Unless you have been living in a bubble over the last few weeks you would have received email from companies (some you might not even recognise) advising you of a change in their privacy policy due to the changes that came into effect today the 25th of May 2018 to do with GDPR.
A lot of you might not have thought this has much to do with Driving school marketing whether it be online or via traditional phone and postal leaflet drops.
I'm not going to go into details about this on my driving school marketing blog, as there are many places with full details including the UK's Information commission website, but you need to make sure that inform anyone who hold their details of the fact you do so, why you are holding theirs details, and what their rights are.
This is especially important if you don't have an on-going relationship with them (for example past learner drivers, or those who might have made an enquiry in the past who you occasionally send promotions for your driving school, as they now have a right to request their details be deleted if you have no lawful reason for holding on to them.
This should by no means mean you have to stop your online marketing activities as a driving instructor, but you do need to make sure you stay within the law as well as respond to legitimate requests to have details deleted or requests to find out what type of information you hold on file for an individual.
All the best with your marketing drive, and remember it is a continuous process or your competition will get ahead of your driving school.
How to market your driving school business
In this blog I will be sharing with you my ideas on how to effectively market your driving school business online using a website, as well as other tips that will help you as an approved driving instructor to get more pupils.
There are many ways that you can promote your school business and I'll list a few below, but I've found out that having a driving instructor website (I use a blog) online is one of the most cost effective advertising and marketing ways, with a very high return on one's investment.
Can I just mention at this point that successful marketing on the web takes time and effort and is a constant process, so if your are approached by anyone (so called SEO experts) who claims to offer a quick turn over in a week or month, they are playing on your ignorance and will take your money and probably leave your website in a worse situation (in the long run) after what might look like progress in the short term, so as you have probably heard before, buyer beware!
While marketing online can be very effective, here a few ways of advertising your driving school business offline which will complement your website or blog once it is up and running.
A roof sign will only advertise your number or school name while it is on the car, but having graphics on your car can advertise your name, number, website, slogan everytime someone sees the vehicle whether you are instructing or not.
If you are one of those that says I want to be able to use my car privatey without drawing attention to my business, then you either have enough clients (which is fine), or you have no business sense and are being stupid. If you want learner drivers to call you, you need the maximum exposure you can get, which is why the national driving schools such as AA, BSM, RED, LDC all have graphics on their vehicles, it looks professional, draws attention but most importantly advertises the business and reminds people who to call when they want driving lessons.
Your business card should have your school name, contact number, website details as a minimum, other things you can add are your name, company slogan. Don't put things like prices or special offers on them (your website can carry those) as they tend to change, and cards could be kept for years before being used.
Whatever method you use to market your business, it is very important that you monitor your adverts and only use those that work, don't be pressurised by sales people into renewing adverts in papers, yellow pages, magazines that don't work.
With the help of information in this website, I hope you will be able to build an online marketing tool that will generate many enquiries and give your business great exposure.
As I mentioned at the beginning, having an online presence is one of the most effective ways of getting exposure for your driving tuition services, so lets get started with the next most important step:
There are many ways that you can promote your school business and I'll list a few below, but I've found out that having a driving instructor website (I use a blog) online is one of the most cost effective advertising and marketing ways, with a very high return on one's investment.
Can I just mention at this point that successful marketing on the web takes time and effort and is a constant process, so if your are approached by anyone (so called SEO experts) who claims to offer a quick turn over in a week or month, they are playing on your ignorance and will take your money and probably leave your website in a worse situation (in the long run) after what might look like progress in the short term, so as you have probably heard before, buyer beware!
While marketing online can be very effective, here a few ways of advertising your driving school business offline which will complement your website or blog once it is up and running.
Driving School Car
Your school car can be used to let potential clients know of your services, but many driving instructors don't maximise this potential. Having a roof sign is good, but putting graphics on the car is even better.A roof sign will only advertise your number or school name while it is on the car, but having graphics on your car can advertise your name, number, website, slogan everytime someone sees the vehicle whether you are instructing or not.
If you are one of those that says I want to be able to use my car privatey without drawing attention to my business, then you either have enough clients (which is fine), or you have no business sense and are being stupid. If you want learner drivers to call you, you need the maximum exposure you can get, which is why the national driving schools such as AA, BSM, RED, LDC all have graphics on their vehicles, it looks professional, draws attention but most importantly advertises the business and reminds people who to call when they want driving lessons.
Business Cards
Business cards are another marketing tool that you can use to advertise your services, and you need to have an abundant supply of them on your person as well as your car to hand out either when asked while out giving tuition, or when ever you might be networking.Your business card should have your school name, contact number, website details as a minimum, other things you can add are your name, company slogan. Don't put things like prices or special offers on them (your website can carry those) as they tend to change, and cards could be kept for years before being used.
Clothing
You can get things like ties, polo shirts and jackets made with your driving school name, website or number embossed on them, and wearing these in public give a professional image while at the same time serve as a means of marketing your services to potential clients. The fact that you are a local independent instructor does not mean you can not use some of the big companies methods as well, if it works for them, why not for you. You can even go as far as getting caps made which you could give as a gift to students that pass their driving test with you. I know one instructor for example who always wears a branded tie and shirt when working and irrespective of how much he charges per hour, he sure makes an impression whenever he shows up.Other ways of marketing
Job fairs or career advice days at local colleges. Offering free driving lessons as prizes for year 12 students or A level institutions. Some people do leaflet drops (expensive and not very effective), others advertise in newspapers and yellow pages (I don't do this, as you don't get many enquiries from these avenues, instead the papers make the money and will continue to try to get you renew your adverts). Some driving school instructors advertise in university magazines, I have no idea how effective this is, but you can try it and see if it works for you.Whatever method you use to market your business, it is very important that you monitor your adverts and only use those that work, don't be pressurised by sales people into renewing adverts in papers, yellow pages, magazines that don't work.
With the help of information in this website, I hope you will be able to build an online marketing tool that will generate many enquiries and give your business great exposure.
As I mentioned at the beginning, having an online presence is one of the most effective ways of getting exposure for your driving tuition services, so lets get started with the next most important step:
- Getting An Online Presence Via a Website or Blog!
- What Domain Name Do I Register To Promote my Services?
- Using Your Domain Name With Your Driving School Blog
- Getting Your New Website to Show in Google Results
- How To Write Good Posts to Get Your Blog Noticed!
- Examples of How To Promote Your Website & Increase Exposure
Once you have completed these steps have a look at the various other tips and advice scattered all over here for bonus points to stay ahead of the competition. If you keep up the hard word, you will reap the rewards in the long run, happy marketing!
Which SEO Expert is Promoting Your Website?
In a previous article, I mentioned the importance of promoting your driving school website, and gave some ideas of how you can go about doing that. Many instructors are now using additional resources or leveraging the popularity of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to do this with good results.
I am not the only one who has probably had emails in my inbox from so called Driving School SEO experts who claim to be able to help you get your website url onto page one of google's search pages, but have you ever wondered how they go about it, and if they are actually good at what they do?
Many of these experts do nothing more than post useless comments on other peoples blogs with an optimised text link to your website. I have copied below an example of the many blog spam comments I get from such people who take your money and have no chance of success:
As you would probably have guessed, they are trying to promote a website offering 'Driving Lessons in Dublin', not only is the comment of no relevance to the article it was posted on, the English grammar is so poor, there is no way I would accept such comments on my website!!
So next time you get an email from someone, before you part with your hard earned cash, you should think twice.
More Reading
Choose the right domain name for your driving school website.
I am not the only one who has probably had emails in my inbox from so called Driving School SEO experts who claim to be able to help you get your website url onto page one of google's search pages, but have you ever wondered how they go about it, and if they are actually good at what they do?
Many of these experts do nothing more than post useless comments on other peoples blogs with an optimised text link to your website. I have copied below an example of the many blog spam comments I get from such people who take your money and have no chance of success:
'I find many useful things herewith. It is really amazing for us. Where ever we are, just click on the website and Take advantages .Your article impressed me very heartily. From a last decade I driving lessons searching such type of web site. I refer this to my close friends who are already seeking for driving lessons in Dublin .thanks again guys'
As you would probably have guessed, they are trying to promote a website offering 'Driving Lessons in Dublin', not only is the comment of no relevance to the article it was posted on, the English grammar is so poor, there is no way I would accept such comments on my website!!
So next time you get an email from someone, before you part with your hard earned cash, you should think twice.
More Reading
Choose the right domain name for your driving school website.
Using Driving School Directory Advertising or Listing - Any Good?
Many newly qualified instructors will probably consider using one of the many Driving School Directories on the internet for marketing their services to potential clients, especially if they offer free listings.
I would always advice any driving instructor that their first step should be to have their own website for advertsing, as in the long run it is the best option for promoting your business.
Having said that, anyone who has read this marketing blog will know that your driving school website will not start working for you overnight, it takes time and some effort, so having something to kick start your online campaign is not a bad idea, so which directory, and what options?
Personally I don't believe any of the many driving school directories out there are doing you a favour even if they are offering free listings. They are out to make money be it via advertising or through the selling of premium listings to instructors who are trying to attract more learner drivers in these hard times, so you need to look carefully to make sure you chose the right one to go for.
Choosing a Driving school directory to list your business in.
There is no point in listing your business on a website that is not reaching your potential clients, so the first step to choosing a directory is a google search for your local area.
Take an example of a new ADI based in tamworth, a search for 'driving instructor tamworth', driving school tamworth' and 'driving lessons tamworth' reveals one directory in the top 5 spot, so this is your likely candidate to use.
Free or Paid Listing?
Using the directory found above, the only option I would consider using would be a paid listing, as it appears that free ones are arranged in alphabetical order, so unless your business name starts with A, you are at the bottom of the list.
Some directories do use a random/rotation feature for their free listings which means that entries are rotated each time the page loads, this is much fairer and better for all instructors, so consider using this type for free directory listing.
The paid listng in this directory doesn't seem to stand out from the other listings either through the use of different fonts or bold type face, so think about this when choosing a paid listing as you want people to notice your entry (this will obviously cost you more). Another thing you should look out for is do they link to your website (especially if they offer 'Do Follow' ones).
Traking your Listing
As always you need to track and performance test your online advertising campaign even if it is a free listing. The easiest way to do this is by using a unique phone number (PAYG SIMS and Mobiles are cheap). I would definately do this if I was paying for a listing (you can always ask a caller where they got your number from, but some simply say online, and you might not know where from), this will enable you to know what does and doesn't work, as I said earlier the directory owner wants to make money, so they will want you to renew any paid listing or convert a free one to paid, so only put your money into something that works (it takes money to make money).
At the end of the day, a well optimised and targeted website will always outperform a directory, so they should only be used as a stepping stone, get your own driving school website advertising your services and stop paying someone else.
More reading
Driving School Optimisation Expert.
Choosing driving school name.
I would always advice any driving instructor that their first step should be to have their own website for advertsing, as in the long run it is the best option for promoting your business.
Having said that, anyone who has read this marketing blog will know that your driving school website will not start working for you overnight, it takes time and some effort, so having something to kick start your online campaign is not a bad idea, so which directory, and what options?
Personally I don't believe any of the many driving school directories out there are doing you a favour even if they are offering free listings. They are out to make money be it via advertising or through the selling of premium listings to instructors who are trying to attract more learner drivers in these hard times, so you need to look carefully to make sure you chose the right one to go for.
Choosing a Driving school directory to list your business in.
There is no point in listing your business on a website that is not reaching your potential clients, so the first step to choosing a directory is a google search for your local area.
Take an example of a new ADI based in tamworth, a search for 'driving instructor tamworth', driving school tamworth' and 'driving lessons tamworth' reveals one directory in the top 5 spot, so this is your likely candidate to use.
Free or Paid Listing?
Using the directory found above, the only option I would consider using would be a paid listing, as it appears that free ones are arranged in alphabetical order, so unless your business name starts with A, you are at the bottom of the list.
Some directories do use a random/rotation feature for their free listings which means that entries are rotated each time the page loads, this is much fairer and better for all instructors, so consider using this type for free directory listing.
The paid listng in this directory doesn't seem to stand out from the other listings either through the use of different fonts or bold type face, so think about this when choosing a paid listing as you want people to notice your entry (this will obviously cost you more). Another thing you should look out for is do they link to your website (especially if they offer 'Do Follow' ones).
Traking your Listing
As always you need to track and performance test your online advertising campaign even if it is a free listing. The easiest way to do this is by using a unique phone number (PAYG SIMS and Mobiles are cheap). I would definately do this if I was paying for a listing (you can always ask a caller where they got your number from, but some simply say online, and you might not know where from), this will enable you to know what does and doesn't work, as I said earlier the directory owner wants to make money, so they will want you to renew any paid listing or convert a free one to paid, so only put your money into something that works (it takes money to make money).
At the end of the day, a well optimised and targeted website will always outperform a directory, so they should only be used as a stepping stone, get your own driving school website advertising your services and stop paying someone else.
More reading
Driving School Optimisation Expert.
Choosing driving school name.
Driving School Brand Marketing
I had a telephone call recently which reminded me of how important driving school car advertising is to the success of an instructor's business strategy.
I was called by the proprietor of an organisation that was prepared to offer me a driving school franchise for a weekly fee of just under £10, and that included the supply of pupils (headboard franchise). For a moment, it sounded like something I would be interested in (the owner apparently liked how I marketed myself on the internet, and thus was willing to give me such a good deal), after all while I know that NO franchise can guarantee pupil supply, but £10 a week was worth a risk taking, then the penny dropped, I'm going to have to use HIS roof sign on my car! Not another one of the those 5 lessons for £49 deals!
In effect I'm going to be advertising his school during every driving lesson and also paying him a fee for the privilege! It was now no longer looking like a good deal, especially when I looked up the school and noticed they had no presence in my local areas. So basically what the owner wanted was to build up a brand presence, and craftily wanted me to pay him at the same time.
This actually made me think of how important my brand was to me, especially as it is unique and I daily get hits on my website from people searching for the brand name on the internet.
So as a driving school owner do you have a unique brand name (John school of motoring is too common) and will someone seeing your car on the road unable to write down your number be able to find you on the internet, or will the business be picked up by a more established John or a more advertising savvy instructor? Food for though, maybe some of those funny driving school names do have a purpose after all.
I was called by the proprietor of an organisation that was prepared to offer me a driving school franchise for a weekly fee of just under £10, and that included the supply of pupils (headboard franchise). For a moment, it sounded like something I would be interested in (the owner apparently liked how I marketed myself on the internet, and thus was willing to give me such a good deal), after all while I know that NO franchise can guarantee pupil supply, but £10 a week was worth a risk taking, then the penny dropped, I'm going to have to use HIS roof sign on my car! Not another one of the those 5 lessons for £49 deals!
In effect I'm going to be advertising his school during every driving lesson and also paying him a fee for the privilege! It was now no longer looking like a good deal, especially when I looked up the school and noticed they had no presence in my local areas. So basically what the owner wanted was to build up a brand presence, and craftily wanted me to pay him at the same time.
This actually made me think of how important my brand was to me, especially as it is unique and I daily get hits on my website from people searching for the brand name on the internet.
So as a driving school owner do you have a unique brand name (John school of motoring is too common) and will someone seeing your car on the road unable to write down your number be able to find you on the internet, or will the business be picked up by a more established John or a more advertising savvy instructor? Food for though, maybe some of those funny driving school names do have a purpose after all.
Driving School SEO Expert
If you have been researching online driving school marketing with a website, you would have probably come across the term SEO expert, and some driving instructors seem to think they have a magical solution that will make their new website get to page one on google within a few days just because they are charging you a fee!
I was speaking to a franchised driving instructor the other day who was thinking about becoming independent in a couple of months, so I advised him to setup his own marketing driving school website now rather than waiting till he actually has made the transition, but he gave me all sorts of excuses why he shouldn't do that, and finally capped it with 'all I need to do once ready is to contact an SEO expert who will get my website up and running within a couple of days'!
Anyone can pass themselves off as an SEO expert in order to get your money, and they can even provide you with fancy website templates or even point you to other 'customers' they have helped to get onto page one of google for a particular search term, but the truth of the matter is that it takes time, effort and knowledge to gain an advantage over your competition in the search engine wars, and the earlier you start, the better it is for you and the more easy it is for your optimisation efforts to be rewarded.
Organisations like the AA, RED, BSM and the likes of LDC have been around for a very long time, have aged domain names that have earnt trust, are well known brand names and have thousands or even millions of links from a diverse range of internet websites, forums, blogs and even they still consult SEO companies to keep them at the top using various means backed by a large budget, so don't think you are just going to start overnight and dominate your local niche just because you are will to give some £250!
Over the last year and half or so that this blog has been in existence, I have shared various tips to help you as a driving instructor market your business not only online with a website or blog, but also off-line via your car, business cards and even enlisting the help of your current learner driver clients.
One thing that you will always note is that I mention hard work, consistency and a continual process. If you have some extra money that you want to give away, then send some my way, but there is no secret to becoming a sucessful business owner, time always has to take its toll, buy your driving school domain today, and get started, even if you have a franchise, I'm sure you would be happier turning away learners rather than hoping for more than is being provided. I am a SEO expert, and I have successful driving school in nw3 to prove it.
I was speaking to a franchised driving instructor the other day who was thinking about becoming independent in a couple of months, so I advised him to setup his own marketing driving school website now rather than waiting till he actually has made the transition, but he gave me all sorts of excuses why he shouldn't do that, and finally capped it with 'all I need to do once ready is to contact an SEO expert who will get my website up and running within a couple of days'!
Anyone can pass themselves off as an SEO expert in order to get your money, and they can even provide you with fancy website templates or even point you to other 'customers' they have helped to get onto page one of google for a particular search term, but the truth of the matter is that it takes time, effort and knowledge to gain an advantage over your competition in the search engine wars, and the earlier you start, the better it is for you and the more easy it is for your optimisation efforts to be rewarded.
Organisations like the AA, RED, BSM and the likes of LDC have been around for a very long time, have aged domain names that have earnt trust, are well known brand names and have thousands or even millions of links from a diverse range of internet websites, forums, blogs and even they still consult SEO companies to keep them at the top using various means backed by a large budget, so don't think you are just going to start overnight and dominate your local niche just because you are will to give some £250!
Over the last year and half or so that this blog has been in existence, I have shared various tips to help you as a driving instructor market your business not only online with a website or blog, but also off-line via your car, business cards and even enlisting the help of your current learner driver clients.
One thing that you will always note is that I mention hard work, consistency and a continual process. If you have some extra money that you want to give away, then send some my way, but there is no secret to becoming a sucessful business owner, time always has to take its toll, buy your driving school domain today, and get started, even if you have a franchise, I'm sure you would be happier turning away learners rather than hoping for more than is being provided. I am a SEO expert, and I have successful driving school in nw3 to prove it.
Online Driving School Marketing works for me!
It is almost 2 years since I registered a domain name and set about creating a new online driving school marketing website to demonstrate that you can attract new learner drivers inexpensively if you do a couple of simple things, are consistent and are willing to work on it (becoming a website geek is optional).
When I created the Hampstead driving school website, I had no clients in this area as it was a bit far from my home operating base and the effects of the current UK Economy downturn were not affecting learner driver income as it does today, so it was more of an experiment rather than a planned business expansion project, however I must confess that it has turned out to be blessing for me, as the increase in enquiries from this London post code has helped me maintain good income levels despite the economic woes, drop in lesson prices due to increased competition and fewer candidates demanding instructor tuition services.
My Hampstead driving school online marketing website is now consistently in the top 3 spot on google for the relevant terms (driving school, instructor, lessons, hampstead, nw3), it only has 11 pages of relevant articles and I don't have to do anything to it in terms of promotion, apart from referring new clients or students to it for informational purposes, and I am constantly getting enquiries from it (not all successfully converted, can't offer £15 lessons), but I get enough to make a difference, so my question to some of you who have read one or two of the articles I've written here is 'why haven't you done the same'?
4 Steps is all it takes:
Register your own domain name. Cost starts at less than £10 per year.
Create a Website for your driving school. Free to about £50 per year.
Create good quality articles for your website. Will require you to spend a few days thinking about/researching and then doing this (don't copy other people's articles and slightly modify, be creative).
Promote your website on Google and follow my advice by reading all the articles on this website. Don't be lazy, anytime not being used for driving lessons or administrative duties should be used for both online and offline marketing of your business, if you put the work in, you will reap the benefits.
Don't just think that offering cheap lesson prices is the quick solution to bringing in more pupils, there are a lot of clients out there who are willing to pay good money for your services, but you need to find them or be in a position for them to find you!
When I created the Hampstead driving school website, I had no clients in this area as it was a bit far from my home operating base and the effects of the current UK Economy downturn were not affecting learner driver income as it does today, so it was more of an experiment rather than a planned business expansion project, however I must confess that it has turned out to be blessing for me, as the increase in enquiries from this London post code has helped me maintain good income levels despite the economic woes, drop in lesson prices due to increased competition and fewer candidates demanding instructor tuition services.
My Hampstead driving school online marketing website is now consistently in the top 3 spot on google for the relevant terms (driving school, instructor, lessons, hampstead, nw3), it only has 11 pages of relevant articles and I don't have to do anything to it in terms of promotion, apart from referring new clients or students to it for informational purposes, and I am constantly getting enquiries from it (not all successfully converted, can't offer £15 lessons), but I get enough to make a difference, so my question to some of you who have read one or two of the articles I've written here is 'why haven't you done the same'?
4 Steps is all it takes:
Register your own domain name. Cost starts at less than £10 per year.
Create a Website for your driving school. Free to about £50 per year.
Create good quality articles for your website. Will require you to spend a few days thinking about/researching and then doing this (don't copy other people's articles and slightly modify, be creative).
Promote your website on Google and follow my advice by reading all the articles on this website. Don't be lazy, anytime not being used for driving lessons or administrative duties should be used for both online and offline marketing of your business, if you put the work in, you will reap the benefits.
Don't just think that offering cheap lesson prices is the quick solution to bringing in more pupils, there are a lot of clients out there who are willing to pay good money for your services, but you need to find them or be in a position for them to find you!
Free driving school advertising marketing website
Many ADIs or PDIs will be wondering if it is possible to use a completely free driving school website to market and advertise their instructor services online in a bid to get more learner drivers. Well the simple answer is yes, and I'll show you an example.
If you do a search on google.co.uk for 'driving lessons gloucester', you should find a website called 17+ Gloucester school of motoring
This website is a completely free driving instructors marketing blog hosted on blogspot.com with no strings attached and appears on the first page of both driving lessons and driving instructor gloucester. While this might not be a pretty looking online presence, it proudly advertises the owners number and is doing better than some other prettier driving school marketing sites that might have cost 100s of pounds to create and maintain on a monthly basis.
The main disadvantage with this particular website case is that the driving school owner does not own the domain name which means he is stuck with blogspot.com if he wants to keep the current google ranking.
Now if you don't want to use a blog to market you instructor services, but prefer to use a more traditional website, are there any free webhosting resources you could try? Again the answer is yes, and a reader suggested a couple which I looked at, and I've decided to mention Moonfruit for a couple of reasons which I will share in a few moments.
As you are probably aware by now, I'm a fan of using blogspot for my driving school advertising activities as demonstrated by this blog and my NW3 driving lessons online marketing presence, and that is because blogger is already search engine optimised (SEO) and very easy to setup and update with very little effort and finally because it is owned by google it is completely advert free as well as guaranteed to be around for a long time.
If you are worried about not being able to have a personally registered domain name used with the blogspot hosting service, have a look at an article on how to use personal domain name from 123-reg and blogger.
For those of you that prefer a more traditional website, you can also use Moonfruit mentioned above with your own domain name.
Update June 2015 The website used as an example above has slipped off the 1st page of rankings, this could be due to the simple reason that relevant content is not being added on a constant basis, so don't think that you can just setup an online presence forget about it and think it will continue to be at its best. You need to monitor, update and make sure your content is still relevant. The other thing is always check links to make sure they are still valid as broken links can affect a page or site ranking when it comes to SEO.
More Reading
Choosing a driving school domain name ro register.
If you do a search on google.co.uk for 'driving lessons gloucester', you should find a website called 17+ Gloucester school of motoring
This website is a completely free driving instructors marketing blog hosted on blogspot.com with no strings attached and appears on the first page of both driving lessons and driving instructor gloucester. While this might not be a pretty looking online presence, it proudly advertises the owners number and is doing better than some other prettier driving school marketing sites that might have cost 100s of pounds to create and maintain on a monthly basis.
The main disadvantage with this particular website case is that the driving school owner does not own the domain name which means he is stuck with blogspot.com if he wants to keep the current google ranking.
Now if you don't want to use a blog to market you instructor services, but prefer to use a more traditional website, are there any free webhosting resources you could try? Again the answer is yes, and a reader suggested a couple which I looked at, and I've decided to mention Moonfruit for a couple of reasons which I will share in a few moments.
As you are probably aware by now, I'm a fan of using blogspot for my driving school advertising activities as demonstrated by this blog and my NW3 driving lessons online marketing presence, and that is because blogger is already search engine optimised (SEO) and very easy to setup and update with very little effort and finally because it is owned by google it is completely advert free as well as guaranteed to be around for a long time.
If you are worried about not being able to have a personally registered domain name used with the blogspot hosting service, have a look at an article on how to use personal domain name from 123-reg and blogger.
For those of you that prefer a more traditional website, you can also use Moonfruit mentioned above with your own domain name.
Update June 2015 The website used as an example above has slipped off the 1st page of rankings, this could be due to the simple reason that relevant content is not being added on a constant basis, so don't think that you can just setup an online presence forget about it and think it will continue to be at its best. You need to monitor, update and make sure your content is still relevant. The other thing is always check links to make sure they are still valid as broken links can affect a page or site ranking when it comes to SEO.
More Reading
Choosing a driving school domain name ro register.
New Driving School Marketing Standards - ASA Regulations
From the 1st March 2011, all UK online marketing communications will be regulated by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), and they will be able to investigate complaints about false marketing campaigns on websites.
This now means that all owners of driving school websites need to make sure all claims are true and can be substantiated.
For more information about these new online marketing law changes, visit the ASA website.
These changes are most unlikely to affect driving instructors who only teach provisional licence holders for the UK 'L' test, but would probably lead to a rise in complaints against ADI training organisations or franchise operations who aren't quite truthful about their services.
This now means that all owners of driving school websites need to make sure all claims are true and can be substantiated.
For more information about these new online marketing law changes, visit the ASA website.
These changes are most unlikely to affect driving instructors who only teach provisional licence holders for the UK 'L' test, but would probably lead to a rise in complaints against ADI training organisations or franchise operations who aren't quite truthful about their services.
Driving school marketing website one year on
It is just over a year and one month since I created my North West London driving school marketing website to illustrate how important it is to have an online presence to be successful as a driving instructor especially in these hard times of the credit crunch when many of your competition is offering ridiculously cheap lessons in a bid to attract more business.
While this advertising website was targeted at an area just outside my normal working catchment area (hampstead village NW3 London), and at the time I didn't have any clients in, a lot has happened, and I'm reaping the benefits of this online campaign.
The driving school website now ranks number 1 or 2 for the term driving lessons hampstead or instructor, is constantly getting hits and generating enquiries on a weekly basis, and this has meant that I now have more pupils to Supplement the downturn in number of people taking lessons due to the uncertainty in the current UK economic conditions.
There are some of you who might have started an online presence by registering a school domain name, maybe even bought some hosting package, but never followed through with the rest of the online driving school marketing steps, and thus have a half finished project which never produced any results for your self-employed business.
As I've always said on this marketing blog, you have to continually work on promoting both your business and website everyday if possible, both online and offline. I am now taking business from people who are based in NW3 London, some even have websites that are older than mine, and may even be charging less than I do, all because some people know that if you are on the first page of google.co.uk especially in the top 3, you must be offering a good quality service. Others will just call the first person on the list, and if they get a response within a reasonable time, don't bother to look any further, after all not everyone is looking for cheap driving lessons, but a good quality service.
So if you are one of those readers of these articles who have either been putting off doing some online business marketing via a website/blog, or you started but never completed it, then maybe this success story will motivate you to put action to your thoughts.
Update Jan 2015
My Hampstead blog has slipped down the rankings but is still on the 1st page. As I mentioned the targeted area was outside the normal area I was willing to travel to, and with the improvement in the UK economy I am now turning down most enquiries from this area so i'm not actively using this online tool presently.
While this advertising website was targeted at an area just outside my normal working catchment area (hampstead village NW3 London), and at the time I didn't have any clients in, a lot has happened, and I'm reaping the benefits of this online campaign.
The driving school website now ranks number 1 or 2 for the term driving lessons hampstead or instructor, is constantly getting hits and generating enquiries on a weekly basis, and this has meant that I now have more pupils to Supplement the downturn in number of people taking lessons due to the uncertainty in the current UK economic conditions.
There are some of you who might have started an online presence by registering a school domain name, maybe even bought some hosting package, but never followed through with the rest of the online driving school marketing steps, and thus have a half finished project which never produced any results for your self-employed business.
As I've always said on this marketing blog, you have to continually work on promoting both your business and website everyday if possible, both online and offline. I am now taking business from people who are based in NW3 London, some even have websites that are older than mine, and may even be charging less than I do, all because some people know that if you are on the first page of google.co.uk especially in the top 3, you must be offering a good quality service. Others will just call the first person on the list, and if they get a response within a reasonable time, don't bother to look any further, after all not everyone is looking for cheap driving lessons, but a good quality service.
So if you are one of those readers of these articles who have either been putting off doing some online business marketing via a website/blog, or you started but never completed it, then maybe this success story will motivate you to put action to your thoughts.
Update Jan 2015
My Hampstead blog has slipped down the rankings but is still on the 1st page. As I mentioned the targeted area was outside the normal area I was willing to travel to, and with the improvement in the UK economy I am now turning down most enquiries from this area so i'm not actively using this online tool presently.
Driving school marketing for Winter
It might just be september, and as an instructor business might be much healthier than it normally is, especially with the last minute rush from learner drivers to beat the new driving test in october, but one of the secrets of successful driving school marketing is to prepare for the future now.
Anyone who has been in the business for a while or who did their research into the industry before becoming involved would know that things slow down in winter, especially in the run up to Christmas and this year is going to be no exception, in fact things might even be tougher in 2010 due to the announced reduction in government public sector spending, so competion is going to be stronger in getting the few driving lessons that people might be willing to take, so you need to start thinking about how you are going to advertise and market your services from now!
I have already started my advertising and marketing campaign both online and offline, gearing up to make sure that I reduce the fall in income and revenue over the traditional christmas period and not wait till the january new resolution driving lesson craze kicks in.
So you are wondering what can an instructor do as far as pupill generation, marketing, advertising (and this doesn't necessarily mean newspapers, yellow pages, google adwords or student union magazines) is concerned to increase the pupil awareness of a driving school's services and attract enquiries and hopefully sales conversions in a downturning market that generally refocuses on holiday gifts.
Well I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not going to share my specific targets and goals including steps to achieve them with you, as that would be business suicide. You can have a look through this blog and try and implemet some of my how to market your driving school ideas. If you are one of those that has be putting off getting a driving school website then do so TODAY (not that this will be able to help this winter, but not having one is bad marketing anyway). There are other ideas I have shared here which if you haven't implemented you should try.
Remember your current client base can be used as leverage to get more business, but don't offer stupid rewards like free first assessment lesson! Any loss leader must have a hook, so a better way is third lesson free if you pay for 2 in advance, reward you current pupil with a free lesson if friend takes 10 lessons or half price if colleaugue takes four not one!
The purpose of this post is to get you thinking about future business now while the going might be good, just because you get home at 7pm doesn't mean that you can't spend an extra 30 minutes doing some driving school business marketing and offline advertising before calling it a day. Even if you are at the top of your game, doing nothing will not keep you there!
Anyone who has been in the business for a while or who did their research into the industry before becoming involved would know that things slow down in winter, especially in the run up to Christmas and this year is going to be no exception, in fact things might even be tougher in 2010 due to the announced reduction in government public sector spending, so competion is going to be stronger in getting the few driving lessons that people might be willing to take, so you need to start thinking about how you are going to advertise and market your services from now!
I have already started my advertising and marketing campaign both online and offline, gearing up to make sure that I reduce the fall in income and revenue over the traditional christmas period and not wait till the january new resolution driving lesson craze kicks in.
So you are wondering what can an instructor do as far as pupill generation, marketing, advertising (and this doesn't necessarily mean newspapers, yellow pages, google adwords or student union magazines) is concerned to increase the pupil awareness of a driving school's services and attract enquiries and hopefully sales conversions in a downturning market that generally refocuses on holiday gifts.
Well I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not going to share my specific targets and goals including steps to achieve them with you, as that would be business suicide. You can have a look through this blog and try and implemet some of my how to market your driving school ideas. If you are one of those that has be putting off getting a driving school website then do so TODAY (not that this will be able to help this winter, but not having one is bad marketing anyway). There are other ideas I have shared here which if you haven't implemented you should try.
Remember your current client base can be used as leverage to get more business, but don't offer stupid rewards like free first assessment lesson! Any loss leader must have a hook, so a better way is third lesson free if you pay for 2 in advance, reward you current pupil with a free lesson if friend takes 10 lessons or half price if colleaugue takes four not one!
The purpose of this post is to get you thinking about future business now while the going might be good, just because you get home at 7pm doesn't mean that you can't spend an extra 30 minutes doing some driving school business marketing and offline advertising before calling it a day. Even if you are at the top of your game, doing nothing will not keep you there!
Driving school Adverts be honest
In my opinion it is very important that your driving school marketing and advertising is honest and not be filled with half-truths. While you might initially get away with exaggerating facts about your business, in the long run it is a bad strategy and will come back to haunt you especially since it is very easy nowadays to spread bad news or gossip via social media such as facebook, etc.
I recently came across a driving instructor website, and the claims on it were far from the truth, the unfortunate thing is that it won't be hard for a potential learner driver to see through the half-truth and this will put them off using their services.
The other thing is that ADIs already have a tarnished image with a lot of the public, many thinking that we are only interested in money, and will try and prolong training, to maximise income so it is in the interest of all instructors that you be honest in your business advertising literature.
Additional Reading
How to market your driving instructor services.
Effective business marketing
I recently came across a driving instructor website, and the claims on it were far from the truth, the unfortunate thing is that it won't be hard for a potential learner driver to see through the half-truth and this will put them off using their services.
The other thing is that ADIs already have a tarnished image with a lot of the public, many thinking that we are only interested in money, and will try and prolong training, to maximise income so it is in the interest of all instructors that you be honest in your business advertising literature.
Additional Reading
How to market your driving instructor services.
Effective business marketing
Driving school is good business!
One of my learner driver pupils made a comment today while out on tuition with me, that owning a driving school is good business because she saw so many driving school cars on the road!
Many people start an enterprise without doing proper market research just because they think there is a demand for services or know one or two people who might need a product which might not be currently available or diffcult to get!
One of the reasons a lot of driving instructors go out of business after just a few months or within the first 2 years is because they didn't do their homework properly. Yes there is a demand for driving lessons, and it is very hard to pass the DSA car test without help from an instructor (especially since there are rumours that more people will be failing following DSA changes in october). But do you know how many driving lessons you need to give a week to keep your business afloat, even more importantly how are you going to get those learners to pay for your services on a weekly basis?
Is the best way to promote your driving school offering cheap driving lessons with the promise of better quality at a lower cost? I've been told all I need to be sucessful is a good driving instructor website, and the orders will start flowing in!
Driving school marketing and advertising is not a simple one off process that can achieved over a short period, it is continuous, needs to always evolve, and even when you get on the first page of google, you work has just begun, because your competition is also working to be even more successful. Are you a marketing instructor? or are you just hoping that a few adverts in the local newspapers, yellow pages or leaflets will do the trick!
Many people start an enterprise without doing proper market research just because they think there is a demand for services or know one or two people who might need a product which might not be currently available or diffcult to get!
One of the reasons a lot of driving instructors go out of business after just a few months or within the first 2 years is because they didn't do their homework properly. Yes there is a demand for driving lessons, and it is very hard to pass the DSA car test without help from an instructor (especially since there are rumours that more people will be failing following DSA changes in october). But do you know how many driving lessons you need to give a week to keep your business afloat, even more importantly how are you going to get those learners to pay for your services on a weekly basis?
Is the best way to promote your driving school offering cheap driving lessons with the promise of better quality at a lower cost? I've been told all I need to be sucessful is a good driving instructor website, and the orders will start flowing in!
Driving school marketing and advertising is not a simple one off process that can achieved over a short period, it is continuous, needs to always evolve, and even when you get on the first page of google, you work has just begun, because your competition is also working to be even more successful. Are you a marketing instructor? or are you just hoping that a few adverts in the local newspapers, yellow pages or leaflets will do the trick!
Facebook Driving school marketing update
I have now completed my driving school advertising campaign on facebook, and the results weren't very encouraging for my niche of business.
The driving instructor adverts to promote a page of mine ran for almost 3 weeks, and the results are as follows.
1. Stuck to my budget which is good.
2. Ad had over 51,041 impressions, with only 22 clicks which is a very poor click through rate considering it was targeted at UK members who said they were interested in driving lessons. It seems to me that a lot of peope on there just like to hang out, post pictures and while away time!
3. This leads me to believe that facebook is not a good place to advertise on as a driving school owner. If you have had better success using a CPC marketing campaign on facebook, I would love to hear your experience.
4. I did manage to reach my target, but only 5 of the subscribers were a direct result of my ads.
I will be trying driving school advertising on google later on in the year which seems to have a more targeted audience via Adwords, but might be a little more expensive. Subscribe to the blog by email if you want to be notified when my next article is posted, enter your email address in the box provided in the top right hand corner.
The driving instructor adverts to promote a page of mine ran for almost 3 weeks, and the results are as follows.
1. Stuck to my budget which is good.
2. Ad had over 51,041 impressions, with only 22 clicks which is a very poor click through rate considering it was targeted at UK members who said they were interested in driving lessons. It seems to me that a lot of peope on there just like to hang out, post pictures and while away time!
3. This leads me to believe that facebook is not a good place to advertise on as a driving school owner. If you have had better success using a CPC marketing campaign on facebook, I would love to hear your experience.
4. I did manage to reach my target, but only 5 of the subscribers were a direct result of my ads.
I will be trying driving school advertising on google later on in the year which seems to have a more targeted audience via Adwords, but might be a little more expensive. Subscribe to the blog by email if you want to be notified when my next article is posted, enter your email address in the box provided in the top right hand corner.
Driving school advertising facebook
I decided to experiment with driving school advertising on facebook since it has over 140 million users worldwide even though I'm only interested in 17 - 40 year olds in London who might want to learn to drive.
Ask any successful business person, and they will tell you it takes money to make money, so advertising and marketing needs a budget set aside for it as well.
The purpose of my marketing campaign on facebook was to attract people to a new page I had created which will serve as a hub to drive targeted traffic to my main website. I'm going to share the results here just so you can see how I got on, you can then decide if you should use a similar approach for your driving school marketing efforts.
If you need advice on how to setup a facebook marketing page for your driving school, then go to Self made minds.
I logged into my facebook account, and created a marketing campaign for the page, and opted for the pay per click basis as opposed to the number of impressions, since the object was to get fans to subcsribe.
Having selected the target market including, age, geographical location, interests, the system then recommended a bid amount for how much I was to pay for each facebook user that clicks on my advert 75p, but I was not going to pay that amount as it was too much and I only wanted to pay a maximum of £5 each day the advertisement was running.
So for the first day I only bid 10p and within the 24hrs my driving school advertisement only had 3 impressions(number of times it was shown), with nobody clicking on it.
For the second 24hr period I decided to double the campaign bid amount to 20p, this then resulted in 16843 impressions with 8 people clicking on the ad and thus being shown my facebook driving instructor page, but only 2 of them actually became a fan and subscribed. This low amount of clicks for such a large number of impressions meant that my adverts were less targeted, so I decided to increase the bid amount to 25p, but narrow the audience only to those interested in driving lessons as opposed to those that liked cars and automobiles.
My 3rd day of advertising gave me 6411 impressions and only 2 clicks, with no conversions, so no progress this time.
Still no more clicks and conversions on 4th day, so I've decided to keep the advert running until I reach my target.
Ask any successful business person, and they will tell you it takes money to make money, so advertising and marketing needs a budget set aside for it as well.
The purpose of my marketing campaign on facebook was to attract people to a new page I had created which will serve as a hub to drive targeted traffic to my main website. I'm going to share the results here just so you can see how I got on, you can then decide if you should use a similar approach for your driving school marketing efforts.
If you need advice on how to setup a facebook marketing page for your driving school, then go to Self made minds.
I logged into my facebook account, and created a marketing campaign for the page, and opted for the pay per click basis as opposed to the number of impressions, since the object was to get fans to subcsribe.
Having selected the target market including, age, geographical location, interests, the system then recommended a bid amount for how much I was to pay for each facebook user that clicks on my advert 75p, but I was not going to pay that amount as it was too much and I only wanted to pay a maximum of £5 each day the advertisement was running.
So for the first day I only bid 10p and within the 24hrs my driving school advertisement only had 3 impressions(number of times it was shown), with nobody clicking on it.
For the second 24hr period I decided to double the campaign bid amount to 20p, this then resulted in 16843 impressions with 8 people clicking on the ad and thus being shown my facebook driving instructor page, but only 2 of them actually became a fan and subscribed. This low amount of clicks for such a large number of impressions meant that my adverts were less targeted, so I decided to increase the bid amount to 25p, but narrow the audience only to those interested in driving lessons as opposed to those that liked cars and automobiles.
My 3rd day of advertising gave me 6411 impressions and only 2 clicks, with no conversions, so no progress this time.
Still no more clicks and conversions on 4th day, so I've decided to keep the advert running until I reach my target.
Driving School Business Cards
One cheap way of effectively marketing a driving instructor is through the use of driving school business cards which can act as a complimentary way of advertising.
The average cost of printing 500 black and white business cards online for your school is around £25 (the price of a single lesson), but the effects it could have if properly used could run into hundreds of pounds return on investment and it could be a few months before you need to order more of this stationary for the office.
Your driving school business cards should have the following basic details printed on them.
1. Driving school name. This is your identity and brand representation.
2. Business logo and motto if you have one.
3. Instructor name and contact number (usually mobile, but could be a landline if using an answering service or spouse at home acting as secretary)
4. Driving lessons website, you can't compete in the current day and age or be able to promote your ADI and learner driver services without one.
Let me illustrate with an example of how handing out a business card to one person if you are in the right place at the right moment can bring more learner drivers to you.
I met a woman who joined me for driving lessons, she in turn introduced me to her son (complete beginner), brother in law (foreign licence holder), sister in law (partly trained driver) and sister (beginner). If I didn't have a card that pointed her to my website where she was able to get a lot of information about learning to drive, the DSA test which prompted her to use me despite not being the cheapest in the area, I could have lost out on the hundreds of pounds of business.
Don't under estimate the marketing power of driving school business cards, I have mentioned in the past how I missed a promoting chance while out in the car because I had run out of cards, so make sure you have supplies in your vehicle, wallet, purse because you can have a networking moment anywhere, supermarket, childrens school playground, etc.
The average cost of printing 500 black and white business cards online for your school is around £25 (the price of a single lesson), but the effects it could have if properly used could run into hundreds of pounds return on investment and it could be a few months before you need to order more of this stationary for the office.
Your driving school business cards should have the following basic details printed on them.
1. Driving school name. This is your identity and brand representation.
2. Business logo and motto if you have one.
3. Instructor name and contact number (usually mobile, but could be a landline if using an answering service or spouse at home acting as secretary)
4. Driving lessons website, you can't compete in the current day and age or be able to promote your ADI and learner driver services without one.
Let me illustrate with an example of how handing out a business card to one person if you are in the right place at the right moment can bring more learner drivers to you.
I met a woman who joined me for driving lessons, she in turn introduced me to her son (complete beginner), brother in law (foreign licence holder), sister in law (partly trained driver) and sister (beginner). If I didn't have a card that pointed her to my website where she was able to get a lot of information about learning to drive, the DSA test which prompted her to use me despite not being the cheapest in the area, I could have lost out on the hundreds of pounds of business.
Don't under estimate the marketing power of driving school business cards, I have mentioned in the past how I missed a promoting chance while out in the car because I had run out of cards, so make sure you have supplies in your vehicle, wallet, purse because you can have a networking moment anywhere, supermarket, childrens school playground, etc.
Driving School top 3 on Google
My driving lessons in NW3 school website is now in the top 3 spots on google.co.uk for the search terms "driving school hampstead" as well as lessons and instructor.
As I mentioned in my getting driving school indexed in google article there are not many websites competing for driving lessons in hamsptead (only 35,000), so I haven't really done any work on promoting this website because I'm not really targeting clients in this area of London.
I have however made sure that the on page optimisation (8 pages in total) is done with the written content covering the subject of driving lessons in Hampstead NW3, sprinkling in words like school and instructor where appropriate, couple that with the domain name containing my keywords and a few links from this blog and blogcatalogue.com, the age of the website has now allowed it to climb up the rankings of google since the domain was registered in september 2009.
Now as you can see driving school marketing using a website does take time and effort, but it DOES work, and ANYONE can do it, which is why I created this blog to give you tips on what to do.
I will obviously continue to monitor my website performance, to see if any of the competition is getting ahead of me, but in the meantime I'm now in a position to get a few more enquiries which I can either take or turn away. Would you like to be in the same position, you can do it yourself, or pay someone hundreds of pounds.
As I mentioned in my getting driving school indexed in google article there are not many websites competing for driving lessons in hamsptead (only 35,000), so I haven't really done any work on promoting this website because I'm not really targeting clients in this area of London.
I have however made sure that the on page optimisation (8 pages in total) is done with the written content covering the subject of driving lessons in Hampstead NW3, sprinkling in words like school and instructor where appropriate, couple that with the domain name containing my keywords and a few links from this blog and blogcatalogue.com, the age of the website has now allowed it to climb up the rankings of google since the domain was registered in september 2009.
Now as you can see driving school marketing using a website does take time and effort, but it DOES work, and ANYONE can do it, which is why I created this blog to give you tips on what to do.
I will obviously continue to monitor my website performance, to see if any of the competition is getting ahead of me, but in the meantime I'm now in a position to get a few more enquiries which I can either take or turn away. Would you like to be in the same position, you can do it yourself, or pay someone hundreds of pounds.
Advertising driving school on Google
I will be writing an article soon on using google adwords to advertising your driving school online, but in the meantime here is some advice for those of you already marketing your business or instructor teaching services on the internet through google's pay per click system.
Make sure the website page you are paying google to direct traffic to can sell your product or services.
An important part of being a good business owner is knowing who your local competition is, and what they are doing, so I saw an advert on a google search page for a new driving school operating in my area and decided to find out who they are and what they do, so I went to the website.
Just one page with a few words (including some grammatical errors and a false claim), and a large graphic mentioning the lesson price of from £18 pounds per hour.
I don't know how much this instructor was paying for each time someone clicked on the link in google, but the only people that will pick up the phone and call this person is someone looking for cheap lessons around the £18/hr range.
There is nothing there to sell the services of the instructor, I don't even know the business owners name!
I reckon the driving instructor was conned into giving a supposed marketing company some money to setup a website and get traffic to it, maybe £200 including the google adwords budget all gone down the drain because I doubt he will have a decent conversion rate on anyone that calls from seeing such a poor example of driving school marketing.
This is not the first time I've seen a one page driving instructor website being used as the landing page for a google marketing campaign, I once contacted an ADI offering a fixed fee to setup a 5 page blog to replace a free page that only mentioned the lesson price and area the school operated in addition to telephone number.
Before you spend too much money driving google traffic to a website page, put yourself in the shoes of a cash stripped learner driver and ask the question why would I use this person? Will I get value for my money? What is the track record (can it be proven)?
If you are a new driving instructor or PDI, subscribe to the blog (enter your email address in the box on the top right, the system is powered by feedburner, and I don't use your email details for anything else including selling to 3rd parties) so you don't miss any future marketing/advertising articles or tips including using Google Adwords to promote your services on the internet.
Make sure the website page you are paying google to direct traffic to can sell your product or services.
An important part of being a good business owner is knowing who your local competition is, and what they are doing, so I saw an advert on a google search page for a new driving school operating in my area and decided to find out who they are and what they do, so I went to the website.
Just one page with a few words (including some grammatical errors and a false claim), and a large graphic mentioning the lesson price of from £18 pounds per hour.
I don't know how much this instructor was paying for each time someone clicked on the link in google, but the only people that will pick up the phone and call this person is someone looking for cheap lessons around the £18/hr range.
There is nothing there to sell the services of the instructor, I don't even know the business owners name!
I reckon the driving instructor was conned into giving a supposed marketing company some money to setup a website and get traffic to it, maybe £200 including the google adwords budget all gone down the drain because I doubt he will have a decent conversion rate on anyone that calls from seeing such a poor example of driving school marketing.
This is not the first time I've seen a one page driving instructor website being used as the landing page for a google marketing campaign, I once contacted an ADI offering a fixed fee to setup a 5 page blog to replace a free page that only mentioned the lesson price and area the school operated in addition to telephone number.
Before you spend too much money driving google traffic to a website page, put yourself in the shoes of a cash stripped learner driver and ask the question why would I use this person? Will I get value for my money? What is the track record (can it be proven)?
If you are a new driving instructor or PDI, subscribe to the blog (enter your email address in the box on the top right, the system is powered by feedburner, and I don't use your email details for anything else including selling to 3rd parties) so you don't miss any future marketing/advertising articles or tips including using Google Adwords to promote your services on the internet.
Driving school website suspended
Can you afford to allow your driving school advertising website to get suspended especially after spending time and effort in getting it to rank for the driving related keywords for your local instructor market.
I was today doing some research on the internet for some driving instructor related services, saw a website on the first page of google for the terms I was interested in, clicked on thr link, and this is what I got!
One of the reasons why I advice driving instructors to register their school domains themselves is that it gives them the freedom to choose who they use as a website host, whether it be a free one or paid! I included step by step details of how to do this in my earlier article, and the good thing is that it only costs £5 a year, so there is no reason why any of you reading this can't do it.
If you don't mind using a blog to market or advertise your driving school then you can use google's blogspot hosting for free, so all it will cost you is £5 a year to have an online presence which you totally control.
Remember with a website learner drivers come to you of their own accord, other advertising relies on you impressing them enough to try you.
I was today doing some research on the internet for some driving instructor related services, saw a website on the first page of google for the terms I was interested in, clicked on thr link, and this is what I got!
One of the reasons why I advice driving instructors to register their school domains themselves is that it gives them the freedom to choose who they use as a website host, whether it be a free one or paid! I included step by step details of how to do this in my earlier article, and the good thing is that it only costs £5 a year, so there is no reason why any of you reading this can't do it.
If you don't mind using a blog to market or advertise your driving school then you can use google's blogspot hosting for free, so all it will cost you is £5 a year to have an online presence which you totally control.
Remember with a website learner drivers come to you of their own accord, other advertising relies on you impressing them enough to try you.
Driving School Marketing key words
A quick article on chosing and using driving school keywords on your instructor marketing/advertising website or blog.
There are the obvious keywords that you will definately want to use such as driving school, lessons and instructor but as a newly created ADI promoting website you have very little chance of ranking for those high traffic much sought after keywords as the likes of AA, BSM, Red have much bigger makerting, SEO and advertising budgets to keep them on page one of google. What you want to do is concentrate or much less competitive long tails search phares which you can more easily rank for and are more targeted to your market in any case.
Take an example of my Hampstead driving school website, i'm targeting a much smaller and lower traffic keywords of "driving lessons in Hampastead", "learning to drive in NW3", etc. As it is more likely that anyone searching specifically for "independent driving instructor hampstead" is not interested in the big brands and thus giving me a better chance of getting the new learner driver from the enquiry.
Having just one page of your advertising website will not work especially if there are no external websites linking to it (the amount of similar external authoritative websites linking to any url or hompage is what tells google that you know what you are talking about, and others trust you), you need to have multiple pages repeating in different ways the core services that you provide.
Take this blog of mine, it is about marketing your driving school or instructor tuition services, so far there are about 20 pages, and each article talks about different ways to advertise online and offline your business.
I have mentioned the importance of school car graphics, the need to have an online presence, chosing a driving school domain name, shared some ideas and tips on driving lessons marketing or advertising, so if any human or search engine robot visited here, they will be in no doubt as to what this site is about, I'm not just relying on having a relevant domain name or the index page having the right keywords.
This is an ongoing task of building up the authority of this blog, couple that with me contacting webmasters (friends, colleagus or even rivals in other towns) asking if they will be willing to link a relevant post is what gives the ranking for your targeted keywords.
As I have mentioned in the past, you don't just create a 5 page driving school website, sit back and start to hope the enquiries start flooding in, you need monitor, tweak and keep abreast of your competition. If you haven't got enough pupils to give driving lessons to, then you have time on your hands to do some marketing/advertising whether it be online creating relevant information to attract new clients to your blog or it be phoning, emailing prospective clients or existing pupils who have promised to add a link to their facebook profile or myspace.
Thinks about what a learner driver, provisional licence holder might need, and provide a solution. This is one of the reasons why I like a blog, I can turn an incident that happened during a driving lessons into an informational post that will attract potential future clients, sometimes stealing students from other instructors because I offer more value tuition.
There are the obvious keywords that you will definately want to use such as driving school, lessons and instructor but as a newly created ADI promoting website you have very little chance of ranking for those high traffic much sought after keywords as the likes of AA, BSM, Red have much bigger makerting, SEO and advertising budgets to keep them on page one of google. What you want to do is concentrate or much less competitive long tails search phares which you can more easily rank for and are more targeted to your market in any case.
Take an example of my Hampstead driving school website, i'm targeting a much smaller and lower traffic keywords of "driving lessons in Hampastead", "learning to drive in NW3", etc. As it is more likely that anyone searching specifically for "independent driving instructor hampstead" is not interested in the big brands and thus giving me a better chance of getting the new learner driver from the enquiry.
Creating content for your keywords
To make sure your driving school marketing website or blog can rank for your targeted keywords, you obviously need to create relevant content, but the mistake many driving instructors do is they stuff the homepage or index page with their chosen words and think that alone will do the trick!Having just one page of your advertising website will not work especially if there are no external websites linking to it (the amount of similar external authoritative websites linking to any url or hompage is what tells google that you know what you are talking about, and others trust you), you need to have multiple pages repeating in different ways the core services that you provide.
Take this blog of mine, it is about marketing your driving school or instructor tuition services, so far there are about 20 pages, and each article talks about different ways to advertise online and offline your business.
I have mentioned the importance of school car graphics, the need to have an online presence, chosing a driving school domain name, shared some ideas and tips on driving lessons marketing or advertising, so if any human or search engine robot visited here, they will be in no doubt as to what this site is about, I'm not just relying on having a relevant domain name or the index page having the right keywords.
This is an ongoing task of building up the authority of this blog, couple that with me contacting webmasters (friends, colleagus or even rivals in other towns) asking if they will be willing to link a relevant post is what gives the ranking for your targeted keywords.
As I have mentioned in the past, you don't just create a 5 page driving school website, sit back and start to hope the enquiries start flooding in, you need monitor, tweak and keep abreast of your competition. If you haven't got enough pupils to give driving lessons to, then you have time on your hands to do some marketing/advertising whether it be online creating relevant information to attract new clients to your blog or it be phoning, emailing prospective clients or existing pupils who have promised to add a link to their facebook profile or myspace.
Think out of the box!
If you do a search on google.co.uk for "driving test in hampstead", you will see my earlier mentioned website in either position 1 or 2, now it is very unlikey that anyone performing this particular search term wants lessons, but being at the top of the list means they will click on my site. I have posted some relevant information there for them to digest, they might already have an instructor to take them on the day, but if anything happens and they need someone else, guess who they will most likely use? This page could also attract someone who might have failed their test in another part of London, sometime ago, moved to Hampstead NW3 and are now beginning to think of having another attempt at the DSA test.Thinks about what a learner driver, provisional licence holder might need, and provide a solution. This is one of the reasons why I like a blog, I can turn an incident that happened during a driving lessons into an informational post that will attract potential future clients, sometimes stealing students from other instructors because I offer more value tuition.
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