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3 Fun Ideas for How to Open a Dance Studio that Twirls Past the Competition

3 Fun Ideas for How to Open a Dance Studio


3 Fun Ideas for How to Open a Dance Studio that Twirls Past the Competition

When you are trying to start a dance business, the best thing you can do for yourself is to find the steps that’ll be useful to you. 

Figuring out how to open a dance studio will go a long way toward the results that you get, the money you generate and the skills that you impart to your students. Thankfully, there are three concrete steps you can take to get the best from your studio. 

Follow these tips to get started. 

1. Get Kids Involved ASAP

When it comes to dance studios, the big business is with the kids. Parents are always looking for an activity to involve their kids with, and dance is always a hot ticket. 

Because of this, you need to market to parents that are looking into dance for their children. Above all, make it fun for the kids. 

Hand out dance pins, trophies and other awards for learning and stellar performance, and be sure that you hire instructors that are fun and full of energy. 

Always have some classes, activities, and events that cater to kids, and they’ll be loyal customers for years as they grow in their love for dance. 

2. Take Your Social Media Brand By Storm

Utilizing social media to your advantage, and bolstering your SEO strategy will help your dance studio more than virtually any other form of marketing. 

Get out on the various platforms so that you can inform people about what you do and teach lots of great dance lessons. Something as simple as starting a YouTube channel for your brand that teaches people dance tips will draw interest and point people toward your studio. 

Make sure that you are always consistent with the way that you put yourself out there, and learn the ins and outs of social media marketing as a whole. 

3. Find Ways to Get Involved in the Community

Finally, community is everything when it comes to your dance studio. It is an art that brings people together, so the best thing you can do is make your presence felt locally. 

The better you connect with your community, the more business and goodwill you’ll be able to generate as a whole. 

Since dance is cultural, you can participate in cultural events, parades and other happenings around town. By showcasing some of your best students at these events, people will get a firsthand look at the types of skills they can pick up when they enroll in classes at your studio. 

Keep Learning How to Open a Dance Studio

Learning how to open a dance studio can be incredibly rewarding. It takes a love of the craft and some marketing tips that’ll help you get an edge on your competitors. 

When you take the time to follow these three steps, you will get an amazing headstart on your competition and will make the process more rewarding. 

Consider these points and stick with us when you want to build your dance studio through content marketing, quality service and so much more. 

Business

12 Local SEO Solutions That Will Help You Outrank the Competition

12 Local SEO Solutions That Will Help You Outrank the


12 Local SEO Solutions That Will Help You Outrank the Competition

Why should local SEO solutions matter to your business?

Out of all of the ways to market your business, more and more people are focusing on local search. For the first few years of internet marketing, business owners and marketers were all about SEO. Then around 2009, the marketing topic was social media. Today, the big marketing topic is local search.

There are a couple of simple reasons why it’s so important to your business.

According to HubSpot, 76% of people who do a local search pick up the phone and call a business.

44% of clicks go to the top search result. The top three results get on average 75% of all of the clicks.

Are you starting to understand how improving your local search results can mean more money in your pocket?

Would you like to know how you can make that happen?

Read on for 12 local SEO solutions you can use to improve your search rankings.

How Does Your Site Look in Searches Now?

If you have a goal to improve how your website appears in local search results, it helps to know how your site currently appears. This will help you track your progress as your search results change.

The trick here is to understand that people in different locations will have different search results. Even if they’re in the same town or the same room.

Google’s search results can vary depending on the device you use, your search history, your Google account and your IP address or location.

With so many variables, how can you get an accurate picture of how your website appears?

One workaround is to use a local search emulator. This will help you figure out how you appear according to location. A search emulator will allow you to change your location, so you can see how your site appears throughout your service area.

Know How Your Audience Will Look for You

Do you know how your customer thinks? In other words, how will your customer search for you?

There are a number of questions you should ask yourself to answer this question.

  • Is your customer at home or at work?
  • Are they on a mobile device or on a desktop computer?
  • Are they searching in the middle of the afternoon or late at night?
  • What is the problem they want help with?
  • What are 15-20 search terms/phrases they would use in Google to find you?

Answering these questions will give you a better understanding as to what keywords you should try to rank higher for.

You should also consider positioning yourself for long-tail keyword searches vs. broader searches.

Think of it as the difference between searching for “fitness centers” and “fitness centers with a pool.” Fitness centers will have much greater competition, while fitness centers with a pool serve a genuine interest and will have less competition.

A Three-Pack Is Not Related to Beer

Currently, when you search for local businesses, you’ll see the top 3 search results. It used to be 7. That’s why improving your ranking is more important than ever.

Local SEO solutions such as filling out your MyBusiness listing can improve results.

The process to claim your listing is straightforward. Click on the above link and fill out your information. There is a verification process. Google will send a postcard with a PIN number to your address. It does need to be a physical address.

Once that part is complete, go into your account and fill out your profile. Make sure your description gives people a reason to contact you and be as specific as you can. Fill out your hours accurately, upload a few images and your company logo.

Content, Content, Content!

While these local SEO solutions are important, it’s also important to remember that as crucial as it is to get people to visit your website, they need a reason to stay there. You can do this by creating value for your site visitors.

The best way to create value is by creating content that will make people return to your site over and over again. That’s how you get people to like and trust you.

The more relevant content you have the better. A recent study by Traffic Generation Caf? showed that websites that have 21-54 posts get 30% more traffic.

There are case studies of businesses who have reported using content marketing to increase revenue by a whopping 438%

Improve Internal Links on Your Site

Linking your website’s internal links together helps customers use your website, and add link juice between pages.

Link juice is a way to let search engines know which pages on your site are the most important.

One word of caution: When adding internal links, it may be tempting to add a bunch of internal links on all of your web pages. Don’t do it!

By having a few internal links on each page, you maintain the quality of your links.

Get Quality Backlinks

Out of all of the local SEO solutions, one of the most talked about today is backlinks. A backlink is simply another website that links to your website.

The trick to making backlinks work for local search is that you have to get QUALITY links.

A shotgun approach to backlinks no longer works.

We go over a couple of ways (directories and Google’s My Business listings) to get started throughout this article.

You can also write guest articles for industry and local publications to get quality backlinks to your website.

What’s the Competition Doing?

Knowing how and where your competition ranks in search results can help you understand where your potential customers may be going.

You’ll also quickly learn what keywords your competition may be trying to rank for.

Here’s what to pay attention to when you’re doing competitive research:

  • Your top 5-10 competitors
  • Each competitor’s GoogleMyBusiness Listing. Pay attention to the text and images and look for keywords and locations they might be trying to rank for.
  • Customer reviews – how many and are the reviews positive or negative.

You can either do this on your own or use local SEO solutions like Crunchbase or SEM Rush.

NAP & Structured Data Markup

We can’t talk about your website without a little geek-speak.

NAP is simply your name, address, and phone number. This cannot be stressed enough to make sure that these fields are accurate and consistent throughout your website and directory listings.

Structured markup, also called Schema markup, is code that you have on your website that tells search engines how your site should appear in search results.

This makes your search results more user-friendly.

This resource from Kissmetrics tells you step-by-step how you can add structured markup data to your website.

Customer Reviews Matter

Not only can customer reviews influence rankings, they can also influence a customer’s decision to buy. Over 62% of buyers consider online reviews to be important or very important when finding a local business.

You can ask your customers to leave reviews on Google and Facebook. Also, search for existing reviews and respond to them. You’ll show that you care about your business and your customers.

Let’s say you were looking up a pest control service in Concord, North Carolina. So you search for pest control service reviews near concord nc.

You find a company that you may not be familiar with, but you decide to call based on a number of positive reviews.

Rank Images and Videos

One overlooked aspect of local search is to try to rank videos and images for keywords. This is probably one of the easiest local SEO solutions.

  • A few easy tips to rank images already on your website are:
  • Make sure the image is related to the webpage.
  • The image file name should be changed from IMG_4323425 to something related to the keyword.
  • The higher the image is on your page, the better chance it has to rank.
  • Fill in the alt-text and description of the image. Preferably with your keywords, but don’t keyword stuff.

This is one way to help you rank in local search results that your competition probably isn’t doing.

Get Listed

Online directories are easy to miss as far as local SEO solutions go. You can help your local search results by making sure your business is listed in the main online search directories; such as Yelp, Citysearch, and MerchantCircle and YP.com.

Does that mean that you should submit your website to every directory? Absolutely not. Remember the earlier discussion regarding backlinks: Quantity does not mean quality.

When you list your site, pick the main directories above and include BingPlaces.

If you’re a member of business organization or chamber of commerce, take advantage of your membership and make sure you’re listed in their business directory.

It’s very important to make sure that your listings are accurate and consistent. If you have listings all over the place with old addresses or phone numbers, you’re diluting the potential impact of your search results.

Don’t Discount Social Media

Social media influencers tend to agree that social media remains one of the top local SEO solutions.

It’s still debatable whether social media has a direct impact on search results, but social media does help in other ways.

Social media networks are great for backlinks. They also have the potential to create conversation around your company. This sends social signals to Google’s algorithm.

The more positive the social signal, the more likely you’ll rank higher.

Finding Local SEO Solutions Can Be Easy

As you can see, there are at least a dozen ways you can improve your local search results. If you make these suggested changes, you should start to see your search results improve.

You might be ready to hand some of those tasks off to someone else.

At ArticleCity, our goal is to help you get your content seen so your website can appear in search results.

Sign up for your free account today for the latest marketing and local SEO solutions.

Lifestyle

Find Out What Is Fashion Marketing So You Can Cut Out The Competition

Find Out What Is Fashion Marketing So You Can Cut


Find Out What Is Fashion Marketing So You Can Cut Out The Competition

The fashion industry is massive, bringing in $1 trillion in gross revenue per year.

Yeah, that’s “trillion” with a “t.”

So what is fashion marketing? It’s the outreach you’ll need to separate your product from the competition and succeed in the most cutthroat retail industry in the world.

Here are a few tips to help you get started and get an edge on the competition.

Have a Great Product and Know Your Niche

It all starts here, right?

A lot of people sell underwear, so if you’re selling underwear, it had better have something that sets it apart from the competition.

Better materials. A great story. An amazing fit.

Whatever the product is, you need to understand exactly what you’re selling and how it stacks up to the competition – so do your research before you develop your marketing plans.

It doesn’t matter if you’re asking folks to “Click Here” to buy grillz or selling winter parkas. All successful fashion marketing starts with knowledge of the product and research on the marketplace.

That’s the first job of your newly minted marketing team (even if it’s just you!).

Social Media Is Your Friend

When looking for sterling examples of just what is fashion marketing, look no further than social media.

Facebook. Instagram. Pinterest. Even Snapchat.

The fashion industry leads pretty much all industries when it comes to experimenting with social media.

After all, social media has become increasingly visual and fashion is nothing if not aan image-first industry. Studies have shown that fully one in three consumers have purchased an item of clothing after seeing it on Instagram.

If you hate social media, sorry – it’s critical you learn to love it or hire someone who does.

Find Great Influencers in Your Niche

Speaking of people who take to social media like proverbial fish to water, influencer marketing has become a huge part of what is fashion marketing in 2017.

What is it?

Put simply, influencer marketing is when a company or brand contracts with someone who has a huge, established social media presence in their target niche to promote a product.

It’s basically a celebrity endorsement for the 21st century.

Just how important is it? More than six in 10 fashion companies made influencers part of their marketing strategy in 2016, with another 21 percent planning on incorporating it in 2017.

Don’t Forget Your Ground Game

Social media is good to talk about because it’s accessible anywhere, but the soul of fashion marketing is still on the ground.

So go to trade shows, fashion shows, and make connections.

Showcase your collection. Do a trunk show. Co-sponsor an event.

The key is to have your digital marketing game set up so that when you do face the public with the product, the conversation can continue in the digital space with website, email, social media, and so forth.

The ground game is an opportunity for people who find you through the digital space to get a tactile experience–see the product, touch the product–and also an opportunity for those who have seen the product engage in an ongoing dialogue with the brand before they buy.

What Is Fashion Marketing? That’s up to You

With this much competition, the most important thing is to stand out. Take risks.

Some brands do their marketing through e-mail only. Some do massive stunts.

Others simply stand by their terrific product, tour the country doing shows, and rely on word of mouth.

No matter what, though, you need a good photograph.

A great picture, after all, says a thousand words. And that translates to dollars.