Ahrefs is an SEO software suite. It also happens to be in a hyper-competitive space that has players like Moz and SEMrush.

So it is imperative they differentiate themselves from the competition. One of the ways to do that is through content. Genuine, engaging content that builds authority and converts users.

Ahref Academy is what helps them do this effectively and efficiently.

First Impression

Ahrefs Academy has 2 courses both being almost 5 hours long. One is “Marketing with Ahrefs” and the other is “Blogging for Business”.

“Marketing with Ahrefs” is taught by Sam Oh, Director of product education, who over the years has become the face of the company because of the extensive content he puts out on Ahref’s youtube page.

Meanwhile “Blogging for Business” a relatively new course launched in summer of 2020 is taught by Tim Soulo, head of marketing at Ahrefs.
Important to note that this was previously sold for $799.

Talk about giving value. 

Both courses have a short introductory video talking about the goal of the course, introducing the presenter and a rough overview. All of this within a minute

Takeaways

• Accept that your product has a learning curve and can be overwhelming
• Define the “big picture” for the course along with a quick overview
• Keep it short and crisp

What we disliked

The courses are rigorous but at the same time, the videos tend to be on the lengthier side sometimes. And we mean way too long.

Now we understand sometimes you just need to tell a few things together to make a coherent picture but these can easily be broken down into parts.

Say “9 things that only Ahrefs can do Part 1-2-3” taking 3 things at a time.

Doing analysis on data points such as engagement and drop off-points will give us a better insight on optimising the length of the video.

But in our experience, 3 minutes is the sweet spot.

“Blogging for Business” could have used a picture-in-picture format over a simple screen record.

It gets monotonous after a while and change of style, particularly alternating between presenter and UI screen is a much better way to keep the audience hooked.

Because as we continually say “To get people to pay attention, get people”

Takeaways

• Optimal video length is seen to be 3 minutes
• Try including talking heads with screen records

What we Liked

It is no denying that video editing skills of Ahref team are on point. They tick almost every box.

Using a solid black mouse pointer on a white background for contrast. CHECK

Highlighting keywords with adequate emphasis from the speaker and pop-up texts. CHECK

Highlighting activity area on the UI screen using a background-foreground contrast. CHECK

We also see the whole course being strung together with outros and intros of subsequent videos linking to each another. This makes the whole course a movie instead of mini-stories put together.

Takeaways

• Use appropriate arrow pointers
• Highlight relevant keywords as pop-up text
• Highlight activity area

Final Verdict

At first glance, you might think there are a lack of courses but if you take a deeper look one course is centred around product education, other is around what we call “the craft”.

Perfect balance if you ask me.

Plus if you are really hungry for content you can head to their Youtube page.

The tweet goes on to show how “academy” can serve as an excellent means for generating traffic and leads.

Do you want to make a similar academy around your product?

We at Content Beta are specialists at building quick-win video course lead magnets for your marketing funnels and onboarding new customers.

We would love to know your needs