Driving new business with a “best in class driving instructor website.” 

 

This week as part of our “Business in Focus” Series, we are looking at Driving Schools and their need for a website and how a website can be used to grow their business to be a leading driving school in your area.

Why you need a website as a driving instructor.

 

You need a website for your driving school because 81% of consumers now research products before buying. Think about that stat for a moment, it really is amazing how internet savvy todays consumers actually are.

 

There are many ways present and grow your business online but a website is the only platform that you actually own. Building a strong website will lead you new customers every month.

 

Facebook is important but it can be difficult to present your business with all the updates. Some are not really relevant to what you are doing or trying to promote.

 

With a website for your driving school, you can ensure that the most important information is readily available  for your customers to take action quickly.

 

You own your website unlike the range of social media platforms. If they decide to change something it can negatively effect your business. Social media platforms should primarily be used to promote your business and drive traffic to your own platform where you own the customer.

 

 

Types of Driving Instructor Websites

 

The type of website you choose for your driving school will depend on the type of business you have and where you hope to bring your business in the future. Do you plan on building the team into the future. Do you want to eliminate the phone queries for your driving lessons allowing you to put in more billable hours with clients behind the wheels.

 

Here are a few types of Driving School website you can use to promote your business.

 

Brochure Driving School Website

A Brochure website is the simplest type of website you can have for your business. It generally contains 5-10 pages of static content that you use to tell people a out your business. The 5 most common pages for this type of website for a driving school are.

 

• Home
• About
• Services
• Contact Us

 

For correctly configure Brochure expect to pay anywhere between €499 and €4999. Prices vary depending on the designer that you choose.

 

eCommerce Website.

 

An ecommerce driving school website is a great way to sell online and is the first step in automating your business. With an ecommerce website your current clients and future clients can pay for their lessons online.

 

Benefits of eCommerce to your Driving School.

• Less time selling, more time giving lessons.
• You can display your packages 24/7/365 to your clients.
• Reduces the need for admin people in your business.
• You can increase the Average Order Value for your clients. This is proven technique to grow your annual revenue without have to acquire new customers.

 

For correctly configured eCommerce website expect to pay anything from €1,200 and up, depending on your requriements.

 

 

Driving Academy Website.  

 

With a driving academy you are going the extra mile to help you clients. This extra help creates a stronger bond between you and your clients. This stronger bond is an ideal way to build customer loyalty that will allow your clients to speak more and more about your business to their family and friends.

 

When building a driving academy website you can give away valuable information in a locked area of your website.

 

This information can be for your students only or it could be for users who are willing to pay a subscription for access to the information.

 

Benefits of Driving Academy.

 

• Increased customer loyalty.
• Larger offering than your competitors.
• Possibly increased/alternative revenue model.

 

 

Driving academy websites vary in cost depending on your business needs. Please contact your web developer about a driving academy website.

 

 

Build Driving Lesson Packages.

 

Building packages for your services makes it easier for your customers to buy from you. Presenting them in different ways allows you to appeal to different customers depending on their specific needs.

 

EG:

 

• offering FREE or discounted car hire for the test can appeal to people who don’t have a car.
• Allow you customer buy extra lessons at a reduced rate can build brand loyalty.

 

 

Gift Vouchers

 

Gift vouchers are a very popular gift for people who are just learning to drive. Also as well for people who are turning 18.

 

The cost of learning to drive has gone up on the past give vouchers can help reduce the cost of learning.

 

While Gift vouchers are a great Idea. They do require admin on your behave. We recommend that if offering gift vouchers for your customers that this service should be offered via your website. This will ensure that you don’t have to take phone calls and you can admin them in your own time.

 

Voucher can be either x number of lessons or you can offer a

 

Using WordPress Plugins to administer your vouchers to a great way to improve the efficiency of your driving school.

 

We recommend advertising driving lesson vouchers to friend of people who are celebrating the birthday this month. This is easily achieved using Facebook ads.

 

 

 

Success Stories

 

Success stories are a great way to get traffic to your website. They also endorse that you are good at what you do. We recommend that you have a section of success stories on your website.

 

This section if updated regularly will act as great content for the search engines and also offer your material for your social media pages.

 

We recommend that all success stories come with a picture if at all possible. These pictures of happy people who have used your services can motivate potential customers to choose your service over a competitor. This can be increased significantly if a potential customer recognised someone that they know.

 

Reviews for your business.

 

In addition to collecting success stories we also recommend collecting reviews for your social media channels and online review channels.

 

After a client passes their test we recommend sending out the following email to get those reviews documented.

 

**Download this email template to get even more reviews***

 

Search Engine Optimisation.

 

 

When you invest in a website you want as many people to know about it as possible. Having a high rank in Google will insure that as many people as possible are visiting your site and know about your business.

 

• The top position of Google get 33% of all the traffic.
• Position 2 gets 18% of the traffic.
• Positon 3 gets 11%
• The rest of the traffic is spread out among the lower positions.

 

 

Source: Search Engine Watch: https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/study/2276184/no-1-position-in-google-gets-33-of-search-traffic-study

 

If you are serious abut growing your business into the future you need to ensure you have a top position on google.

 

Paid Advertising.

 

The great thing about online advertising for Google is that it can place you at the top of search engines in front of people who are actively looking for your product or service.

 

Paid ads sit above the natural listing and can be turn on almost instantly if you need new traffic for your business.

 

It’s important when running online ads that you make it as easy as possible for people to buy. It they don’t buy from their initial visit it is important to grab the their contact info as you can encourage them to buy in the future either through email marketing on via Google Retargeting social media remarketing.

 

It’s is important to remember that offer people are researching before they buy, give them the info that they require. Giving them what they want is the first step in during a researcher into a customer.

 

 

Online Booking

 

Many of your users will buy a bunch of vouchers in advance. For those that buy vouchers in advance it is a good idea to give them a way to book their lessons online.

 

 

We recommend Calendy or Simplybookme to handle the booking of instructors. This give your team a way to books lessons while they are focusing on the job of giving lessons. This is great for instructions who operate by themselves and don’t have someone to handle bookings.

 

 

Website Maintenance.

 

 

If developing a WordPress Website for your Driving School it is important to remember Website Maintenance. Just like a car, it needs to be service regularly. Doing so will ensure that your site is secure, lightning fast. A fast website will convert more customers and good security will protect your customers data.

 

 

Coupon Codes

 

A great function of a driving school website is the option to develop coupons for previous clients and also local organisations.

 

• Offering coupons to clients for extra lessons can increase customer loyalty. When giving a customer a coupon it is important to ensure the coupon is single use coupon.
• Coupons can increase the lifetime value of a customer.
• Offering coupons to local groups can help raise the profile of your school to larger groups of people.
• We also recommend giving success coupons to those that pass their test. These coupons can be passed to people who passed their test to give to their friends. When deciding on these type of coupons it is important to limit the number available.

Kilkenny Businesses are losing customers without a website

Every day, people from Kilkenny are searching online for a local business on Google. Not having a website is putting you at a serious disadvantage. Google is the number one spot for people who are interested in buying or using a service for them to start their research.

People search for such terms as:

• Web Design Kilkenny
• Plumber Kilkenny
• Gym Kilkenny
• Etc.

Hopefully when you search for your trade people will find your business. It could be on Google Maps.

You most likely have some sort of presence online from some sort of online directory that has picked up you details over the years. Keep these updated can be difficult.

I’ve got a Facebook Page, I don’t need a website.

True, Facebook is a great way to promote your business. Great for sharing updates with those that you have done business with. The problem is that it’s on Facebook their platform, they set the rules and when they change the rules your business will suffer if you don’t invest more advertising spend.

Additionally, Facebook is poor for advertising your services. When someone visits your site you want to be able to tell them exactly what you do. A website is still the best way to tell people exactly what you do.

There is still a great opportunity for Kilkenny Businesses on Google.

Google has put a strong focus on local SEO and Kilkenny businesses have been slow to take advantage of this. A WordPress website, with good content and with even just the SEO basics can get to the top of Google in the Kilkenny area. I’ve done this for a range of business in the south-east already, its now time for you to get ahead of your competitors.

Setting up a website is not hard.

In the past setting up a website was a big deal. Today though, things are much easier to get online and maintain your website. There is no longer a need to know how to code. Drag and drop interfaces make building a website super easy and a cost-effective solution to promoting your business.

Property Website, Why you must use WordPress

In the property game, renting is a waste of money, you’ll get a much better return if you own your property. Websites are the same, if you are serious about your businesses online presence you need to own your own website.

Myhome offers a turn key website solution that any estate agent that uses their service can get up and running within a few days for a relatively small cost. The problem is they will do essentially the same website for you as they will do for every other agent you are competing with.

Under the skin all these sites are produced without little thought about how you can gain an advantage over your competitors.  In the eyes of Google they have the exact same content as the myhome website. Did you know that Google penalises duplicate content and as a leading property website the main myhome website is going to get the credit for the listing you put up online.

What’s the problem? I get all my business from the property website such as daft and myhome.

Myhome and daft are great connecting you with buyers and renters but what is your strategy for connecting with sellers and landlords? Do you have one?

Shop fronts, Your “For  Sale” Boards & newspapers all do send you new customers but did you know that 97% of consumers search online before buying locally.

Getting in front of these people is essential for attracting new consumers to your business. To get in front of these people you need to own your own website and it needs to be better than your competitors as getting the top position on Google will deliver you 31.5% of the people who are interested in your services. (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics) 

WordPress for Estate Agent and Auctioneers Websites

What is WordPress?

WordPress is an open source piece of software. It is FREE to download & use. It is the most popular CMS and it currently runs over 25% of the world’s websites.

If you want to use WordPress you have 2 options.

Option 1: (Preferred Option)

Download your own copy of WordPress from https://wordpress.org/ and install it on your own hosting.

Option 2:                                                                                                                     

Sign up for an account on WordPress.com and get started straight away. This is the easier option but there are many restrictions especially if you need to customise it later on. Remember, it’s better to own the land where you build your new website.

  Customising WordPress for your Estate agent business.

To customise WordPress you will need a good theme and also you will need an array of pljugins to make the site do what you want it to do.

Recommended Themes:

• Divi (Affiliate Link)
• Check out the property themes on ThemeForest: 

 

Recommended plugins.  

There are some common plugins that I recommend you use on every site. You can find a list of them here. 

If you are considering building your own property website I would recommend that you evaluate the following.

WP-Property

 Easy Property Listings

 WPL Real Estate

What estate agents are doing wrong.

• Estate agents don’t see a website as their shop window.
• Focus on listing properties rather attracting new customers via their website.
• They set up and forget.
• Don’t optimise their listings.
• Don’t keep their website software up to date.
• List all services on one page of their website. Each service needs a dedicated page that is optimised for search engines.

How to get the most from your Website

• Write Unique content for all your services
• Add new properties to your website first, then add to the property website. This is a great trick to give your site real credibility
• Optimise your images.
• Set up your own social media channels and build your own audience.

Extra Options:

 

• Accepting Payments
  • Currently here in Ireland, the local enterprise boards

Marketing your Property Website:

• Search Engine optimisation
  • Add each property individually.
  • Optimise your images. Both filename & Alt Tags
• Paid Search
• Social Media
  • New Properties come online.
    • Post the video
  • Weekly Roundup.
  • Guide
  • Offer them practical tips on how to sell their house
  • Survey your customers
  • Announcements
• Social Advertising
  • People work with businesses that they know. It’s important that via your social media channels that people get to know you and your business.
  • Type of Ads to Run
    • Awareness Ads.
    • Valuations
    • Vary the pictures/rotate the pictures
  • Google Ads

Keywords you should consider optimising for.

• Auctioneer yourtown
• Auctioneer yourcounty
• Estate Agent yourcounty
• Estate Agent yourcounty
• Estate Agent sell my home
• Valuations in youtown
• Valuations in yourcounty
• How much is my home worth