Five tips for music teachers to grow web presence
When I launched my private studio the first thing I knew I needed was a way for future students to find out I existed. Being a violin teacher in a large city meant I was one of many vying for potential students. There are traditional forms of growing your studio, such as working for a music school, reaching out to local school teachers, placing flyers in strategic spots, asking for referrals, buddying up with a violin shop, the list goes on! And of course, once you get your foot in the door with a few families, you may be able to get referrals. But more and more parents are living as digital natives that use Google to search for everything. If your traditional outlets for recruiting new students have fallen short, you may need to boost your marketing to the digital realm. Here are some tips for growing your web presence as a music teacher.
Tip #1: Make a simple, yet visually compelling website
This tip sounds a lot simpler than it actually is. As a music teacher, you know that it takes years of practice to make playing your instrument easy. The same goes for making websites–it takes practice and experience to build websites that get your point across to future clients quickly. The average person spends 53 seconds on a website–that means you need to get them to do a desired action as quickly as possible. For most music teachers, we are looking for an inquiry to start lessons, so this means you want your viewers to inquire about lessons through a form, a phone call, or an email.
Once you’ve made contact easily accessible on your website, you need to also make your story compelling. Why should someone study with you versus the other teachers in your area? What makes you special and how can you get that point across in under a minute? This is where the art of building a simple, yet visually compelling website comes into play. Remember, having a great website is an investment in your business. You can learn more about how to make your own website or I can build one for you!
Tip #2: Your website should be mobile friendly
Over 50% of people in 2023 were visiting websites on a mobile device. For my studio's website, that number is closer to 75%. If over half of your future clients can’t navigate your website on a smart phone you may be losing people.
I’ve been asked to do redesigns for many people who had websites designed over a decade ago because at that point website design was desktop driven. Currently, the best practice is to design a website for mobile first, then desktop. Through something called responsive design it’s possible to design one website to be both desktop and mobile friendly (and even tablet friendly, too!). While this can be done using code, it takes even an experienced designer a lot longer to build a website this way and can cost more in the long run. Template services such as Squarespace, Wix and Wordpress usually have the option to design each page for both mobile and desktop. These services allow for novices to make edits, so you don’t need to pay your designer to change text or photos in the future. It’s still a great idea to hire someone with experience to design your site in the beginning so that it meets best practices mentioned in the first tip. Be sure to check that your mobile site is cohesive, scrollable, and easy to navigate–it actually plays into your search engine optimization (SEO)!
Tip #3: If you teach in-person, be sure you come up in local searches
You’re not done once you’ve built a website because that alone won’t help people find you. You need to also come up in search results from search engines such as Google or Bing. If you are a piano teacher, you want your website to be as close to the top of the search engine results page (SERP) as possible. Your small business will be competing with many others in your area or region on a daily basis. This is why I urge most teachers to rely on local, in-person teaching in a post-COVID world. The amount of SEO you would need to be competitive in an online teaching market would require an entire marketing team! But, it’s reasonable for someone looking to grow their local music studio to show up in SERPs. The great thing about Squarespace is that they have a seamless relationship with Google and that helps get your website searchable quickly when using best practices.
If you are teaching within a certain area, for instance Phoenix, Arizona, you want people in your immediate area who will most likely take lessons from you to find you easily. Setting a location for your business can make a huge difference in whether or not you are easily searchable. If you have a set location that you teach at that you are comfortable sharing on the internet, this will greatly help your SEO. If not it may be more complex to come up in searches, but not entirely impossible. This is why hiring an website designer with experience in SEO is a huge asset for your business.
Tip #4: Get reviews and testimonials
When a parent is looking for lessons for their child they want to know they’re getting someone trustworthy and experienced. Getting reviews can be a double edged sword, but if you believe in your methods, your current clients will most likely spend their time writing positive reviews rather than tearing you down with a bad one. Lots of good reviews on Yelp! or Google My Business can propel your business quickly because it’s something people can trust. It also helps aid in your search engine optimization as reviews are considered rich search results. Not only do you look more reliable to your clients, you also look more reliable to search engine crawlers that boost your search engine optimization (SEO). Connecting these profiles to your website will also aid in building your SEO, as links from other websites to your website will cause search engine crawlers to think your website has more meaning for certain keywords.
Tip #5: Keep your web presence current
Once you have your website set up and it starts bringing in clients, you need to keep your website current with trends. You can expect your website to look outdated within a year or two, and to be completely behind the trends within 5-10 years. For instance, many websites made in the early 2010s are so outdated now because they are not mobile friendly and for many other design reasons. Also, SEO can change from day to day. If there are new teachers in your area, you may find your listing getting buried in the SERPs. Keeping tabs on the health of your SEO and website accessibility will greatly help your business for years to come.
When my family moved in 2021 I needed to grow an entirely new studio in my area. Using my web design and marketing skills I began growing my studio family by family. I was getting many inquiries but I wanted to grow the violin studio I had always imagined to have rather than fill my schedule as quickly as possible. I laid down firm expectations that did not fit every family and only took on beginners. Within two years I had a full Suzuki violin studio with committed families who practice daily and love attending group class. This shows the power of a great website and meaningful marketing to attract new and brilliant students to your studio.
PS…You may notice that I have left out two important elements for growing your web presence: social media and search engine marketing (SEM). These are also valuable outlets for growing your web presence, there are so many avenues to explore! For most teachers, growing your presence on social media is not necessary and SEM can be very expensive. I have had success with SEM during strategic times of the year for short bursts, and it did also help my search engine optimization in the long run, but it’s not the only way for new students to find their way to you. By applying some of the tips I mentioned above you can grow your presence online and in your studio in a more cost-effective way.
