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.
Ahrefs Academy
Meanwhile “Blogging for Business” a relatively new course launched in the 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
Ahrefs Presenter
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.
Ahrefs Academy Video 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 into optimizing the video’s length.
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 a 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 the video editing skills of the Ahref team are on point. They tick almost every box.
Using a solid black mouse pointer on a white background for contrast.
Highlighting keywords with adequate emphasis from the speaker and pop-up texts.
Highlighting keywords - Ahrefs
Highlighting activity area on the UI screen using a background-foreground contrast.
Highlighting Activity Area - Ahrefs
We also see the whole course being strung together with outros and intros of subsequent videos linking to each other. 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 is a lack of courses but if you take a deeper look one course is centered 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.
Sam Oh - Ahrefs
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
Ready to get started?
Avoid spending long hours in Course video production and fix customer churn today!
Kunaal is a marketing and branding enthusiast. He likes to make content that in on the philosophy "Teach everything I know".
Currently reading "How to read Lacan"
Kunaal Gupta