How do I categorize my class on Skillshare?

Taking time to accurately classify your Skillshare class helps match it to students’ interests and ensures it’s easily found on our platform.

In this article:

The Class Details page for each of your classes contains a number of key settings that you should adjust to ensure your class is reaching the right audience.

Class Language

We accept classes taught in English, French, German, Portuguese, or Spanish. Keep in mind the default language in Skillshare’s class uploader is English.

Class Level

Choose the skill level for your class to help students find content that is best suited for their existing knowledge and skills. This increases your likelihood of reaching the right audience and receiving positive class reviews. Keep these definitions in mind when selecting your level:

  • Beginner: No prerequisite knowledge or techniques are required to follow the class lessons or complete the project.
  • Intermediate: Some prerequisite knowledge is required or would be helpful for students to get the most out of the lessons.
  • Advanced: Significant prerequisite knowledge is required for students to follow and learn from the class.
  • All-level: Suitable for any level, either because the class is complete and comprehensive or the topic does not have a beginner, intermediate, or advanced level (e.g., productivity, journaling, travel, and wellness).

This level will appear to students on the About and Reviews tabs of your class. Keep in mind that once your class earns at least five student reviews, the level will recalibrate and display an average result based on all of the level selections from your students, as well as your own.

Categories

For each of your classes, choose a primary category from the dropdown menu on the Class Details page. Based on your selection, the associated subcategory dropdown will appear. For each primary category you may choose up to 2 related subcategories.

Each of your classes needs, at minimum, a primary category and one subcategory to be listed on Skillshare.

To increase the discoverability of your classes on Skillshare, you can:

  • Add a secondary category.
  • Add up to 2 relevant subcategories per category.
  • Add up to 7 relevant topics related to your class.
Accurately classifying your class will ensure that your content is relevant to students.

Filters & Searchable Attributes

You can also add filters & searchable attributes related to your class, such as software and/or materials taught in the class or used in the class project.

Optimize for Discoverability

Skillshare’s search algorithm evaluates all searchable attributes of Skillshare content, including title, class description, categories, subcategories, relevant topics, software and materials facets, as well as teacher name. In addition to other factors, these details determine how a class is surfaced to users on Skillshare, i.e. how a class is ranked on Skillshare’s browse pages or in search results.

To help you fully optimize your content for discoverability, here are a few tips and reminders:

  • Follow our recommendations for optimizing the visible elements of your content (what we call merchandising) for SEO and quality. For class-specific tips, check out Class Merchandising and SEO; the same suggestions apply for digital products and 1-on-1 Sessions too.
  • We recommend that you leverage keywords in both your title and description. The more places the algorithm finds a match, the better the ranking will be (because it's matching more than one parameter).
  • For all content, it doesn't matter if you tag as a subcategory as opposed to a relevant topic: as long as it's tagged in one of those places, it will appear in relevant browse pages. For example, if Graphic Design is selected as a subcategory OR a relevant topic, it will be weighted equally on the Graphic Design browse page.
  • You might notice not all relevant topics that you’ve added to a class show up on the class details page – tag anyway! They still impact class discoverability and SEO even if you’re not seeing them appear on the class details. For classes, you can add up to 7 relevant topics.
It’s important to accurately classify your content to ensure that your content is relevant to students. You don’t want to “keyword stuff” your title or class description or use unnatural-sounding copy, which can negatively impact your SEO ranking. Quality is important for SEO.

 

Resources