Simple SEO Strategies for Member Websites
The membership websites are a double-edged sword. It's a great position to be in as you're paid to create useful content. Creating a supportive community, helping members solve problems, or even teaching people a new skill can all be a benefit of the membership sites.
You can't solely on the production of paid content for your members since you'll also have to market your site. One of the most important pieces of the puzzle of promotion is to be able to draw organic traffic from search engines. However, having your content locked behind a secure paywall makes it difficult or difficult to gain the exact positive benefits you're looking for of.
In this article we'll examine two easy strategies that you can use to improve the search engine ranking of your website and drive more organic traffic to your membership website. We'll also discuss the on-page elements you should take into consideration when producing content that is as easy to comprehend and is more likely to get highly ranked.
Post Excerpts, Restricted Content and Post Excerpts
A lot of people don't realize that search engines are all about just one thing: giving the most enjoyable experience for the user.
Keeping 100% of the content you publish behind paywalls rarely an effective strategy since it creates a negative user experience. Google doesn't have any interest in directing users to information that isn't available to them. In the end, when there's the absence of any index, decent rankings and organic search results will be slowed down.
In order to improve your ranking and improve organic traffic to your site in SERPs, it is possible to accomplish two things using the content you publish:
- Utilize post excerpts to present portions of your content in front of protected content that is readable by visitors and indexable for search engines.
- Utilizing Shortcodes or PHP fragments, you could limit access to only a certain section of your website. So for example you could display an entire article however, you can make a smaller key portion of it restricted to users only.
Making a distinction between paid and publicly accessible content can be difficult. There are recommendations for 200 to 300 word extracts per item of content that is protected, which is fine. However, if you find that your competitors are using excerpts of identical size, do you think it's time to think about offering more? In enhancing the amount and quality of information available to search engines, you'll be more likely to find your content indexed and ranking well.
High-Value Content Free
The use of free content could be the best strategy when it comes to promoting your membership site. Although it goes against everything you want to achieve through a membership website, If you are confident in the value you are providing behind a paywall it is likely to help you attract the most members possible than everything other method.
We're not talking about content for free that can lead users to being a paid member. No, we're talking about free content that offers huge value. So much value that visitors are unable to help but notice how much better off they would be with a paid subscription.
Apart from impressing the users, useful and affordable information will also be a hit with the engines. This is exactly what they want to put in search results. When you think about this from their point view, would you rather include a few small pieces of content with no real value or an amazing, valuable article that impresses readers?
The Benefits of Great Content
Now that you know what you need to do (provide low-cost, high-value content or other content) it is a matter of how should you structure that information to increase the benefits of SEO?
Content Length Matters (But Not as Much as You think)
It's not like I said the longer a piece of material is, the more it matters. This is because there are occasions that a few hundred words are sufficient, and there are other times that a few thousand words are appropriate. In the end, as per serpIQ it was found that the typical content length on the first page of SERPs was greater than 2000 words (entire page with sidebars). However, don't let this figure mislead you. SerpIQ also hypothesized that the age of domains, natural backlinks, social signals and others all were a major factor in how content is ranked for competitive keywords.
What does this mean in the context of a typical membership site? It means your content needs to be long enough and offer enough value to ensure that users feel compelled to share, link, share, and comment. If you were hoping that your basic 200-word excerpt from your post would have you ranking in the top search results You could be disappointed.
On-Page SEO
It's not over when you produce a piece of amazing content. The way you design your page or blog post is just as vital. Below are a handful things you must be thinking about when designing your site or article:
- Use a keyword friendly URL and the title. To increase your leverage, you can try to position the keyword further in front rather than rear.
- Use your keywords once in the initial two paragraphs.
- Support your content with related outsidebound Links to authoritative content.
- Links to related content on your membership site.
- Be generous with videos and images wherever possible.
- Speed is important. The website you're running doesn't need to have the speediest website on the block. However, should it stand out as unusually slow, it will likely be subject to penalties.
- Include a meaningful and detailed meta description that is intriguing to people who read it.
Wrap It Up
There are no tricks or tricks when it comes to optimizing your membership website for search. If you're creating a website built to stand the test of time There isn't a better way to improve your SEO than by the creation of high quality and indexable content.
If your entire information is locked behind a wall this is great for your customers however it will not do anything to improve your organic web traffic.
The most efficient way to increase your SEO on your site's members is by using a combination of free content including post excerpts and restricted content. If you are able to make more content accessible to search engines, more likely to increase your position on the SERPs.
What methods do you think most effective to boost your membership websites SEO? Do share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.