LMScast

SEO expert Lindsay Halsey joins Chris Badgett on this episode of the LMScast podcast to discuss SEO for online course creators and membership site owners. Chris and Lindsay dive into the pillars of SEO, and what kind of approach you can take as a course builder and content producer online.

One major question about SEO in the world of online courses and memberships is whether or not content that is locked down can be indexed by search engines. Lindsay addresses this and the answer is no. In order for content on a page to be indexed, it needs to be fully visible without having to log in.

Most course builders have the content creation aspect of marketing down. The next step is positioning yourself to be seen by potential subscribers who can get value out of that content. Chris and Lindsay talk about how meeting people at their point of pain is highly effective for sales, so you will want that to be reflected in your marketing.

Yoast SEO is a free plugin for WordPress that allows you to add in meta descriptions to your posts and get statistics on how your pages will be likely perceived by search engines. Lindsay uses Yoast SEO premium herself, but Yoast is definitely the industry leader in the SEO plugin space, so we definitely recommend checking that out.

At Pathfinder SEO, they go through a scoring rubric with you to identify the singular pieces of low hanging fruit for different websites to prioritize SEO efforts. The rubric helps to focus in on the major aspects of SEO you can improve to increase traffic immediately. Keyword-focused page titles and meta descriptions is one commonly missed opportunity with site owners.

To learn more about Lindsay Halsey, be sure to check out PathfinderSEO.com. You can find her on Twitter at @Linds_Halsey. Thanks for joining us in this episode!

Mike Morrison from The Membership Guys joins us in this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS. Mike and Chris talk about the key aspects of memberships, and what makes the combination of content, culture, and community come together.

The tips Mike emphasizes in this episode are huge for course creators. Many specialists have a tough time teaching to beginners, because of a phenomenon we refer to as the expert’s curse. The expert’s curse expresses the assumptions industry experts make about what students know about something they may not be familiar with.

WordPress tech can be complicated at times for non-techies, with all sorts of terms that refer to various aspects of business (with some technical, and some casual). Mike clears the water as to what a membership site is and the different types of membership sites out there. With LifterLMS you can utilize memberships to hide content behind a paywall.

One aspect of creating an engaging learning experience for students is not dumping a bunch of information on them that is not currently relevant. We frequently refer to this type of course as the ‘resource course.’ The resource course can be useful, but it is much more common for students to find success with a results-driven course.

One huge part of online education, and memberships specifically, is the community. One thing Mike does with The Membership Guys is to constantly ask the community what they want to learn about or do with their sites. Creating content the users want to learn about helps you as the teacher keep your finger on the pulse of what is valuable for people.

You can learn more about Mike Morrison and The Membership Guys over at TheMembershipGuys.com. Mike is also a return guest to LMScast, and you can find the other LMScast we did with him at Podcast.LifterLMS.com (episode 158).

Tina Todorovic from the social media management platform Social Web Suite joins us in this episode of LMScast to discuss social media marketing for online course builders and membership site owners with Chris Badgett of the LifterLMS team.

Tina shares some great strategies backed up by metrics that she has learned about current social media trends and optimal times for posting. Different social media platforms have different times of engagement. If you are only posting once per week, then the best time to post is Wednesday for all social networks, on average. It seems like an odd time, but the metrics back it up.

Finding the optimal time to post for your business is something that is important to do. If your audience tends to stay up later at night or prefer to consume your content later at night, then tailoring your marketing plan to post at those later times will help to attract more students.

Instructional content is most commonly prefered to be consumed in the mornings. Running promotions about your course at those earlier times for your prospective audience is a great marketing strategy. The evening time is better for content geared towards entertainment, as most people are exhausted and want to relax.

Many online courses and communities harness the power of Facebook groups and pages. Setting up a Facebook page rather than just posting on your Facebook wall is important for building brand awareness. Facebook groups are useful for cultivating a community around your business. As an online course creator, it may be useful to set up a group around your course rather than, or in addition to, a page. Groups are great for receiving feedback, which is crucial for keeping your course alive in the long run.

To learn more about Tina and Social Web Suite, be sure to head to SocialWebSuite.com.

LifterLMS is having some promotional events to draw attention to Teacher Appreciation Week and the recognition of the teaching aspect of online course creation. LifterLMS is a software company, and many course creators get too wrapped up in the technical tools to create a course and the attention to the results ends up getting left by the wayside. Ali and Chris from LifterLMS dive into the teaching aspect of course creation in this episode of the LMScast podcast.

Delivering results is the baseline and guideline successful course creators follow. Feedback is aspect of learning that helps you correct students’ paths and get results. If you are not working with them and coaching them live, the biggest challenge for online teachers is figuring out whether or not the content you are creating is getting results for your students.

We are in a period online that Chris refers to as the results revolution where people don't really want information. Information has become more of a commodity, and it is no longer very valuable as it is. Students typically enroll in a course to achieve a specific transformation or behavior change in their lives, or they are learning about a complex process.

Mapping out your course in such a way that students can see mini results on their way to larger results can open the feedback loop and make it a little more clear as to whether students are seeing progress or not.

Ali and Chris also cover the different styles of teaching and how different teaching styles impact the learning content in different ways. The mark of a good teacher these days, especially in the online world, has to do with the application of information and seeing if the teaching actually works to produce results.

If you are listening to this during teacher appreciation week starting Monday, May 6th through Friday, May 10th 2019, then be sure to look out for special promotions and the blog posts we will have out about the event. Thanks for joining us!

Chris Bintliff joins Chris Badgett on this episode of the LMScast podcast to discuss how online course marketing and sales is not really rocket science. Chris Bintliff is a consultant that works in companies rather than for companies. He shares useful mindsets to utilize when approaching marketing and selling courses in order to speak to the customer where they are.

“Little hinges swing big doors.” Chris Badgett shares some insights he has learned when tweaking the dials and challenging fundamental assumptions in marketing and business. Bringing strategy rather than just acting as a button-pusher is key to delivering your client’s true results as a consultant.

Many companies use a lot of I-focused statements that describe the business itself. This phrasing creates a cognitive load for your audience, which means they have to figure out why your message matters to them. If you can start with the customer and work backwards in your marketing it will help you communicate the problem and pain you are trying to solve more effectively.

By focusing your marketing message on the customer rather than who you are, you change the mood of the sales conversation. Chris Bintliff explains the CARE framework he uses to classify his prospect funnel and means of lead generation:

C - Clueless, but curious customer.

A - Attentive prospects willing to give their email in exchange for a PDF or guide.

R - Responsive or ready prospects are willing to spend time in a webinar or consultation.

E - Engaged customers who are willing to give their experience in the form of a testimonial or case study for you to bring to the top of your funnel.

To learn more about Chris Bintliff you can check out his agency at NotReallyRocketScience.com. He also has courses over on NotReallyFlightSchool.com that cover all sorts of relevant topics for course creators such as automating your marketing funnel to learning about specific industry tools.

Ken Wallace of MastermindJam joins us in this episode of the LMScast podcast with Chris Badgett, CEO of LifterLMS, to discuss how masterminding can improve your odds of success by networking with other business owners who can give you advice and hold you accountable to what you set out to accomplish.

Ken is the founder of MastermindJam, a peer-to-peer mastermind platform that focuses on groups of four to five people. In this episode Ken and Chris talk about the different types of groups, and what goes into creating a successful mastermind.

With mastermind groups, you have the ability to come to your meetings with your cards open and trust that the people there can share their experience and help you with issues you are facing in your business. Mastermind groups are not going to solve everything, but they help hold you accountable and give you the advice you need to grow.

Mastermind groups can help you grow at any stage in your business. Beginners should meet on a weekly basis, as your ideas for your business change dramatically from week to week when you are first starting out. More established business owners may only need to meet with their group once per month.

Many entrepreneurs live an isolated lifestyle. Mastermind groups can be a great way to connect with people who understand problems you face and how to overcome them. MastermindJam has great tools for figuring out which groups you would best fit into.

At LifterLMS we have an Office Hours Mastermind call once per week where power users can meet up to discuss tech issues, strategy recommendations, and more. That is a feature in the LifterLMS Infinity Bundle, so be sure to head over to LifterLMS.com and check that out. We also recommend looking into MastermindJam.com to learn more about the world of connections you can make over there with other like-minded entrepreneurs.

One of the five hats course creators wear is the community builder. Tanner Moushey joins us in this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS to discuss why you may want to consider using the BuddyPress plugin to add an extra layer of engagement for students on your website.

Tanner is the founder of iWitness Design, and he has been in the web development space for many years. He specializes in creating interactive websites and websites that incorporate BuddyPress for the social engagement aspect of design. In this episode he shares what he has learned from working on development projects.

Tanner created a website to serve as a platform for his church called Study.Church. He built this solution to address the clunky process his pastor would carry out where he would send weekly Bible study documents, and people could print them off. This system would occasionally have issues if the pastor accidentally sent the wrong study, so Tanner built a solution to help make this process easier for their congregation.

Engaging with a community can be an extremely valuable aspect to the learning process. Tanner shares a story from when he was doing remote college and he ended up failing a class, because the whole curriculum was a book. He was tasked with learning the information to pass the exams, but since there was no online or offline community, not enough information was reinforced for him to be able to utilize it later on.

Tanner does note that you want to do a good amount of planning and invest some strategy into figuring out how you can best utilize BuddyPress, rather than jumping in and adding BuddyPress to your site and going from there. With newer themes available for WordPress, you can get pretty far with your site without having to engage someone for customization.

To learn more about Tanner Moushey be sure to head over to iWitnessDesign.com and Study.Church. You can also find and connect with him on Twitter at @TannerMoushey

Justin Wise of Think Digital joins Chris Badgett in this episode of the LMScast podcast. Chris and Justin dive into best practices for developing course businesses, and a bunch of tips and strategies for marketing. Justin shares some frameworks he has learned from working in the online marketing space since 2007, and what he has seen and validated with projects he’s worked on.

Justin and Chris talk about how the process and tactics behind reaching your persona with your purpose. Starting out looking at business tactics and tech to make the process work is a common occurrence, but it is often ineffective, because that is starting without a solid foundation.

Many businesses and courses fail, but it does seem like they are product focused rather than purpose focused. If you have a setup where you are purpose focused, then you can change the product without it really affecting your ability to succeed with your business.

A lot of course creators also start by creating the course before validating. Justin emphasizes the importance of validating before creating a course and exactly what you can do to validate a course. Validation can be a simple process, but it is one that many people skip or over complicate.

Entrepreneurs can get discouraged when they have an idea that doesn’t pop. Justin emphasizes how that is normal, and coming from a point of being purpose driven in your business means there is less of an issue when a product does not work out. This is also another reason why validation is an important thing to do before putting in a lot of work to create your entire product.

Creating a network of affiliates is something some course creators and membership site owners try to take on prematurely. Affiliates are a great way to scale a business, but they are not a solid starting strategy, especially early on. Attracting great affiliates is also something that is important when creating an affiliate network.

You can find Justin Wise at ThinkDigital.co and on Twitter and Instagram at @JustinWise

Grant Weherley of MonetizeMyExpertise.com joins us in this episode of the LMScast podcast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS to discuss strategies for making courses, and how you can market courses once they are live. Chris and Grant cover all sorts of ground relevant to all types of course creators.

Chris and Grant talk about the five hats problem for course creation, and how the instructional designer hat plays a huge role in how well course content is communicated. Many experts believe they can create a good course solely because they know their topic inside and out. What they can forget to factor in is the instructional design, video editing, marketing, and all the things that are separate from the topic of the material.

One huge benefit to including others in the process is that they can give you insights on the perspective of a beginner. The expert’s curse describes the common misconception course creators have where it’s assumed that everyone knows what they do, and they assume knowledge the students do not yet have.

Educating customers before they purchase your course is huge for capturing engagement. Chris and Grant talk about some strategies you can use to earn the right to sell someone once you have your product in front of them. Grant also shares some considerations for pricing your course.

Grant shares the process they go through at Monetize My Expertise for content development and project strategizing. One very effective method he shares for generating course content is to have interview or teaching calls where someone can pick your brain about a certain subject to identify what areas are most confusing to people and what may need to be addressed in more depth overall.

To learn more about Grant Weherley be sure to head to MonetizeMyExpertise.com, and you can set up a call with a member of his team to learn more about if they can help you bring your course to the level you want it to be at.

Service provider, course creator, and software entrepreneur Sam Brodie joins us to share his journey from entering the WordPress world to selling his web design agency in this episode of the LMScast podcast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS. Sam shares his story of creating JurisPage, and what business builders should focus on if they are considering selling the business.

Sam shares his personal experience in business with the importance of choosing a niche and doubling down on it. JurisPage is in the legal niche, and a lot of law firms and lawyers have bad websites, so there is a great opportunity to fill a need and help them as a design and marketing company.

Sam shares what he has learned about why a niche company makes you more valuable to other companies for value adds when considering acquisition. Being productized as a service is also helpful, because you have a consistent lead flow, a consistent process, and a consistent product.

Sam’s largest tip for service providers in this episode is to incorporate recurring revenue and establish partnerships with other people in your industry. When looking for an industry to focus on for offering web design services, Sam looks for three things: domain expertise, the size of the market, and the ability of that market to pay for marketing services.

Chris and Sam talk about how platforms like Udemy are great for lead generation, as it has a whole network of courses and users looking for content on specific topics, but they are not the best places to make money. So you may want to consider putting up an introductory or mini course over on a hosted platform and funneling that into a premium service, membership, or course on your LifterLMS site.

Be sure to check out Offsprout.com to learn about the page builder for freelancers and agencies. You can find Sam’s course Productized: How to Build a 7-Figure Web Design Business at: https://www.udemy.com/user/sambrodie/