Creating A Scholarship For SEO
-
My client is a Law Firm just outside of Tampa, and I am trying to get her keyword phrase: "Tampa Car Accident Attorney" in the top 3. One of the strategies I want to use is to create a scholarship for "Tampa Area Students and how a car accident impacted their life" or "Tampa Area Students and how they think they can decrease car accidents." (that's still be worked on). Once the scholarship is created, I want to put it on our Tampa Car Accident Attorney page, and get other companies to link to that page.
My question is what links should we go after? Because that will tailor it to who we give the scholarship to. We could give it to a University of South Florida student, and get one .edu link. We could do the same thing for the University of Tampa, or Stetson Law School, but we'd only be getting one link from each of them.
If we set it up for high schoolers, we can get more links from the community and schools, but I'm not sure high school .edu links matter all that much. Is 10 high school .edu links as important as 1 college .edu link? I don't know. If anyone has had an experience with this or any insights, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Thanks!
-
lol.... Something like that might get fantastic action if it is on one of the big newspaper sites.
-
I'm surprised as well.
I was thinking that creating PR release about how "I can't give away $25K" might get the fire started.
-
TheDude: Thanks for sharing this information. Sorry that this has not worked as expected.
I am surprised that the spectacular prize has not produced a spectacular impact. Really puzzling when free money isn't like throwing gasoline on a fire.
Good luck.
-
EGOL, I had the same mindset when creating our scholarship program (see: http://www.jwsuretybonds.com/scholarship/). I figured the $25,000 prize and allowing anyone going to an accredited U.S. school would take care of it self.
We still decided to play it safe and have an internal resource reach out to universities and scholarship sites to get the seed started. We started this in the beginning of the year and here is what we've found...
- Sometimes a spectacular prize is something perceive as too good to be true. This goes for the universities and students alike.
- Universities WILL link to you, but you need to search out the ones that do.
- Universities are AWFUL at letting their students know about scholarship resources. If you want a lot of entries, it appears www.fastweb.com is by far the best resource. We now get about 1,000 hits a day from FastWeb (just got listed 2 weeks ago) and are only now beginning to see entries pick up.
I'd like to do this every year, but in order to justify it we need more qualified entries and **a lot more buzz. **
In our experience, the spectacular prize did not care of things like you and I presumed. Our internal resource is still working hard to spread the word.
-
You can get links from many colleges and universities, but the process is time consuming. Make sure that you (or your client) is administering the scholarship, and not another organization. Most schools will have an "External Awards" page and you can get links. Typically the administrators in the Financial Services/Awards are the ones who can get results, but I have found that they need to be approached individually, and the content of the emails tailored to them and their school.
Additionally, if your award is geared toward a certain segment of the student population, look at faculty or department sites as well as clubs or organizations for awards pages or blogs as well.
-
Most universities are going to list the scholarship on a page of their website that contains information about the scholarship and other related scholarships. They might say that the scholarship is funded by a specific company but if you think that you are getting a link out of it that is being presumptuous. They are probably NOT going to link to you. Look at their scholarship pages. My bet is they are NOT linking out.
So, if you want the scholarship to get big buzz it better be a really big prize and your website needs to be the exclusive source of the full details about who is qualified to receive it, how to apply, and if it is awarded on the basis of competition or merit, how the winner of the scholarship will be determined.
How much should the prize be? Before I answer, I will say that you should be in this for helping people more than for SEO. I'd start at $5,000 or more. With a new prize awarded each year. You can get a bit buzz with a scholarship of that size. You will get zero buzz with a $500 scholarship.
-
I haven't done it yet, because I still don't know how best to approach it. Here are the options that I know of in my area (Tampa, Florida). If I go through one of the universities in the area, they will setup the scholarship for us free. So, there's no time, money or effort expended other than stroking a check. However, they only want the scholarship to go to one of their students (makes sense). So we will only get one link out of that, even if it is an .edu link.
On the other hand, if we do it for say "aspiring women professionals," then we can get market it to all the various women's clubs in the area, youth groups, churches, etc. So before we pull the trigger, I am trying to decide is it better to get 1 .edu link or a bunch of other links. I was hoping someone had some experience or studies on this I could look at, but so far I have not got anything conclusive.
-
Awesome post! I'm also thinking of launching a scholarship program for business management and marketing students. Not sure how to approach colleges and universities. Were you able to get any .EDU links from yours?
-
It sounds like you are prepared to spend a ton of money on engineering and promotion. I would instead put all of that money into making the prize a spectacular amount. Not $500, not $5000... but spectacular. The promotion will take care of itself. Consider opening the contest to a very broad geographic area - line the northern hemisphere. Get permission to publish the essays. Now you have what you need.
Substance will defeat SEO.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can I create forum backlinks for a "digital marketing agency" website?
I am working on a "digital marketing service" website. I want to create forum backlinks. Can I create forum backlinks for this type of website? If yes, then what is the possible strategy.
Link Building | | jamesfin123
Looking for an expert guide.0 -
Is it SEO OK if i cloak internal links and put them in sidebar ?
Hi, I just want to know if i cloak internal link/url and put them in sidebar? Basically i am looking out to cloak below url which contains parameter http://example.com/?tag=tag1+tag2 TO http://example.com/someword/sometagtag Is it SEO acceptable ? Thanks, Raj
Link Building | | RajeshB0 -
Advices On Yoast SEO!
Hello Guys, I have a short issue, that i still can't figure it out from my previous Q&A. Why is google doing this ( ranking for a tag and not for title tag ) - do I have some misplaced setting in yoast seo? Please find the attachment. Also there is any way that someone could help me edit something in yoast? Thanks. KDu0Z1Y
Link Building | | DexSmart0 -
What should I look for when choosing a good article directory for SEO purposes?
I have been writing SEO content for blogs for the past year or so, but I am fairly new to article directories. With SEO in mind, what makes a particular article directory valuable? Currently I'm using EzineArticles and Squidoo; I liked Ezine in particular because of their thorough review process. I saw that recently Squidoo also amped up their checks for original content as a result of Google's stricter policies. I was interested in using HubPages also since they are good about reviewing content. I'm just curious how much factors like this reflect on an article directory SEO-wise. Are there any additional factors that set a a good article directory apart?
Link Building | | Madlena0 -
Is business related directory paid links OK for SEO?
I heard paid links are not good. My business is wedding related e-commerce. There are some wedding directory site out there and I need to paid them in order to put my links there. Are these directory links also count as paid links? Is it bad for SEO? I saw some popular wedding sites put their sites there too. BTW, is Yahoo , botw or business.com directory treated as paid link? Thanks, Hon
Link Building | | honkwok0 -
Seo using images
I have a client that creates a lot of custom jewelry and takes pictures of it. They've been reluctant to part with it for fear of competitors stealing their designs, but I was able to finally wrastle them into submission and get them to release 30+ original images. I had some ideas about it, but I was wondering if you guys could help me brainstorm doing some linkbuilding using these images. 1. tag them all on pinterest 2. create a slideshow using them and upload to slidesharing sites 3. create a flickr account and upload all the images 4. search for other image/slideshare gallery sites and upload to them. (I welcome any suggestions regarding this). Any other suggestions for submissions? I was also thinking of creating some written content around each image. What type of web properties would be best for for example a FAQ about custom made emerald rings, or other types of jewelry.
Link Building | | ilyaelbert0 -
Should I outsource any SEO work or can I do it all?
My website needs a lot of improvement and we are working on it but I also don't want to fall behind on the SEO work. I am guessing that I can do much of it myself through SEOmoz.org but is there a part that busy folks should get others to do? Any feedback will be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Utah Tiger
Link Building | | Boodreaux0 -
What's your favourite SEO directory?
We're having a bit of a debate in the office today about SEO directories. We all seem to have our favourites here - Octopedia, AbiLogic and JoeAnt to name a few that have been mentioned. Just wondering what everyone else's favourite directories for SEO are? Which pass the best link juice? Which offer the best value for money? Would love to know everyone's thoughts...
Link Building | | Digirank1