Being taught the proper skills for driving is necessary before getting on the road. In fact, when between the ages of 14 and 25, taking a driver’s education course is mandatory in Texas. The course will last at least 32 hours, along with additional time spent practicing with an adult. This ensures that students feel as comfortable as possible behind the wheel before receiving their license.
But how should those students determine where to take their course? There are so many options out there for online and in-person driving schools. No matter the location, there should be an attractive and functional website for each one of those schools. Keeping that in mind, we are going to consider some of the ways that you can offer the best driving school website possible.
Invest in a good web host.
Essentially, web hosting is a service that houses sites. It allows you to be able to post web pages on the internet. Going with the wrong web hosting company can negatively impact your driving school website. It might be the case that your provider isn’t secure. This results in you having to combat an excessive number of cyberattacks and threats. These can not only disrupt your daily workflow, but also make your students feel unsafe. Another problem that you might face with a bad web host is slow loading times. Your web pages and course material may take seconds too long to display your images, and those extra seconds can cost you. So, do your research before committing to a web hosting provider. It’s about so much more than just price—although the price may be indicative of the service level.
Make your pricing easy to find.
Driver’s education courses aren’t free. That is something that your business needs to clarify from the jump. Price awareness leads to consumer confidence, which is required in order to make a sale. You don’t want someone to get through the entire process of signing up, only to back out because they see your price right at the end. The opposite effect would be if they believed that, by not seeing your cost initially, your course is already too expensive. This results in them bouncing from your site without even sticking around through the sign-up process. To attract the right customers, put the cost of your course on the homepage, as well as on the course page itself.
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Split up your types of training.
It may be the case that your driving school website has information for multiple courses. If your program is offered at the national level, this could include driver’s ed for every state. The details of driving safety and laws vary between states, so make it clear where students need to go. You also might offer driver’s ed for both teens and adults, where the content may be different. Again, there should be labeled sections that point them in the right direction. At the end of the day, don’t put all of your courses on one page. Or, if you do, just make sure that each one has a corresponding landing page. You can consider making a menu item called “Courses” with a sub-menu that shows each one.
Share driving success stories.
Upon the completion of a driver’s education course, students will be sent out into the world. You may never see them again because they are already expert drivers. But that doesn’t have to be the last you ever hear from them. Request testimonials for how students felt the course went. Send an email out with a quick questionnaire. You will be able to display their quotes on your driving school website to highlight their—and your—accomplishments. Just ensure that you have their permission to post what they said. If students end up leaving reviews online outside of your feedback form, such as on your Google Business Profile, include those on your site, too.
Check out WEBii’s case study on our web application development work with Online Driving Professor!
Include relevant, high-quality photos.
Ask a professional web designer to help you make your site modern. A big part of this is going to be the images that you use. Many driving school websites consist of outdated stock photography that, in turn, makes their courses come across as outdated. Find new, high-resolution images to utilize that will support your written content. These could be happy teens driving with their parents in the passenger seat, or visuals of what not to do behind the wheel. Leave little to the imagination about what it is that your driving school does. Takes photos of your building and team, as well, to supply a more personal experience. And remember to add an alt tag to every image! This helps search engines be able to better crawl your site.
Create an FAQ page.
At every interaction, solve the needs of your prospective customers. One of the best ways to establish trust for your business is by making a web page full of comprehensive answers to commonly asked questions. These should be questions that your team often hears, and questions that you find on the internet. This combination covers all of your bases. A great question could be, “How do I schedule my road test?” This easy access to knowledge helps users overcome any obstacles that they face leading up to a conversion. They are ultimately more confident in signing up for your driving school when they aren’t scouring your site for answers. Plus, it keeps your team from having to repeatedly answer the FAQs themselves.
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Strategically utilize keywords.
As much as your FAQ page is going to capture the interest of users, you need to consider those questions every step of the way. It isn’t the only page that you want to rank well on Google. A high rank gives you the opportunity to increase your reach and the number of website visits. To get noticed, use relevant keywords that you hope to rank for. Research these early on so you can most appropriately create your web copy and metadata on each page. You might use phrases like “driver’s ed” or “driving lessons.” Note that you shouldn’t over-optimize your keywords. Place them in a thoughtful but human way that makes sense to readers and search engine crawlers alike.
Consider making a helpful blog.
To push your keywords as much as possible and generate a greater amount of traffic, implement a blog on your driving school website. This is your chance to write content that both new drivers and their parents will find useful. For example, you could publish an article about how to prevent distracted driving. You might touch on putting away cell phones, avoiding eating, and limiting the number of passengers while driving. Another good blog post idea is how to save on driver insurance. Break down a list of tips for cutting that cost. Every piece of content that you publish should be original and relevant to your business. Enhance them with images, statistic-based graphics, and videos to keep the attention of readers for longer.
Focus on having good SEO.
There are a lot of moving parts that go into search engine optimization (SEO). Over time, you will need to update your driving school website accordingly. This goes for the technical maintenance, as well as the web copy. If your site is made on WordPress, technical maintenance is fairly simple. You can even hire a WordPress web maintenance company to take care of your plugins for you. Vulnerability patches need to be made quickly in order to strengthen your site against attacks. For the web copy, you need to be prepared to edit as soon as your business makes a change. An instance of this might be if your pricing goes up. Check that every page that mentions the price has been fixed. You want every person who visits your site to leave knowing the facts.
Provide your students with a positive user experience on your driving school website. Doing so could result in them telling their friends and family members to take your course. After all, people are loyal to businesses that put care into their journey. You can get your site on the right track with the help of WEBii. We are a team of expert web developers and designers based in Austin, Texas. Contact us today to learn more about what our services can offer you.