Posted by Mike Massie on March 18, 2010
Research Shows The Vast Majority Of Local Shoppers Research Online Before Buying
This is how local consumers in your area are finding martial arts schools these days. The question is... are they finding your school or your competitors when they do their shopping research online?
It’s no secret to my readers and newsletter subscriber’s that I have a web marketing firm that provides web design and local SEO for small businesses.
That’s why I consider it my business to stay on top of online marketing trends. The good news about that for you is, I get to share that information with the martial arts business industry at large via my martial arts business blogs and websites.
In the last several years, one of the more obvious trends I’ve been following is the shift among consumers from doing offline consumer research to doing their research online before making a buying decision.
This is a trend that has been in the makings since the internet fully debuted way back in the 1990’s. But over the last year, it appears that the transition has reached full acceptance among the vast majority of consumers.
It’s true… according to this recent report regarding consumer behavior, 90% of local shoppers look online first before they buy:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007566
This just goes to show that now it’s more important than ever for martial arts schools to have a strong online marketing presence.
Which, incidentally, is something I’ve been telling you for the past several years. 
Why hasn’t anyone else been hammering this stuff home to you?
I would speculate it’s because the people writing articles in the industry publications wanted to make sure they got to jump on the online marketing bandwagon first…
Don’t Worry – It’s Never Too Late To Improve Your Marketing
But while you may find yourself showing up late to the party, it’s still not too late to start marketing online.
However, if you want to get ahead of your competitors who are already established, you have to do it right.
That means:
- Having a well-optimized website and that integrates social media marketing right on the site.
- And, one that ranks high in the local search engine results and that converts traffic to leads.
If you don’t have a site like this set up yet, get on it fast – the window is closing to get the jump on the rest of the competition and to move to the front of the pack in the new frontier of online marketing.
One Final Tip – Make Sure You Own Your Online Marketing
One last thing – if you’re considering using the online yellow pages as your primary online marketing method… stop!
You’re much better off spending that money on getting your own website and making sure it ranks high in the search engine results.
Here’s why:
- First off, you don’t own any listing you purchase on someone else’s website. So, you really have no control over the results you get from it – basically, by not owning your online marketing presence, you are leaving your livelihood at the mercy of someone else.
- Second, you have to keep paying for that listing to keep reaping the benefits from it. On the other hand, once you pay to have a good marketing website developed and ranked in the search engines, you’re pretty much done spending money on it (unless you’re in a highly competitive market – then it might be wise to spend some of your ad budget each month on search engine marketing).
Regardless, you own that website for life once it’s paid for (unless you do something foolish like signing up for a website service where you pay a monthly fee for a site you don’t own – which results in your paying over and over again for something you could have already owned many times over).
So, if you don’t already have a decent marketing website for your school that ranks high in the search engine results, get on it immediately. There’s not doubt that shoppers are using the internet as the primary means by which they research products and services before they buy.
The only question is – can they find your school online when they are researching martial arts schools in your area? The answer to that question will determine whether or not your school is still here in years to come.
Posted by Mike Massie on January 23, 2010
Why It Pays To Hire A Professional SEO
All this stuff may be confusing to you, but you still need to get a high search ranking in Google for your business.
So, Gary is one of our Fighting Fit and Self Defense program instructors who is starting a school right now. He’s hired me to do some additional online marketing for him, first to create a custom blog, and now most recently he took me up on the SEO offer I sent out yesterday…
So, yesterday afternoon I went to work on his SEO campaign.
As of this morning, he has 4 of the top ten listings in Google for two of his most important keyword phrases in Google. Not only that, but the main site we’re driving traffic to went up about 2 – 3 spots in the rankings for those keywords as well.
Of course, there’s a lot more work to do… I won’t be satisfied until he has three of the top five spots for his keywords.
The Importance of Having A High Search Ranking In Google
Why is this so important?
Because, here’s the breakdown of the average clickthrough rates for the top ten listings for any search engine results page in Google:
Spot #1: 42.3% of clicks…
Spot #2: 11.92% of clicks…
Spot #3: 8.44% of clicks…
Spot #4: 6.03% of clicks…
Spot #5: 4.86% of clicks…
Spot #6: 3.99% of clicks…
Spot #7: 3.37% of clicks…
Spot #8: 2.98% of clicks…
Spot #9: 2.83% of clicks…
Spot #10: 2.97% of clicks (not a typo)
Obviously, it pays to have the higher search ranking spots in Google for the most important keywords in your local market.
And, the results schools get when they do bear this out. In a mid-size market (a town of about 100,000 in the Midwest) one school owner I know of gets 60 leads a month from his website…
And wouldn’t you know it, he has the number one spot in Google for “(his town) martial arts”. I know this because one of his close friends is thinking of hiring me to do the same thing for him in his own town.
So, imagine what it could do for your business to dominate the top five spots in Google for “(your city) martial arts” in a large metropolitan area?
Or, even in a smaller town – even ten leads a month (actually, I was getting 5 – 10 leads a week in a town of 10,000) could make a huge difference in your bottom line.
If You Want To Dominate The Search Engines In Your Area…
I still have one spot left for a school who wants to achieve multiple top ten rankings for their school in the next 90 days. Call me at 512-535-6858 if you’d like to get started (leave a message on my voice mail if it’s over the weekend). Remember, I guarantee my work – packages start at $399 per month, and if you don’t get results in 90 days I keep working for free until you do.
- Mike Massie
P.S. - No lie, that’s a deep discount off my “real” rates because I know the martial arts market so well. It makes it easier for me because there’s less research involved. So I can charge martial arts school owners less for the same results. But the downside is, I have to limit how many packages I sell at that rate. Sorry, but I can only take so many clients at that deep of a discount.
P.S.S. – If you want to know more about my internet marketing firm, check out http://moderndigitalmarketing.com.
Posted by Mike Massie on December 2, 2009
Investing in effective small business internet marketing just makes good sense.
A short while back a client forwarded an article to me that said SEO was a waste of money. (Note: In case you don’t know, SEO stands for “search engine optimization” – basically, fixing your website so it ranks well in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing)
I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair – besides the fact that the article was a crock, I had a very good reason for doing so. Immediately prior to receiving the email I just finished a meeting with a very successful local entrepreneur… and in that meeting we discussed (at length) the importance of SEO in the ongoing success of her business.
She informed me that she has spent something close to $25,000 on search engine optimization services over the last two years – which she credits (along with her social media marketing efforts) for her position as the dominant market leader in a very competitive field.
In fact, while approximately 20% of her competition bowed out last year (due to the recession) her business actually grew. She credits it all to her savvy use of online marketing technologies, which have allowed her to stay well ahead of her competition.
Now, I know most of you don’t have the cash to spend $12,000 a year on your online marketing. However, when small business owners overlook and ignore the importance of online marketing, I can only shake my head at the sheer ignorance of their decision.
So, if you’re still with me to this point, and you think you could use some help in this area, I’m going to provide you with some guidelines as to where you should be spending your online advertising and marketing dollars, and in what order of priority.
Pay close attention, because this is going to actually be the most cost-effective method of marketing your school in 2010. Feel free to print out this article for future reference and ignore me at your own peril…
Priority #1: Your Lead-Capture Website
(Cost: Anywhere from $500 to $2,500)
This is the first thing you should invest in when you start spending money for marketing online. Your lead generation website will work for you 24/7/365 to capture leads, whether you’re at work, answering the phones, or at home asleep or on the training floor.
Yes, you can DIY this one – but it probably won’t rank well because it won’t be optimized for Google and Yahoo, and you’ll just end up having it redone in the end anyway. Skip a few display ads and drop some money up front on this – you’ll only pay for it once, and it’ll keep paying for itself over and over for years to come.
Note: If you’re on a tight budget, you can combine this into your blog. I’ve been doing it for a lot of my clients recently, and they are still getting great results.
Priority #2: Search Engine Optimization and Website Promotion
(Cost: Anywhere from $500 to $3,000, depending on your market and competition)
Although I always include this service for all my web design clients, you’ll typically have to pay a separate fee for it when you’re dealing with other web design and SEO companies.
But, it’s worth it – because a website no one visits is like a billboard in the desert… absolutely worthless.
And, you get site visitors from getting a high search engine ranking (top five spots) in the local Google and Yahoo results for targeted, relevant, popular search terms.
Once again, this can be done DIY – but SEO is a lot more sophisticated than just optimizing your meta tags. You have to think about on-page factors and off-page factors, and know how each will affect your site’s trust and ranking with Google.
Messing up any of this stuff can have a negative result as minor as not getting a desirable ranking, or as serious as getting your site blackballed by Google (and good luck getting back in again).
Trust me, hire a pro – someone you can trust that has references – to do this for you.
Priority #3: A Custom Blog
(Cost: Anywhere from $500 to $5,000)
Once again, this is something I include with all my web design packages for my clients. However, other firms will charge you a separate fee for creating a custom blog theme to match your site, to install it and set it up, and to optimize the blog so your articles get indexed in Google and rank high in the search engine results.
Blogs are easy to DIY – in fact, a lot of businesses will try to use a free blog for their business website. However, this can be a big mistake… and here’s why.
Free isn’t necessarily cheap. The big issues with free blogs are that they are not very customizable, and you run the risk of the blog host losing all your data and posts.
In addition, a free blog is not going to be set up to effectively leverage the blogging technologies available to you right now. Blogs have come a long way in the last few years, and a properly optimized blog will basically promote itself in the search engines – all you have to do is add content on a regular basis.
Quick Shameless Plug: Quick sidebar here – I can do all of the above for any school owner who reads my blog for about $1,500, definitely on the low end of the cost scale. Despite the low cost, the results you’ll get will be worth many times your investment. And yes, I’ll allow you to make payments on your website. Feel free to contact me to order.
Final Thought – Any Small Business Internet Marketing Activity Is Better Than None!
It’s true… anything is better than nothing. So, if you have to start with a free blog, do it. And if you have to DIY your own website at first, that’s much better than having no website at all.
The bottom line is, internet marketing for small businesses is something sort of like gardening – it takes time and energy to start seeing results, and nothing happens until you start planting seeds. So, take action now so you can start seeing results from your internet marketing efforts and investment in 2010 and beyond.
Until next time,
Michael D. Massie
Blog: http://martialartsbusinessdaily.com/
Adult Curriculum: http://selfdefenseblackbelt.com/
Social Network for Martial Arts Instructors: http://www.masainetwork.com/
Business Manual: http://www.small-dojo-big-profits.com/
Resources: http://www.starting-a-martial-arts-school.com/
Summer Camp Manual: http://startingasummerdaycamp.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MartialArtsBusinessDaily
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mabizdaily
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