, if someone searches the subject of your class using Google or Yahoo, having your website appear on the search results is an opportunity for exposure for your business.
How do you get your website to show up on search results when you type in topics that are related to your subject?
by publishing excellent material (blog posts or videos.) on your website that people can access for free.
Now you might be wondering: after all your effort in creating your curriculum, what would you want to share the content for free?
Allow me to describe the reason:
By creating and marketing top-quality content at no cost (usually through the blog) You establish credibility and trust within your niche. If you can create content that is free which actually aids individuals, they are more likely to buy your course because they already know, love and trustyou. Free content builds reciprocity.
Ideally, you'll have a website and an audience before you start marketing your course. However, if you don't, it's not too late to get started now.
One of the keys to making your blog successful is to have highly valuable content. This is the kind of content Rand Fishkin from Moz calls 10x Contentis content that is 10 times more valuable than the top result that can currently be found in the search results of a particular keyword or topic.
Journalists and users prefer to hyperlink to your premium value web pages
The process of creating 10x content is not easy. If it were, then each piece of content could be 10x, right?
But you have a unique benefit...
- It's a great online course.
- A wealth of material is available to you.
- It's already clear some key keywords and topics that people are searching for.
If you are creating content for your blog, it is possible to pull from this library of ideas and then turn it into 10x content.
Be sure to include 10x Content:
- Solves a problem or provides the answer to questions by giving extensive, exact, outstanding information or resources.
- High-quality, trusted, useful, interesting and amazing.
- Creates an enjoyable user experience via the user layout, interface, fonts, and images.
When your content meets those standards, your target audience, plus the journalists you pitch to, will automatically want to share it.
It is important to remember that all these tasks take time, a lot of time! Making a list of your work and managing your time is essential for getting results quickly. I recently provided some tips about how you can manage your time when you are writing or doing PR outreach, some great useful advice there from other bloggers also.
10x Content gets more natural backlinks, and is ranked higher on Google
When Google starts to see that your content is popular, then it will push your page higher on the results page. And because it's a high-quality piece of content, others in your niche will naturally be inclined to share it.
Also, Google is a fan of naturally-generated backlinks.
After all your hard work producing the content, be sure to follow these steps.
1. Be sure that your site is prepared to handle the torrent of traffic
- Visit GTmetrix then input your URL on the site and try it with your homepage URL and your top ranked or best blog page URL. Check out the grade you receive and the issues it reports. It should be a grade of C or B.
- Make use of only dedicated web hosting. Beware of HostGator or something cheap such as GoDaddy that uses an array of shared servers. They don't have the right features for hosting and serving up WordPress or blog content specifically. Take a look at options like Flywheel or WPEngine specially designed for hosting and serving up WordPress blog content. This improves how your website loads and improves load speed faster and also helps to rank your page higher on Google.
- Think about using CDN (Content Delivery Network) It is a service that provides other server options for users to download resources (usually static resources such as images or JavaScript). It speeds up the speed of your website a great deal, most major sites use this. You can learn more about it here.
- You should consider using a caching software - if you ever pushed a back button on a web browser and the page required more than five minutes to load you've visited an uncached website. The excessive load time can hinder your traffic, lower your Google index and decrease your website's overall potential. Installing a caching plugin will help with load speed greatly. It is possible to learn more here.
- Optimize all your images for faster page loading It's a simple concept, but it can get a little technical since it is possible to utilize CSS images to improve the performance of your images. This article will tell you how to do this and why. When you are done with the day, you should have a score of A or B on GTmetrix for the homepage of your blog and for all the major articles you'd like to rank at very least. I make sure that every article I post in my blog are rated with this rating.
2. Check to see if you've got the right CTAs (calls to actions) strategically positioned throughout your website:
- To buy your online course
If you're not yet launching your blog yet, you need to make sure your site is up and running. Plan out what 10x-quality articles you could create to ensure that your audience will want to share your story.
Incorporate SEO and PR to your marketing plan for your course
Are you eager to begin promoting your online course with these cost-effective PR and SEO techniques?
PR and SEO don't have to be expensive. When you set your mind to them, you'll be able to tap into the resources readily available. Build meaningful relationships with influencers and create valuable content to improve the number of sales for your online course.
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Dmitry Dragilev is the founder of JustReachOut.io, which helps startups and entrepreneurs pitch journalists and influencers without the help of PR firms. He employed PR outreach to get a startup acquired by Google. He writes about hacks for PR along with SEO in his website at CriminallyProlific.