Tips on developing a better web-site!

By Saeed Ashrafinia
Jan 23rd 2002
 

By now you probably know that not having a website means that you are not seriously in business. These days when people see your ad in a newspaper or the yellow pages, they look for your web address to find out more about you, before even considering if they should do business with you or not.

This article is not about whether you should have a website or not, but is about whether your current website is doing anything for you!

There are some simple ways to improve your website to drive more traffic to your school and turning them into students, after all the most important business of a martial arts school is to acquire new students and to keep the ones that are already enrolled.

The Don’ts…

Don’t do your own website unless you know what you are doing: What happens when someone walks into your school sees burned-out lights, unprofessional designs, unframed photos on the walls or even old painted colors on the walls. If they are already a student they probably don’t like it and if they were a potential new student, most likely they would check out your competitors. Having an unprofessional designed website gives the same impression to new members, while having a beautifully designed could make you look like a big, successful school. Don’t be scared to invest into your marketing materials including a professional brochure or a well designed website, because presentation is everything!

Avoid too many graphics or photos on one page: Too many graphics will make your pages very slow to load, and you don’t want the users to wait especially when it comes to your main page. Having too much colors and graphics also takes away from the message you are trying to get across. Some times simplicity is the best!

Avoid a Flash start up: Study has shown that people do not like to go through websites with an Intro flash. It was cool to have an Intro flash when it was new, but now these days’ people have seen them everywhere and unless it is giving a powerful message it is better not to have them. When someone visits your website, you want them to find the information they need with the least amount of clicking. If you can’t do without a Flash intro make sure to not make it more than 5 seconds long. There are other ways to use flash on your website other than as an intro. You could use them embedded on a corner of a page or as an ad. For an example of using a Flash embedded into a html page, please visit ChampionsWay.com or KickBoxing.com home pages.

Do not have two different websites for students and prospects: It’s hard enough to market and brand one domain name in your community, so stick with one name and have the option of a member section that is password protected. Keep your general pages build specific to the needs of your new visitors and when a student visits your home page, he will then know that he can log-in into the more important stuff by going to the member section. Do not keep all the cool stuff under the member section, allow also for prospects to see what they can get if they become a student in your school. For instance you can have your weekly tips to be viewed also by your prospects.

Always keep your website fresh: A static website is like reading last year’s newspaper. It just doesn’t interest you, especially when you read an article or news that is talking about an issue that happened last year. If you would like for your students to visit your website more often, you would definitely need new and fresh contents. Bringing your students back to your website will reduce the time spent on answering questions that not necessarily should be done by you at the school. For example; why should a parent always call to find out whether their son is testing this month or not, if they are able to make up a class or even how much it costs to buy a new uniform! Systemizing your website will reduce the time spent on answering repetitive questions and gives your students the flexibility to find answers day or night. Remember, bringing back a student to your website will also increase his interest towards Martial Arts and your school. Another benefit of a student visiting your website over and over is to give them the ability to see other things that you might offer. Usually the best way to bring back a student is by giving them tips on their training or a video stream of their curriculum and showing them how their KATA is really done, all online! The member section should also include students profile including ranks and the

exam requirements for the next rank.

Make your website Interactive:

Let visitors enter to win free lessons if they subscribe to your newsletter. Interest them in giving you their email while they are spending time on different pages. When a visitor can interact with your website for their specific needs, they always come back for more. For example if a visitor is interested to learn a self-defense move, your website should recognize their needs and offer them more of the same things the next time they visit. You can also offer different polls or trivia (who do you think will win the K1 match on August 21st? … How old was Bruce lee when he died?) to get them to interact and stay interested in the martial arts.

Your website needs fresh educational and entertainment content on a regular basis!

Bringing back a student to your website will help to promote you. For example imagine you could have a radio martial arts show on your site sponsored by your school. This will not only bring back the students weeks after week but also will create a great deal of traffic for new members to get attracted to your site. How can you get new articles or fresh content for your website? You could start by writing articles yourself on a weekly basis to keep the readers interested to come back. There are also sites that you can link to bring in some sizzle to your website, for instance you can go to www.kickboxing.com for new ideas. Take a look at their radio show, you can have a link to their articles and content (you don’t need to reinvent the wheel as long as you give credit to the content providers on your website and have their full permission in writing).

Market your website:

There are millions of websites out there with information on anything you can think of. So why would anyone come to your website? First of all, you don’t need to market your website to the whole world! You can start by marketing it only to your students and then only to the people in your community. Start your marketing by a simple Tell a Friend option on all your important pages. Study shows that web visitors most likely refer your website to some one else only if they have the ability to do it right then and there in a simple easy way. There is variety of free scripts available for you to accomplish this. Personally I like it when a visitor refers my site to some one else, I can then keep the record of the new person in my contact management for future follow up, but again this is only accomplished if you are using a web-application. Another great way of grabbing your prospects attention is to have testimonials from your students on your website. You can have just text, audio or even video testimonials from your students’ parents or kids themselves talking about how much they have benefited from your program. Comparing with other businesses, we are so lucky to be able to get so many incredible testimonials from our students. Nothing is as powerful as having others tell a prospect how great your school really is! So take advantage of it!

What is the difference between a web-application than a simple website!

A website is made of Html codes that takes care of objects, colors and fonts and displays them in your web browser. A web-application is combination of html and a programming language with a database to keep records of the information in an organized manner. For instance for you to keep track of your users input or the items you sell on your website you will need a database and a web-app to do the job. If you would like to add the ability to sell inventory items or Pay-Per-View a video on your website, you will need a shopping cart web-application. Basically having a Web-application will allow you to display information much more dynamically according to the visitor’s input rather then having static pages. There are a variety of applications out there you can use to accomplish some or all of your needs, but the best of them are the ones that are customized for Martial Arts Schools.

How much does it cost to build a powerful marketing tool like building a website:

A professional website costs anywhere between $1000 to $25000 according to your schools’ size and needs. But don’t be scared in investing money into your professional school, because it all comes back…

Click Here > & Find out how ChampionsWay! can create a site for you that fits within your budget.