Put that final polish on those key elements of your class — class and lesson titles, class and project descriptions — so it can be discovered by the right students.
In this article:
How SEO and Merchandising Work Together
“If you think of merchandising like a retail store where your Skillshare profile is the store and classes are your products, then elements such as a compelling cover image, clear class title, and well-written class description can make a huge difference in making sure students find and take your class.”
– Audrey Ra, Illustration Teacher
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a process of improving web-based content so that it ranks higher in search engines, such as Google. Merchandising is what Skillshare calls all the publicly visible elements of a class: your class title, lesson titles, cover image, project description, categories, subcategories, and relevant topics. In addition to class quality and student engagement, most of these merchandising elements have an impact on SEO, which in turn impacts how students discover your class through Skillshare Search and Browse pages, as well as external search engines.
In the grand scheme of things, merchandising is a small part of class production, but it has a tremendous effect on ensuring the right students find and take your class, and that the number of students taking your class continues to grow. So this article will present some guidelines for refining merchandising elements, as well as additional formatting considerations to ensure the class meets our Class Quality Guidelines.
Optimize for SEO
Keep in mind the searchable attributes of content on Skillshare include: title, class description, categories, subcategories, relevant topics, software and materials facets, as well as teacher name.
Include Relevant Keywords
Keywords are essential to SEO! They help search engines determine what your content is about and how it’s relevant to a user, based on their search intent. So it’s important to ensure you’re leveraging the right keywords in all written copy related to your content.
To get a list of keywords related to your class, consider your class from some different angles, such as: the class topic; the skill, technique, or tool you’re focusing on in the class; the class project, or key takeaways. Then, compare your list of keywords to Skillshare’s In-Demand Topics list to ensure there’s a match — these are the terms our members are searching for most.
Try to craft your class title around one primary keyword, and use your primary keywords throughout your class description. If the primary keyword can appear in the first few words of the title and description, great! But overall aim for authentic and natural-sounding written copy.
Don’t try to “keyword stuff” your title or description, i.e., adding extra keywords to make your content more SEO-friendly, or include keywords randomly or out of context. Work your keywords naturally into the body text, using natural-sounding language, and check your spelling and grammar as well. Quality is important for SEO.
Start With the Most Important Information
Put the essentials about your class right at the top of your description so they're visible to students from the start. The first 2-3 sentences are also the text most likely to appear in Google search results and on social channels, so make those lines especially informative and engaging.
Avoid Wordiness
Class titles should stay between 30 and 70 characters to maximize readability and to prevent your class title from being truncated in Google search results. Lesson titles should be 35 characters or fewer so they don’t get cut off in the video player queue. Note that these character counts include spaces.
Stick To Evergreen Titles
In addition to choosing a class title that describes the content of your class, make sure the title is evergreen and that it won't need to be changed or updated in the future. Updating your class title after publishing will change your class’s URL, which results in a drop in SEO rankings and lower visibility for your class on organic search, i.e., on Google.
Optimize for Quality
While optimizing for SEO helps search engines evaluate the relevancy of your class, don’t forget there’s another important player evaluating your class as well: potential students! An organized and polished class is more likely to attract and retain students.
Create Lesson Titles That Accurately Reflect Your Outline
Think of lesson titles as a table of contents for your class that will quickly orient students to what they are about to learn. Ideally, your lesson titles should make it possible for students to jump right to the lessons that are relevant to them.
Watercolor Fun: Relax with Simple Patterned Landscapes. In this short class, Ewa shares three techniques for a simple watercolor project, and each lesson title succinctly describes what each lesson is about.
Use Proper Capitalization
A title like “Color Theory for Designers” looks more polished than “Color theory for designers.” For all titles, capitalize the first and last words, as well as nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Avoid all-uppercase or all-lowercase titles anywhere in your class. If you're unsure which words should be capitalized, this tool will help you (select the "Chicago" tab).
Remove Numbers and Symbols
Skillshare automatically numbers class lessons, so there’s no need to add numbers or use generic labels or symbols such as “Video #1” to your titles.
Format Your Description for Readability
Make your description easy to read (and skim) by using bulleted or numbered lists, and hyperlinks when appropriate. Look for ways to split up long paragraphs.
Read It Aloud
Read your class title out loud, or better yet, ask a few of your friends or family members to do the same. Does it sound clear and catchy? Make sure it rolls easily off the tongue.
Check Grammar and Spelling
You’ll also want to ensure you’re checking every component of your class for errors and typos. We highly recommend giving all of your written copy a thorough proofread before publishing. Running your written text through a spellchecker can also help — Grammarly’s free online tool is pretty robust.
Add Visuals
While not necessary for SEO, adding some visuals to your class descriptions can make them more eye-catching to students browsing your class. Seeing what's possible can also encourage a potential student to take your class. You can drop in examples of the finished project or stills from one of your lessons.
While not relevant for SEO, it can’t hurt to include links to other relevant material in your class description to give visibility to what you offer as a teacher. Consider adding:
- A link to your personal or business website, if you have one and it’s relevant to what you’re teaching on Skillshare.
- Links to your other classes on Skillshare.
- A link back to the primary category page associated with your class topic. For example: skillshare.com/browse/fine-art or skillshare.com/browse/photography.
Resources
- Title Capitalization Tool: Use this free online tool to convert your class and lesson titles to Title Case.
- Using SEO to Increase Traffic to Your Skillshare Class: This post on the Skillshare blog has some actionable tips on how to improve your class’s SEO rankings.
- How do I categorize my class for Skillshare?: Learn how to categorize your class on Skillshare to match students’ interests and ensure they are easily found on our platform.
- Why Cover Images Matter: While images are not indexed by search engines, your class cover image does impact a user's decision on whether they will take your class or not.