Don’t Make this Common Conversion Killing Mistake

You prospect searches for you in Google and is looking to sign up little Billy into martial arts lessons.

They find your website at the top of the search results.

Awesome.

They click the link and land on your site. After jumping through a couple of pages, they are ready to take action and give you a call.

But what happens next is something that’s common on so many martial arts schools websites and is a big mistake you might even be making and not even realizing it.

Do you know what it is? Read on to find out what it is.

You can have the greatest design in the world… the fastest loading website …. the best headlines and copy… and the greatest offer, ever. But, if you don’t have that one thing, it all doesn’t matter.

That one thing?

Simply put, make it easy to contact you.

Shocker, I know.

However, so many websites have their contact information buried on their site and it’s like an Easter egg hunt for your prospects to find it. Don’t make your prospect work to contact you and have to hunt around like it’s Easter Sunday.

Put your contact information on EVERY page above the fold (which refer the portions of a webpage that is visible without scrolling). Then, if you make a call to action at the bottom of your page, add it again there, too. In fact, you should also have a whole page dedicated to your contact information just to be safe.

Make it as easy as possible to find then use your contact information. I’m talking about your phone number and an email address (or contact form). You’ll also want to make your address prominent, too.

Sometimes we overlook the obvious.

And, unfortunately, something so simple can really be hurting your business if it’s not done correctly.

So take a minute and check your website.

Chances are, you might need to fix this.

9 Tips to Increase Response Rates from Google Maps

I talk a lot about Google because typically 40% of the traffic to my site comes from this one source. Most websites experience the same levels of traffic from Google so it’s important to understand all things Google as it relates to promoting your business.

One of the best additions to their lineup has been Google Maps. I’ve mentioned Google Maps before in previous posts but wanted to go into more detail about how you can improve response rates from it.

If you don’t have a listing yet, logon today to Google’s Local Business Center and  set one up! Be sure to do a search first for your martial arts school as you might already have a listing and just need to claim it.

Why Should You Care About Google Maps?wet

When potential students search for martial arts schools in Google, they immediately see the 7-pack; the top seven most relevant business locations based on the searcher’s query and location according to Google. It’s one of the first things searchers see after they hit “search.”

Please note that your business may be listed but not appearing in the 7-pack because they have found your competitors might be more relevant. The easiest way to tell if you’re coming up (or not) is to search for “martial arts <your city> <your state>” and see what comes up.

Google’s 7-Pack in Action

Here’s what this looks like for my particular city (My schools listing is the second from the top):

According to Google, “Google Maps for the United States compiles information from many sources to bring you the best results. Our listings combine information from our web search results, data submitted directly by local business owners, and third-party sources such as publicly available Yellow Pages directories.”

However, that doesn’t mean everything is accurate or complete; which is why you’re going to want to claim your listing then tune it up to help get more inquiries from it.

And, just having a listing isn’t enough. You have to optimize your listing not only to have better placement in the Google maps – a topic I will cover in the near future – but you should also optimize for better response rates (read inquiries) from your listing.

How to Increase Response Rates from Google Maps

1. Get more reviews – The more reviews, the better. To get more reviews, send your students an email and ask them to honestly review your martial arts school then give them the link to the review portion of your listing. It’s  that simple. Why are reviews so important? They provide social proof that other people have used your services and are happy with the results and service they’ve received and implies if other’s are satisfied, they will be, too.
2. List your Business Hours – This is  different than listing you class schedule. This just lets people know your hours of your operation so they know when to call or come by. If you’re a full time business, it demonstrates convenience and implies you have a lot of classes to choose from. If you don’t teach a lot of days or times, you might want to leave this blank.
3. Link to your website – If you have a website, be sure to add your domain name. This not only communicates a sense of professionalism but it also makes it easier to direct people to your lead generation focused website. Not having a website these days can send the wrong impression that you’re behind the times and not customer friendly.
4. Make an offer - Making an offer is one of the most important things you can do. Google allows you to create a coupon and is something that you should definitely consider adding to your listing. And, if you can make it a Google Maps exclusive offer, it will be easier to track if someone calls or comes in and wants to redeem it.  This could be a discount on your trial program, a free trial, or whatever offer you want to use.
5. Enhance your business description – You have 200  characters to tell your story and whet your prospects appetite. Use it wisely and be as descriptive as you can while speaking directly to your target audience about why they should consider calling you over your competitors. Be sure to also include your unique selling proposition here.
6. Use a Call To Action – Using a call to action helps prompt your prospects to pick up the phone, send you an email… whatever response you want your prospect to take. This could be as simple as saying “Call us today to learn how you can get one month of martial arts lessons for free!”
7. Add photos – Photos help prospects visualize your martial arts school and help draw attention to your listing. Take photos of your school in daylight hours, particularly if you have a lot of windows. Include photos with and without your students of your facility. Take photos of the outside of your facility as well. If you have great parking, be sure to feature that as well.
8. Add videos – Like photos, videos capture attention. If you have a martial arts commercial uploaded to YouTube, you can easily add the URL to your listing. This way, prospects can view your videos without having to leave your listing and possibly getting off track.
9. Tune up your details – Google allows you to add details about your business. You can add the forms of payment you accept, associations, awards and more. Basically, you can use the details to mention all of your various  features.

The good news is that you can follow the same advice when creating or claiming your listings on Yahoo, Bing and other local business directory listings.

Be sure to to visit Google’s Local Business Center and  either set up your listing, edit it or claim it so you can benefit from having this work harder for you in Google search results.

What else would you add to this list of ways to get more response from your Google Maps listing? Let me know in the form of a comment below!

Top Posts for January 2010

Here are the top 5 posts for Marketing Martial Arts in January 2010;  according to how many times they were uniquely viewed by our visitors:

1. 7 Often Overlooked Martial Arts Marketing Tools
2. Martial Arts Business Success in 2010
3. 10 Types of Irresistible Offers You Can Make to Prospects
4. 50 Killer Ideas for Building a More Profitable Martial Arts School
5. All Professional Martial Arts Schools are McDojos

As always, thanks for reading Marketing Martial Arts!

Google Capoeira

Every month Google does a little dance that can either help you by elevating your site in the search rankings or it can hurt you by dropping it lower in the search results; making it harder to find.

I’m seeing some big shifts in the Google search results in my local market on local terms. And, at least for now, I think these changes have probably helped out some of my competitors out more than it has helped me.

Rats.

Many in the search engine optimization industry call these shifts in the search results the Google dance. Being that I’m in the martial arts, I call it Google Capoeira. It can be a deadly dance, indeed.

What is the Google Dance? Simply put that term is often used to describe the index update of the Google search engine that happens approximately once a month.

Until recently, there was only one other martial arts schools website on page one of the search results other than mine. The rest were local directories like yellowpages.com, superpages.com, merchantcircle.com…et al. This has been this way for years now.

I liked that because my martial arts school is listed in those directories. If a visitor didn’t go to my site, at least I had a chance to get them in the directories versus them going to my competitors home page where I had nothing.

Now, all of a sudden, the top 10 results in Google’s search engine results pages (aka SERPS) are ALL martial arts schools. This is a big change and is something I’ve NEVER seen in my market. Most of these sites have been out there for years…  stale… unchanged…. then all of a sudden, they’re there.

Poof! In the top 10.

Like magic my competitor’s sites appeared on page one of the search results when they weren’t even in the top 20 before. And, I know they haven’t done anything search engine optimization wise as I have torn them apart a ton of times over the years.

Google, for now, just gave them a lift thanks to the obvious changes in their algorithm.

Here are a few other observations I’ve made:

• New competitors in the top 10 – As I said above, I’m seeing my competitors websites who weren’t previously ranked in the top 20 now appear in the top 10. Many of the local directory sites have gone to page two of the search results.
• Facebook gets dropped – My Facebook fan page for my martial arts school was number 3 for a desirable keyword phrase while my site was #1. Now,  its nowhere to be found in the first 50 results. I think this has more to do with Google devaluing Facebook overall. I don’t see Facebook come up in a lot of searches anymore. But, it’s still a great tool to have; especially for keeping in touch with current students.
• The #3 Ranked Site shouldn’t be there – The biggest surprise to me is that the new #3 site in Google is 99% built using FLASH…has music…uses a splash page… and huge file sizes. All no-no’s in basic Search Engine Optimization. But, there they are. This site shouldn’t be ranking this well. They don’t even have good title tags so this one is head scratcher. I think this site will tank after a few months but for now is clogging things up.
• My Merchant Circle page wiggles – My merchant circle page keeps floating in and out of the top 10. I’m hoping it sticks soon.  I’ve done additional optimization to that page to help it in the rankings and it looks like that might land soon. I’m going to do a post about that soon so hold tight.

Some strange things are afoot at Google. These could be temporary changes as part of their algorithm or perhaps they are more permanent. Time will tell, I suppose.

However, I’m not surprised to see things shift like this at all.

In fact, I expect it.

Why?

Because Google is always trying to figure out what is the most relevant pages to serve up. They are constantly spidering  and re-indexing their results and want to have the best sites appear on page one for a given keyword or keyword set.

Sometimes this process will help you. Sometimes it won’t.

Some of these directory sites might come back but other’s might not. That’s why it’s good to diversify as part of your defensive blockade.

Are you seeing changes in your Google search results? Has your site gone up or down in your market?

Are You Guilty of these Search Engine Optimization Mistakes?

While you’re way ahead of most martial arts schools if you have a website, you still need to apply fundamental search engine optimization elements to help get higher rankings.

Having a higher rankings for your targeted keywords will help you to drive more qualified people to your website from within your geographic area.

However, in order to do this, you have to build your website in such a way to make it “search engine friendly.”

That process is called search engine optimization.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization, or SEO as it is often called, is the process of structuring your website to be able to be easily found and ranked in the search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo for targeted keywords or keyword phrases.

NOTE: Keyword is something like “Karate” a keyword phrase is something like “San Diego California Karate.”

Following are five common SEO mistakes I see on martial arts schools websites. Many more posts on this subject are to come.

1. Not including keywords people are searching for on your site

Your potential customers sit down, turn their computer on, fire up their browser and type some words into Google to find your business.

What are those keywords?

Most people don’t know the name of your business so that isn’t what you should focus on. So what should you focus on? Being the solution to their problem (Martial arts lessons) in the geographic location they live (City/state).

Be sure to read my post on “title tags” to learn the right keywords to use in your title tag. The good news is that those words are the same as what you’ll want to have in the content of your website.

2.  Targeting the wrong keywords

Often times, owners target the wrong keyword terms. They are too generic and think by having “X” or “Y” on the page that is all they have to do. Or, they emphasize the name of their system.

If you live in Westminster Maryland you shouldn’t be targeting that by itself. Nor should you be targeting “Martial Arts” by itself. A much more potent way is to combine those two into one powerful combination - Westminster Maryland Martial Arts.

3. Not including the targeted keywords enough on your page

You have to put your targeted keyword phrase on the page more than once in order for the search engines to know those keywords are important to your page. As an idea, list your keyword in the following places:

1. Title Tag
2. Headline (H1 tag)
3. Sub headlines (H2 tags)
4. In the 1st paragraph
5. In the middle paragraph
6. In the last paragraph
7. File name of the HTML page (example: www.yoursite.com/keyword.html)

That said, you want to have a keyword density of about 3-5% on average. No more.

Keyword density = How many times a given keyword or keyword phrase appears on a page compared to all other words on the page.

However, the most important thing to do is make is read naturally. Don’t stuff keywords! A quick test to see if you’ve done too much is to read it out loud. You’ll know when you have over done it when you hear yourself say “did I really just say that keyword five times in two sentences?”

4.  Using the same title and description tag on every page

Each page needs to have its own unique title tag and description. Both the title tag and description tag need to describe what can be found on each page. And, I wouldn’t let your software auto generate this information, either.

Do this by hand and pick one keyword phrase per title tag. Then repeat that keyword somewhere in your meta description, preferably near the beginning.

Again, read my post on “How to Boost Your Search Engine Rankings with a Title Tag.”

5. Poor content structuring

There is a basic hierarchy with respect to content structuring that can help your organic rankings:

1. Primary headline – In HTML this is represented as <h1></h1>. Should only be used once on a page.
2. Sub headlines – In HTML this is represented as <h2></h2>. Can be used more than once.
3. Paragraph – In HTML this is represented as <p></p>.
4. Ordered and unordered lists – In HTML this is represented as <ol></ol> and <ul></ul> respectively.
5. Bolding- In HTML this is represented as <strong></strong>.
6. Italics – In HTML this is represented as <em></em>.

The HTML of a page with this markup could look something like this:

<h1>Westminster Marlyand Martial Arts</h1></div>

<h3>Learn Martial Arts at Carrol County Kenpo Karate</h3>

<p>This paragraph explains why people need to take <strong>martial arts lessons in Westminster Maryland</strong></p>

<p>Here is a list of important stuff:</p>

<ul>

<li>Martial Arts for Kids</li>

<li>Martial Arts for Adults</li>

<li>Self-Defense Lessons</li>>

</ul>

<p>Don’t forget, this <em>Westminster Martial Arts</em> stuff is important!</p>

And the final output would look like this (based on my CSS stylesheet on my site. Yours might look different):

Westminster Marlyand Martial Arts

Learn Martial Arts at Carrol County Kenpo Karate

This paragraph explains why people need to take martial arts lessons in Westminster Maryland.

Here is a list of important stuff:

• Martial Arts for Kids
• Martial Arts for Adults
• Self-Defense Lessons

Don’t forget, this Westminster Martial Arts stuff is important!

In short, the search engines send automated bots called “spiders” to your website and they crawl all of the pages on your website then they store the results they find.

Whenever someone does a search, the search engines are actually returning results they have stored in their servers about your site and others like it.

Structuring your content correctly makes the search engine’s job easier and is the basis of search engine friendly design. If you don’t structure your content properly, it will be harder for them to accurately spider, and therefore index, your pages. And that can only hurt you when it comes to your sites search engine rankings.

Most martial arts sites I review only use paragraph tags and bolding on their pages. There is a lot of opportunity for your website if you’re not doing the rest. Be sure to emphasize the keywords or keyword phrases you are targeting, not just a sampling of random words.

A Final Note on Timing

Note it can take a couple of months for your rankings to change in the search results. The search engines do this on their own time so don’t expect immediate results. In time, however, you should start to see things climbing higher. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Did this post help you better understand search engine optimization? Let me know in the form of a comment below!

Top 10 Marketing Martial Arts Posts of 2009

It’s now 2010 and I can’t believe another year has whistled by! I can’t believe I was able to get out over 50 posts last year given that I just started my own stand alone martial arts school. The frequency of posts declined as the year went on but I was still able to write some good quality posts that received a lot of traffic.

The following posts are rank ordered by unique page views. Many of these posts have several comments from our readers. If you haven’t left your comment, you can still add to the conversation at the bottom of each post.

So, without further ado, here is a round up of the top ten posts in 2009 from Marketing Martial Arts:

1. All Professional Martial Arts Schools are McDojos
If you are in business and accept money for martial arts lessons then you might just be a McDojo. Right?

2. Make Your Martial Arts School More Successful in 2009
If you are scratching your head about how to get more sign ups in the New Year so you can increase your martial arts school’s profitability, here are some solid marketing ideas to help you hit the ground running.

3. 50 Killer Ideas for Building a More Profitable Martial Arts School
Here is a list of things that can help you become even more profitable in your business so you can work towards more time off, spend more time with your family and lead the kind of lifestyle you want.

4. How to Create an Irresistible Offer Your Prospects Can’t Refuse
Creating offers that your prospects can’t refuse is one of the best things you can do to attract potential new students.

5. How to Make a Living Teaching Martial Arts
Making a living teaching the martial arts can be hard as hell. There is a lot you have to learn in order to be successful. Not only do you have to be a decent martial artists, you also have to be good at instructing, business, scheduling, marketing, finances, and more. Are you up to the task?

6. Should You Join a Martial Arts Marketing Association?
There are several martial arts marketing associations to choose from and it may or may not be right for you and your martial arts school. Learn how to evaluate them before joining.

7. 3 Factors of Successful Martial Arts Marketing
In order for any marketing system to bring in new students, people must first know, like and trust you.

8. 3 Referral Marketing Systems that Can Help Make it Rain New Students
Stuggling with getting referrals at your martial arts school? Here are three ideas to help kick start your referral program!

9. 35 Direct Response Techniques that Improve Response Rates
If you’re looking for ways to increase response rates on your website, direct mailer, flyer or any marketing piece for that matter, this post will definitely help you get ideas.

10. The #1 Mixed Martial Arts Marketing Mistake and How to Correct It
While the last on the list, this topic is gaining momentum among even traditional martial arts schools who are adding MMA type classes to their curriculum.

Which was your favorite post for 2009?

7 Often Overlooked Martial Arts Marketing Tools

Here are seven marketing ideas you might not have considered (or haven’t done yet) to help attract new prospective martial arts students this year.

1. Advertise in city publications

These are usually cheaper than your city’s newspaper and can be a good resource for prospecting. Print publications are hurting right now due to online competition now is the time to get some good deals. You might even be able to get a deal where you are both in their printed publication and their online equivalent.  Worth looking into, none the less.

2. Go door to door

While many talk about this idea, few actually do it. While dropping off flyers, door hangers or postcards in area neighborhoods is not as targeted as doing direct mail (because you don’t know who lives there and if they specifically match your demographics) it can still be a relatively decent way to stir up some interest.

3. Do direct mail

Doing direct mail can be cost effective and usually frightens off most martial arts school owners. However, you success is all in how you segment the list you buy, present your irresistible offer and the design your mailer.  Remember, sending one mailer might be enough.  It can take up to 7 times or more before someone breaks free from their comfort zone to respond. That’s not to say you want to send the same mailer seven times, it’s more about making seven points of contact.

4. Network with local businesses

Networking with businesses who are around you is a great way to get referrals. Plus, if you use their services or buy from them, they are more likely to refer people over to your martial arts school. You can even start a local business networking group where you meet once a month to talk, have speakers, introduce new businesses and exchange information.

5. Advertise on your vehicle

Wrapping your vehicle is gaining a lot of momentum and becoming more affordable. Plus, you should be able to write off the cost of your car and gas if it’s you rolling billboard. The photo above is a great example of getting people’s attention using this newer medium.

6. Local coupon mailers

I’m talking about Money Mailers or ValPak type mailers. You might even have a lower cost local option available in your area. These can be a little expensive but you have segmenting options available to help reduce waste and reduce costs so you reach your exact target market. I don’t see any martial arts schools in my area doing this and might be a great way to break through in your area.

7. Decorate your front windows
If the only thing you have on your front windows is your logo and hours it’s time to consider adding some marketing punch. Hire a window painter and advertise your current special… feature your after school program… the dates and costs of your next trial program… whatever… just make sure it’s noticeable and in vibrant colors. You should consider swapping this out quarterly to keep things fresh.

Top Posts for December 2009

Here are the top 5 posts for Marketing Martial Arts in December 2009; according to how many times they were uniquely viewed by our visitors:

1. 10 Types of Irresistible Offers You Can Make to Prospects
2. 50 Killer Ideas for Building a More Profitable Martial Arts School
3. 10 Essential Martial Arts Business Questions for 2010
4. Email Marketing that Gets Prospective Martial Arts Students to Respond
5. Top 8 Pages Every Martial Arts School’s Website Should Have

What’s next? I will do a round up of the top 10 posts for 2009 here later this week. I also have my series on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) we’ll be kicking off here shortly.

As always, thanks for reading Marketing Martial Arts!

Martial Arts Business Success in 2010

2009 was a brutal year for many martial arts school owners. To help you spring into 2010 with a little more juice, here is my top 10 list of martial arts business and marketing tips to help your martial arts school become even more successful in the New Year.

1. If you haven’t already done so, implement everything I talked about in Make Your Martial Arts School More Successful in 2009.
2. Start doing online videos. You can do martial arts commercials, demonstrations, interviews..whatever. Host them on YouTube.com for free then pipe them into your website.
3. Create a Facebook Fan Page. In the age of social media, it’s time to set up a Facebook Fan page. This is a great tool for retention as as well as prospecting. I get interaction from my students on virtually every post I make.
4. Test Twitter. You’ll definitely want to experiment with this one. It might work for you and it might not. I don’t personally have a lot of students interacting on Twitter but still use it to get out information pertaining to my martial arts school. As this becomes even more mainstream, you will be ahead of the curve if you start using this now as you build your legion of faithful followers.
5. Test paid search. Paid search is the sponsored advertising you see in the search engines like Google. You pay for clicks on a keyword basis.  The more you’re willing to pay, the higher up in the ads you are. I highly recommend you start with Google. It’s the easiest and most effective system there is where you can send targeted prospects to your martial arts schools website in a relatively cost effective manner.
6. Create a member’s area on your website. This is a great tool for retention. Some say you shouldn’t restrict this area (it can help with recruitment) while other’s say make it password protected (makes it more exclusive). I personally have mine behind a password protected area as it is a competitive advantage. Whichever way you choose, you can house a private forum… how to videos… curriculum downloads… training tips… and more. The important thing is to make it worth visiting often and that it becomes a valuable supplement to your students training.
7. Build a list. This is one of the best things you can do for your martial arts school. Segment your students vs. prospects and send them different messages.
8. Show your students you care. Don’t just do this once and think you’re covered. It’s something you need to do often in conjunction with offering remarkable classes in order to maximize retention.
9. Create irresistible offers. This will help you to attract and sign up new students.  Learn How to Create an Irresistible Offer Your Prospects Can’t Refuse and 10 Types of Irresistible Offers You Can Make to Prospects.
10. Ask yourself 10 essential martial arts business questions for 2010.

I hope this helps and wish you great success in 2010! I look forward to hearing how you’re doing to build and grow your school.

Blanketing the Search Engines

When it comes to marketing your business online do you solely rely on your martial arts school’s website to drive potential new students to your business or do you blanket the search engines?

I subscribe to the theory of blanketing the search engines and use a lot of third party websites to help give my salt lake city utah martial arts school more of a presence. This way I have more than one opportunity in the search results to attract potential new students.

Some might call this a shotgun approach but in online marketing relying on only one thing (your website) is just plain a bad idea. While it certainly should be a primary focus, you should also consider using these other tools to help build and grow your martial arts school as it gives you more opportunity to get your prospects attention.

Some examples to help you blanket your search results include local business directories, social media sites and paid search.

Local Directories

1. Google.com/local
2. local.yahoo.com
3. Bing.com/local
4. Yelp.com
5. InsiderPages.com
6. CitySearch.com
7. SuperPages.com
8. Local.com

With the directories mentioned above that are owned by a search engine, your school can be included in the local maps that appear at the top of the search results pages.

Further, the search engines weigh heavily on the local directories in many markets. Sometimes they list the directory (a ton of local martial arts businesses) and sometimes they list specific martial arts businesses. Either way, if it’s indexed and ranking well, you have a chance at more eyeballs looking at your page.

Social Media Sites

1. Facebook Fan Pages
2. Twitter
3. FriendFeed
4. YouTube
5. Flickr

The search engines love social media sites as they find them highly relevant because they are updated so frequently, among other reasons.

Paid Search

1. Google Adwords
2. Yahoo Advertising
3. Bing/Microsoft Advertising
4. Facebook Ads

Another big idea to consider is paid search. This is where you pay a search engine on a per click basis to have an ad in the “sponsored ads” section of the search results. You bid on different keywords for higher placement. So long as your daily budget isn’t exhausted and your competitors don’t outbid you, you’re in good shape. This can also be highly cost effective depending on your market. More on that in future posts.

With all of these sites and resources helping to blanket the search results, I don’t have to worry if one particular third party site gets devalued in the search results because Google was having a bad day. I have plenty of others to help pick up the slack. And, with paid search, you have a presence even if your website or other sites aren’t ranking well.

The great thing about this is that all of these, with the exception of Google’s Adwords, are free. And, best of all, these all drive people back to my lead generation website one way or another.

Blanketing the search engines is a good idea for your business. The more spaces you occupy in the search results the better your chances are at attracting more potential students.

Do you blanket the search engines? How do you do  it?

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