After you decide you need a Web site, the next most important question is, “How will my prospects audience find it?” You can promote the section for current student at your school, with letters, flyers, posters and classroom announcements. Now, you might think that you should launch your Web site before being concerned how prospects will find it – and you would be right and wrong. Obviously, you must select and prepare the content of your Web site before it can exist; however, as you strategically develop the contents (especially the prospects’ section), you can make some smart choices that will make it more “search-engine-friendly” when it does go live – and will help to maximize the number of people who find it, and more easily.

What is a search engine? According to Wikipedia (the Web-based encyclopedia), “Web search engines (such as Google) provide an interface to search for information on the World Wide Web. Information may consist of Web pages, images and other types of files.” To provide organized, relevant information about the myriad of subjects on the Internet, search engines search, organize and prioritize Web sites into their relevant subjects. Search engines do this by sending their agents (called spiders) to “read” through the content of hundreds of thousands of Web sites to find “hints” as to where to categorize them. One of your first search-engine strategies is to provide those “hints” for your Web site in a variety of ways, so your Web site is placed in the correct category and ranked appropriately.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the cyber-speak process that is used to make your Web site search-engine-friendly. In fact, when you create a Web site you have two main audiences: your prospective students and the search engines. Your prospects visit your Web site to learn the many benefits of martial arts (and your school) for their children – confidence, discipline, concentration and academic improvements – or themselves – fitness, weight loss and stress reduction.

Your Web site’s second audience (search engines) is the agents, or spiders, that search for valuable content, according to users’ search terms. When an Internet user wants to find a martial arts school in a specific city and state, Omaha, Nebraska, for example, he or she types the search terms, “martial arts Omaha Nebraska,” in any of the popular search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.) and they will list all schools in the Omaha area with Web sites, in order of importance.

How search engines develop this hierarchy of most relevant to least relevant Web sites is sometimes a point of contention among Web marketers and is in a constant state of change; however, there are certain rules-of-thumb you can follow, so your Web site will be search-engine-ready.

The first step is to choose a key phrase that best describes your school. Ideally, this key phrase will also be the name of your Web site (the domain name) and the title of your main page and included in the main heading of your page as well as used in the text throughout the site.

In future columns, I will explain more about keywords and key phrases. At this stage in the development of your Web site, all you need to know is that you must choose a phrase that prospects and those “spiders” will clearly understand and is used often in the text.

Your key phrase should be rather straightforward. Let’s say you have a Karate school in Albany, New York – you would want to choose “karate Albany” as your key phrase. Just the word, “karate,” would be too general. A search engine would “read” that keyword and list all Web sites with content related to “karate” – in Albany and everywhere. The keyword, “Albany,” would also be non-specific, resulting in a list of Web sites and content about Albany. Your martial arts school’s Web site would probably be on that list, but so would all other Albany businesses with Web sites and any general references to Albany. Your prospects would have to spend too much time looking for your Web site on that extraordinarily long list, reducing those that would find it to very few – and that’s not smart marketing.

What you should remember from this column is that you should choose a keyword phrase that best describes your school and then use it often and strategically throughout your Web site.

In this month’s column, I want to focus specifically on your strategy; I want to examine keywords (or key phrases) and determine which you should use. Finally, I want to give you some tools that will help with this process. As a side note, ‘keyword’ is a misnomer; the word is singular, but it also refers to key phrases. As you will see below, the single keyword is often too generic and vague, thus, which is why I want to focus on key phrases.

Let’s start by defining a keyword, using my favorite quick reference online guide, Wikipedia: “It is a term that captures the essence of the topic of a document or a search query. When a descriptor is descriptive, it can be an effective search parameter. It can consist of a word, phrase or alphanumerical term.” What does this mean?

The keyword or phrase you target must describe in a nutshell the fundamental nature of what you are offering and in a way that search engines will recognize. Grab a pencil and paper to develop your dream list of keywords, about 30 or so, before testing their effectiveness.

Follow these guidelines to help you narrow your keyword list.

Select a keyword that is specific. You are probably part of a large groups of schools that will want to use “martial arts” or your style name (“karate,” for example) as part of your key phrase. These words are descriptive enough; they are not ambiguous at all, BUT they are too vague for our purpose. If I search the word “karate” with Google, then the top results on the first page are: a definition of karate, karate movie clips, a link to information about the movie, The Karate Kid, karate supplies, etc. No karate school related sites appear on the first search page! This reinforces what I have already mentioned in previous columns: “karate” is too vague a word; you need to be more specific.

Study the chart below, which I borrowed from Search Engine News and adapted it for our needs.

 

Think like your customer. This is very important in the brainstorming stage. What you want to do is think like Johnny or Mary’s mom who is looking for the best martial arts school for her child. If it were you looking for a martial arts school for your child and did a Google search, then what words would you use to search for your school? You have to think like a customer who is ready to buy; they already know they want to find a karate school, but they want to select one to call or visit.

 Study your competition. After you have your list of keywords, test them. Generate searches with these keywords in search engines, such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN and study the results. This exercise will not only give you a good feel for your competition, but also, by studying the keywords they have used, you might find some keywords you might have missed.

 

Use keyword tools to finalize your selections. There are some free tools on the Internet you can use to finalize you list: Yahoo’s Search Term Suggestion Tool (formerly known as Overture), Wordtraker (the best one) and the Google Ad Words Keywords Tool among some others.

Beware! Some of these tools are skewed to favor their paid campaigns. Use their information as part of the full process, but don’t rely solely on them.

In the next month’s column, I will explain how to maximize the placement of your keywords to boost your Web site ranking.

I have already mentioned that the prospect site is the equivalent to your introductory lesson. Your student Web site includes everything else. It’s a little student retention, with a dash of martial arts education, culminating in the renewal conference. It is designed to service your current students and to make them feel that you and your school care about them; even after they enroll! Your member Web site should also promote your Black Belt and any other upgrade programs.

Start with the Student Renewal Section

The first and most important part of your student Web site – the section that will impact your bottom line directly – is student renewals. The strategy is to educate current students on the benefits they are currently receiving as well the future benefits of your upgrade programs. To achieve the former, you must create Black Belt, Master and/or Leadership programs (or whatever you want to name them and fully explain their benefits and what students can expect to gain. For the latter, there should be a whole section that includes Black Belt student testimonials and video clips of your upgrade events, such as Black Belt tests, boot camps, etc. Also, include plenty of mixed media – audio and video of you, your staff and your current Black Belt students and their parents.

The second part of your student Web site is the service section – and maybe the easiest. This is where you provide student resources and education that will make the preframing for renewal conferences much easier. Contents of this section promote and foster the philosophy of your martial arts school as well as practical resources related to requirements. You can direct students and parents to the following information, saving you time and money.

• Add resources, such as class schedules and belt requirements, which you typically make available in printed form. Of course, you still want to offer these resources as printed documents at your school, but they become even more convenient when they can be downloaded and printed from your Web site.
• Include video clips of forms, combinations or any other part of your curriculum. These clips are easily created and can be placed on your Web site to be viewed and downloaded by your students.
• Build a sense of community and camaraderie with plenty of information about you and your staff, including biographies and martial arts training and accomplishments. Emphasize the history of your style, your school’s background and any other information that will help reinforce school loyalty and a sense of affiliation.
• Equipment sales is another useful and practical resource for the student service section of your Web site. You can create an online pro shop with your own line of equipment and lists of items your students will need. You can also link to other suppliers, such as Century Martial Arts.

Finally, the general public should not have access to your student section. This will create a sense of exclusivity for your students as well as protect your curriculum and other information you use exclusively to preframe students for upgrades/renewals. Take this a step further and deny access to your Black Belt and more advanced curriculum to students who are not yet enrolled in those programs. Dangle the carrot, but don’t give it away.

In my experience, a student section tends to be neglected and not even considered in the development of a school’s Web site. It is my opinion that it is as important as your prospecting site, since any business requires new as well as repeating business to be successful. In addition, it also reinforces and fills the gaps in the much-needed education of students of the benefits of making martial arts a way of life, and why a long-term commitment is necessary to reap those benefits.

Some school owners ask me whether they should start with a prospecting or student’s Web site. I advise that they start with the prospecting Web site to increase new business, but also plan and build a student site to have a complete business presence on the Internet.

Last month, I introduced the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) concept that makes your Web site search-engine-friendly. SEO is so important to attracting prospects to your site that if you won’t optimize your site with SEO methods, then you shouldn’t both with having a Web site.

SEO is defined as the “active practice of optimizing a Web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines.”

In my next series of columns, I will be writing, in detail, about the controllable factors behind SEO. By controllable factors, I mean what you can easily do to make your Web site appealing to search engines. Key phrases and page titles are two of the basic methods I presented in earlier columns, but I want to lead you deeper into the various techniques that will increase the likelihood of your Web site being found.

Previously, I wrote extensively about content. There is a famous adage in the Internet marketing world, “content is king.” Web site content must be developed strategically to attract your target audience and be found by search engines; and, ideally, your Web site content should be so good that other Web sites will want to link to yours. As you develop this content, you must be aware of key phrases you want to utilize (more on this later).

There are three elements you should consider when writing your content.

1. It should be interesting, useful and, if possible, entertaining. In the martial arts industry, this translates to writing content that educates your prospects and excites them to visit your school.

2. The content should be unique to your school. Search engines frown upon content that is repeated on more than one Web site, so, if you have written an excellent sales letter with another school owner with a different school, and you both want to use it, then customize it, so it’s unique for your school. For example, change the order of some of the paragraphs, write different titles, etc.

3. In addition to useful, interesting, entertaining and unique content, search engines are more attracted to content that is updated often. You might be thinking, “Wow! This is too much work!” It can be, if you decide to do it yourself. If you love to write, then it will be a pleasure, but if you don’t, then there are certain tools that can help you keep your content fresh and new. You can always hire someone to write the content, either in-house or from many of the online copywriting services (visit websiteskarate.com for more on these resources).

There are a few other strategies that will help you create and write content.

1. An FAQ (frequently asked questions) section about martial arts in general, the benefits of martial arts and your school. Write mini-articles based on the most frequently asked questions from your customers and create an individual Web page for each topic. Instead of just a listing all the questions and answers on one page, you have separate articles of each topic, each with its own key phrase to optimize. You’ll increase the credibility of your Web site and school for prospective students as well as search engines. As a result, you might even attract outside links that refer to your articles, due to their scope and uniqueness.

2. Create a links page. Many Web sites have links pages, some being used to their maximum potential, while others are not. It’s certainly a good idea to put numerous links of related subjects on your “Useful Links” page, but it’s better to create an annotated links page, which means you write and include descriptive paragraphs of those linked sites. If you use the key phrase strategy and optimize your paragraphs wisely, then not only will you attract links to your site, but also your site will possibly appear on searches by keywords you’ve used to describe the links.

Use these easy methods to craft a well-developed Internet marketing campaign, as you expand your Web site to include crucial elements that will make it a more powerful tool to increase prospect traffic and enrollments.

In this month’s column, I would like to focus on how to lay the groundwork for a successful prospecting site, one with the sole purpose of bringing you more business. To do this, you will have to wear two hats: the school owner hat and the Internet marketer hat.

First, determine your target market. If 90% of your students are children and you have no interest in teaching adults, then you should develop a one-page Web site with a message aimed at the parents of the children you want to attract to your school. If you have a good mix of children and adults, then your Web site should contain two main pages that target both groups and build on the strengths of the different programs. Stay away from one page that fits all.

Once you have determined your target market and how many pages you will need to spread your message, you will then need to gather the contents for those pages. You will want to include a letter from you that details the benefits of your program, what students can expect to gain from it and why you are different than other martial arts schools. You already present this information in your introductory classes and conferences, so all you need to do is commit that information to paper. Write compelling copy that creates urgency and motivates the reader to take action, either to use the phone or your Web site to make an appointment.

In addition to a powerful letter, you will want to include testimonials from parents about the benefits their children have gained at your school; gather similar testimonials from adult students, if you teach that age group. Don’t ask for random testimonials; make sure your questions are based on the points you want to promote in your letter. For example, on the children’s Web site page, if your message strongly touts how your program is built on character development, such as self-discipline and self-respect, then the testimonials you gather should reflect the success students have experienced in these areas. Parents of prospective students prob-ably don’t care that Johnny or Mary has developed a great side kick. These testimonials carry more weight when they include a picture of the students and/or their parents, so make sure to col-lect those, as well. A digital video camera is a handy tool to record testimonials, which are very compelling on a Web site.Besides the testimonials and respective pictures, make sure you include pictures of your students in class. In the children’s section, pictures of groups of kids, bowing, standing at attention or inter-acting with an instructor are very powerful. You should be trying to create a familiarity between the prospect and you. In the adult section, you can include pictures that reflect fun, camaraderie and the benefits of a good workout.

You will want to consider including some mixed media. Either audio or video clips of yourself or your school that is relevant to the site. These clips should be short and to the point, geared to generate excitement and urgency throughout the site.

Now that you can bring your messages, testimonials and images to the Internet, prospects become excited and want to make appointments. Make sure the appointment making process is easy to do. Your phone number should appear throughout the site in bold and larger text than the rest of the content. There should also be a Web form at the beginning and the end of the Web page, so prospects can provide their information. Finally, you might consider a registration form, so prospects can register for appoint-ments online.

In conclusion, once you decide on a target market, make sure you draft a compelling message that promotes the benefits of your school and motivates prospects to make appointments. Support this message with testimonials and photographs and audio and video clips. Finally, present your contact information throughout your Web site, so it is easy for prospects to contact you.

This month’s column focuses on some strategies you, or your Webmaster, can easily implement on your Web site to make keywords or key phrases work for you.

Which key phrase you select is of extreme importance to market your Web site effectively, but it is only the first step. Where your use the keyword phrase in the content of your Web pages is the next step, since it will also contribute (or not) to your search engine success.

One word of caution: I will be introducing some basic HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) terms, but don’t worry I will only present the basic principles that will impact you. Wikipedia defines HTML as “the predominant markup language for Web pages.”

Any Web page is composed of two parts: HTML code you don’t see and, after your Web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.) has interpreted this code, the resulting page you actually see. HTML uses bracketed code (<>) in the form of labels (known as tags), to define the appearance and semantics of a Web page. Search engines “read” this code when they spider cyber space.

Title Tags

Search engines place huge importance on the title tag of a Web page. The title tag of your Web page describes its contents for search engines, or what product or service is represented by that Web page. Due to its importance, the title tag should contain your most important keywords and be fewer than 63 characters. Often, a title tag will include the company’s name, or even “Welcome to our Web site!” This practice is useless; people will not search your business by using its name (unless they already know it).

The content of your title tag is critical. It is also the link from the results page, as displayed by the search engine. Ideally your domain name and your title page will be the same.

Header Tags

Header tags are also important. The <h1> tag should be used as the title of your content. Ideally, it will contain the same words as the page title above. The other tags follow in order of importance. You should only have one <h1> in your page. For example:

Body Text

The body text is the main content of your Web page and it comes next in importance. It is beneficial to include the keywords throughout your content to improve your position in a search results.

The ideal number of body text on a page is 200 to 300 that emphasize two or three carefully selected keywords (key phrases). I suggest that you place the most relevant keyword-rich text in the top one third of the page. Search engines read the source code linearly from top to bottom, which is why the headers and the first paragraph are crucial. Place images and other items, such as animations and movies, further down the page.

Link Anchor Text

This is the visible text attached to a hyperlink, for example, “Website Resources for Karate Schools.” Keywords, placed in the anchor text of links to other pages on your site, receive a higher priority than other text. If your keywords are used as anchor text links from other Web sites to yours, then they carry even more weight. Whenever possible, try to influence which keywords are being used in the link anchor text on other sites that link to yours.