DCI Digital

6 MUST HAVE Features Every Driving Instructor Website Should Have

DCI Digital — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:41:32 +0000

Driving schools, training, and driving tuition is now a highly competitive industry. With around 40,000 qualified driving instructors throughout the United Kingdom, there is certainly a wide range of driving schools for new learners to choose from.

This competition also extends online.

With around tens of thousands of websites, advertisements, and social media profiles found all across the internet competing with each other to try and get you to pick them rather than the competition. But how can you make your driving school website stand out from the rest?

Simply having a website, just isn’t enough these days.

Especially for the driving school industry. There are so many different aspects of your website that need to be taken into account and included within it, to help entice potential students that you are the driving school they should book with. So how do you achieve this?

Don’t worry, our web design experts are here to help.

First things first, you should have a modern and easy-to-use website. As a driving school or business, your website should be tailor-made to specifically target your end users; people looking to start driving lessons or take courses around driving.

Your website will need to include all the features and information required for potential new learners to browse through. Sounds like a lot to take in?

Not to worry, because below we have put together a short list of the key features that your driving school website should include. You’re welcome!

6 Features your Driving School Website Must Include:

1. Provide Information About your Business

No matter how qualified an instructor may be, Driver Training is a personal experience. There will always be some people who may not be compatible with certain styles and methods of teaching.

That’s why it is important to provide information about your Driving business.

Your driving instructor website should have as much detail about yourself or your business as possible. Let people know what qualifications you or your instructors have achieved, how long you have been in the line of business, and what the reason was that you became an instructor in the first place.

Make it personal.

2. Display your Prices Clearly

One of the main priorities for the end users visiting your driving school website will be to compare your prices against other driving schools. That’s why it is so important and highly recommended to clearly outline the cost breakdown for all the services you offer.

This not only allows the viewer to see all the different services you or your business provides, it will also allow you to provide the viewer with the most appropriate option for them – for example, lessons by the hour or even an intensive course.

3. A Detailed List of your Services

Nowadays there are so many different types of training that driving schools can offer. These can range from intensive courses, motorway training right down to pass plus. To some learners, all of these options can be overwhelming and potentially lead to confusion as to which course would be best for them.

This is why your website needs to include easy-to-read lists of all the different courses you or your business offers. Each course should come with a detailed section of information about each course and also who the course is aimed at.

This will help learners navigate much easier when picking the most appropriate course for them.

4. Easy to Find Booking and Contact Details

As previously mentioned, driving lessons can be very personal. That’s why any driving school website needs to provide contact information. How else are people supposed to get in touch!

Allowing those interested to contact you directly with ease will give people a direct line to you for any queries they might have and also discuss their requirements with you. Which will in turn, help you generate more business! If people cannot get a hold of you, it’s very easy for them to go to your competition instead.

Take a look at these 8 reasons why you need a contact form for more information.

Make sure to implement a straightforward, easy to use online contact form on your website. To some people, completing a form is a lot less hassle than having to call someone as they may be short on time. Better yet, a good booking form will let people book and pay for their lessons or courses with you online, giving them the leisure to do so in their own time.

5. Feature a Wide Range of Testimonials

Testimonials are proof of the reliability and quality of the services that you or your business offer. Many people tend to read reviews and testimonials before going ahead with any purchase. Your website should contain up to date, verifiable and accurate testimonials.

It’s easy to integrate your reviews from websites such as FreeIndex, Google Business, or even via your social media channels. Video testimonials are another great idea!

Connect with people by showing off your happy customers.

6. Provide Additional Driving Tuition Resources

Everyone who is thinking about learning how to drive, are more than likely also looking for information on driving as a whole and also what learning how to drive entails.

A great way to help keep people on your website is to provide valuable information and content about driving. Why not include information about theory or practical tests? A great idea would be to add in some mock tests that people can take online. YouTube videos are also another way to provide valuable information to your end users, these can easily be embedded into your content.

The post 6 MUST HAVE Features Every Driving Instructor Website Should Have first appeared on DCI Digital.

10 Great Examples of Driving School/Instructor Web Design

DCI Digital — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 15:53:29 +0000

We all know, that driving is a very serious business. Not only are you putting the safety of your passengers into your hands when you are driving, you are also putting the safety of others on the road into your hands.

It’s pretty daunting stuff! This is the reason why it is so important to learn and stick to the traffic rules. Being ready on the road and knowing how to handle emergencies should any arise is a key part of learning how to drive.

Being able to drive is a fantastic skill, it gives you the freedom to go wherever you want when you want. But there are some challenges to overcome before you become a skilled driver.

That’s where driving schools come in. Driving schools play a huge role in educating the learner to avoid road accidents whilst bringing both the car and the passengers to safety.

With the industry being so competitive, and will over 40,000 driving instructors in the UK, many great driving schools out there advertise their expertise through the internet.

Sometimes, it takes an easy-to-use, neatly designed website to get aspiring student drivers to check out your driving school.

So if you are planning or working on a website for a driving school, take a look at some of these great driving instructor web designs to help get you inspired:

1. Midrive

Midrive has a great website filled with dynamic content such as testimonials, statistics and proven results. It has a unique step by step slider which enables the viewer how see exactly how their services work. The theme of the site is blue and white, perfect colours for an automobile-themed website.

2. Drive Johnson’s

A driving school situated in Milton Keynes, United Kingdom, this website has a red and black theme and a list of pages about their programs, price lists, courses and much more. This website also has a learning centre which includes a range or articles learners can choose from. The website design is also a responsive one.

3. Drive Coach Driving School

Located in London, United Kingdom, this driving school website has a nice fluid design coupled with learner and instructor elements. A picture slider is present and the graphics are of high quality as well. The design’s beauty stems from its simplicity and the light colours chosen.

4. BiteSize Driving School

Go light and dark with this driving school web design. It has a light and dark blue theme and a clean touch of typography to display the information. The colours go all together very well and the website also displays their offers very clearly.

5. Fulwell School of Motoring

With this driving school web design, it is simple yet effective. The main page includes a beautiful image slider which catches the viewer’s eye. Within the footer, the business also includes useful links, providing valuable content for user convenience.

6. AA Driving School

With its yellow colour scheme, this driving school has a nice layout and uses an image gallery just beneath the large header image. The content and information is well-arranged allowing users to find what they are looking for straight away.

7. Chequers Motoring School

This motoring school web design is styled in the vibrant colour red. The typography is great and the content is well organised, unlike a lot of other driving school sites where the layout is more scattered.

8. Bridgestone Winter Driving School

This simple yet very catchy driving school web design will catch your eye. It’s directly stating their services and features a range of videos from actual performances and test drives.

The post 10 Great Examples of Driving School/Instructor Web Design first appeared on DCI Digital.

How to Get More Local Business Reviews – Our 3 Step Process

DCI Digital — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 05:04:24 +0000

Many of our existing web design clients often approach me with a very low budget and ask how they can bring in more business fast without spending any money.

The answer? Local business reviews.

In 2015, BrightLocal performed a survey (full info here) of 2000 consumers who used the web to find local services and found a whopping 88% of local searchers read company reviews to gauge the quality of a business.

Since then, the figures have risen even more...

Nearly every consumer now reads online reviews. 98% say they read online reviews at least “occasionally” while 77% say they read them “frequently” or “always.” The number of people who “never” read online reviews has decreased significantly, falling from 13% in 2020 to 2% in 2021.
- via ExplodingTopics.com

How to get more online business reviews?

It’s quite simple, compile a list of email address (or phone numbers) and actively reach out to previous and current clients and customers asking for them to leave a review.

It’s one of the biggest influencers in getting people to call your business, yet 90% of local businesses completely ignore it.

Make your business stand out amongst the crowd and I promise you, you’ll soon reap the benefits.

Actively obtaining new reviews is FREE and takes a matter of minutes to send a quick email or make a phone call so there really is little excuse for not doing it.

Imagine if your reviews generate just one new customer a month, was it worth 30 minutes of your time? Damn right it was.

So where is best to get local business reviews?

There are a ton of different places to get reviews such as Facebook, Google, Yell.com, Trip Advisor to name the big four.

However, we can’t expect the same customer to leave 4 reviews in all these different places so we need to put a little pre-thought into which platform is going to offer the most reward first.

Which one is best for you?

It shouldn’t be too difficult to decide which platform you feel is best suited for your business, but below I’ll put some examples to help you pick. I obviously can’t cover every type of business, but it should be quite easy to relate to one or more of the examples below.

If you can’t relate to any below, have a think where the bulk of your existing business comes from, Facebook, Google, TripAdvisor? Which ever is currently putting the most money into your bank account, optimise that first and then move on to the others later.

Note: If you don’t know where the bulk of your business comes from, you need to start asking your customer how they’re finding you immediately (that’s a blog post for another day).

If you’re a local plumber

Most likely Google reviews and Yell.com. Why? Because people are more likely to search Google for ‘plumbers near me’ than they are to turn to Facebook. Plumbers tend to fit into the ‘emergency‘ category whereby people need someone NOW, they don’t have time to wait for friend recommendations.

Hamish above is a perfect example of where you need to, he’s more than likely a one man band and is probably has a phone that won’t stop ringing with new customers day and night.

72% of consumers trust online reviews – via SearchEngineWatch

If you’re a home visit hair stylist

Whilst Google is certainly still important, you may actually see more short term benefit by having a quality Facebook business page with glowing reviews.

Think about it, you finish styling a clients hair at her house and soon afterwards she posts a picture on Facebook showing off your work, there’s a high chance they’ll tag your business page in the post to recommend you to her friends.

49% of Consumers Like a Facebook page to support the brand – via Sprout Social

Her friends are presented with a high quality business page with over 10 five star reviews that’s been highly recommended by someone, the odds of them calling you next time are HUGE!

If you’re a local restaurant

I’d recommend Trip Advisor first, followed by Google & Facebook. Most restaurant searches will start with a Google search, which will more than likely lead to them ending up on Trip Advisor as they tend to dominate the search results with ‘Top 10 Restaurants in Hemel Hempstead’ type pages.

If you can appear in that top 10 lists in your local area, you stand to increase your footfall massively.

64% of people read reviews to find better restaurants – via TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor Tips – It’s important to remember that TripAdvisor isn’t a ‘set it and forget it’ platform. You should be logging in a few times a week to optimise your page, respond to customer reviews and generally keep your finger on the pulse. For restaurants, it’s important you promote your TripAdvisor page in-house, simply hoping a customer leaves and goes to the effort to leave a review isn’t enough. Promote, promote and promote it again!

How can you encourage people to leave reviews? Offer an incentive such as a free desert when you leave a TripAdvisor review whilst in the restaurant, or a voucher for a free drink on your next visit if you leave a review when you get home. There’s a ton of ways you can incentivise your existing customers to leave a review, even if it ends up costing you £100 in free appetisers over the month, you now have 20 new glowing 5 star reviews that are likely to continue to bring in customers for the coming months and years.

Run the incentive 5 times in the next 12 months and you could easily tally up over 100 new reviews.

How to contact customers for online reviews

This will differ business to business, but email is the preferred approach as they are in-front of their phone or computer when they read your email, making it much easier for them to do it there and then.

It also gives you the opportunity to provide them a link straight to your company review page so they can’t get distracted along the way. You’ll see a much greater success rate for your efforts by handing everything to them on a plate and making it a ‘one click’ process.

Wondering what to say? You don’t need to say much, but I’ll include a template I personally use to give you some inspiration.

Free Example Review Request Template (You can Copy & Paste it)

Hi {Name},

I hope you don’t mind me emailing, we’re just in the process of building up our online reputation on {Platform} and I’m wondering if you have a few seconds to spare to review our company and briefly share your experience with others?

Our potential customers put a lot of time into reading business reviews so we’d really appreciate it you can help us out with a few words.

You don’t have to sign up so it’s quite simple, just head to {Link to review page} and click ‘Write a Review’, it can be as brief or as detailed as you like.

If you get stuck please don’t hesitate to get back to me and I’ll help you out!

Kind regards,

Ryan Gardiner

Note: Don’t forget to replace the bolded text with your customers details and a link to your review page.

Make a list, follow up, follow up and follow up again

In an ideal world, you’d send your customer an email and they’d reply an hour later to say ‘Hey no problem at all, all done’. Unfortunately, that’s not how it general goes down.

They’ll read your email, see the link, think of what they ‘could’ write, decide they’ll do it later, quickly reply to tell you they’ll do it later and then completely forget. I’m not blaming them, I’m just as big of a culprit as anyone else, it’s just the way it is.

If you don’t hear back from your first email, I suggest following it up with one more before giving up hope.

Free Example Review Follow Up Template (You can Copy & Paste it)

Hi {Name},

Sorry to bother you again, I sent you an email few days ago to see if you’d be willing to help us out by leaving us a short {Platform} review, I didn’t hear anything back so I’m just following it up one more time incase it slipped your mind (don’t worry it’s easily done!).

Here’s a link to the review page again to save you looking through emails: {Link to review page}

Any review no matter how brief makes a huge difference!

Thanks again,

Ryan

Keep politely reminding them at least once a week until it becomes easier for them to leave you a review than it does to keep putting it off. Won’t this annoy them I hear you ask? No, providing they have actually agreed to do a review for you and simply keep forgetting to actually do it.

Make sure you keep your follow ups friendly, just a gentle ‘Hey {Name}, Sorry, just a gentle nudge about that Google review, here’s the link again incase you can’t find it {Link to review page}‘ should do.

If you don’t hear back from your first review outreach email, and then don’t hear back from a second follow up, these guys are best left alone. They may have a reason for not wanting to leave a review, such as not having something good to say but not wanting to out you in public about it.

Keeping track of it all

You can do this however you like, as long as you do it one way or the other. Not having a list of people you’ve emailed, have chased and have already left reviews will most likely lead to failure.

To keep track of it all, write a list of all the names and email addresses you plan to contact. You can do this in Excel, on your phone, on a piece of paper (Paper, what’s that right??) or sign up for a free task management software package such as Meister Task which is what I use to run my day to day work life.

Here’s an example of just how simple it is. Enter all their names, edit them and add (Sent) when I’ve send the first email, and tick it off when they’ve left a review.

Check back on this list once a week, keeping it up to date and chasing anyone who is marked as ‘Sent’ but hasn’t left a review or come back to you yet.

In summary

Reviews are your friend, don’t miss out on this incredibly easy opportunity to grow your business. If you have no budget to play with, take 30 minutes one day a week to work on this and a few months from now you’ll be glad you did.

The post How to Get More Local Business Reviews – Our 3 Step Process first appeared on DCI Digital.