So you’re an elearning developer, and you’ve added your courses for sale in the OpenSesame marketplace. It’s time to focus on fine-tuning the ways you present your course to make it easy for customers to find you. By popular demand, we have compiled our tips on marketing elearning courses in order to maximize sales opportunities.
Make the Most of OpenSesame
Complete your OpenSesame seller profile. Upload your logo, add your company description, and provide links to your website and social media profiles. Make your profile a juicy and informative place to learn more about your products. We strongly encourage sellers to offer a preview of their course through OpenSesame so that shoppers have the opportunity to self-serve and learn more about your courses.
Get Some Reviews
Don’t you love the user reviews on Amazon? OpenSesame offers easy-to-use course reviewing features to enable our customers to easily find the best courses. So, to make your courses more appealing, ask your existing customers to write reviews of courses in the OpenSesame marketplace. This improves search engine optimization (more on this later) and also provides more information to shoppers about your courses.
Write a Great Description
It doesn’t matter how great your course is if people never click on the preview button to find out. Write your course description well, without typos and with details. Describe everything clearly; The topic of the course, the course interactivity, learning objectives, featured experts, prerequisites, certifications, etc. Proofread your description carefully to ensure you position your course as professionally as possible. If you need advice or a proofreader, let me know.
Share screenshots from your course that display dynamic and interesting moments. A new feature in OpenSesame profile page enables you to upload multiple images, so be sure to show the breadth of your course through different photos.
Search Engine Optimization
Whether a shopper uses Google to search for elearning courses or uses the OpenSesame search engine to sort through the OpenSesame catalog, most users rely on search engines to make sense of the thousands of elearning courses available. The keywords you use to describe your course are of the utmost importance in marketing your products. Without the appropriate keywords in your course title and description, your course will languish in the fringes of the search results. So how do you get it right?
Start by using the Google Adwords Tool to research what keywords related to your course topic have the heaviest search volume. Use those keywords in your course title and description often. Carefully select the appropriate topics in the OpenSesame library architecture. While it may be tempting to select tons of course subjects, selecting irrelevant topics will actually hurt you in the long run, as it dilutes the focus on the targeted keywords for search engine filters.
To increase the perceived authority of your course page, create links between your OpenSesame profile and your website, as well as any other profiles you use often
Google and other search engines will penalize content that is repeated across multiple websites, so don’t just cut and paste the same course description on every site where you market your courses. Write a unique description of your course and your company for OpenSesame to ensure that Google’s bots recognize the value of your content. User reviews will add additional unique content to each course page, enhancing its search engine position further.
Toot Your Own Horn
Get out there! Participate in online discussions on blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn (If you’re unfamiliar with Twitter, we have a great free course to get you started.) Be a genuine and authentic voice of authority in your field and attract more attention to your website and products as a result. Your presence in existing online conversations will drive further traffic to your website and course pages.
Stuff OpenSesame Does
OpenSesame also features course seller partners in a few different ways: through featured sellers and courses on the home page, interviews on this blog, and mentioning sellers and courses in our social media conversations when appropriate. We also welcome guest blog posts from both buyers and sellers that offer useful tips and information for the elearning community.
Finally, if practicable, we will add you to the lineup for the weekly “OpenSesame Course of the Week” emails to bring your course to the attention of our customers.
Image Credit: Tom Ward on Flickr