Thursday, April 9, 2009

MTNA Nat'l Convention - Maximizing Your Website

I took a bit of a break while my daughter and I spent a few chilly days at the beach for spring break, but I have more to post about the 2009 MTNA National Convention in Atlanta! (Click here to see all of my MTNA convention posts.)

Website basics for private studios
Michael Stegner, Creative Music Adventures, Seattle, WA



Interesting statistic: 74% of the people who arrive at your website got there by typing in the url or through a bookmark. Only 11% arrive via search engines. I’ve heard so much about optimizing your site for google that this was indeed surprising.

Here are a few of the many helpful ideas I took away from this seminar:

Create characters - write several detailed bios of potential parents who arrives at your website. See your site thro their eyes. They’ll be thinking “what’s in this for me?” This is much more important than agonizing over background colors and fonts.

Pay close attention to the navigation – your click path. Make sure that you are leading them to the information you want them to find, and make sure there are no dead ends. Never make them use the back button.

Make sure your contact info is on every page – that’s ultimately what you want them to do – to contact you! Don’t make them have to look it up. If they can’t find it, it’s not there.

Pictures are good, but the text will sell. Make your copy great. Pay for a copywriter if necessary.

Don’t make it about YOU – make it about them.

I updated my web page after attending this seminar. While I didn't follow all of Michael's recommendations to the letter, I think it’s much better now!

1 comment:

Mindy said...

This is very good advice. Here, here! I would love if some existing websites would go back and do this. Non-friendly sites don't go high on my list, even when I know what I'm looking for!