Thinking about taking the plunge and getting a website for your business? Or perhaps you already have one. This blog is about my intrepid trek into the world of SEO…
Taking the plunge
For about 1.5 years of having my tutoring business, I had a free Google Site, which was purely to give people extra information if they discovered my Facebook or Instagram page. I had no idea what SEO even was at that point, and didn’t want to spend loads of money per month on a site to begin with, as I wanted to know my business was going to survive, before splurging money on something that wasn’t 100% necessary. In December 2021, I decided I would take the plunge and give it a go. I thought it would be worth the investment and I would see if it made a difference.
I had already spent a bit of time setting up my Google Business Profile, and thought it would be a good addition having a really epic website on there, as that’s the first thing I look at (aside from ratings) when I’m looking for a service.
Designing my website
Just before Christmas, I set about designing the site. If you’ve read my blog about inventing a business name and logo you’ll know the colour scheme of my life! So I started by making a colour palette of mustard, orange, teal, purple and lime green. I then looked at loads of other websites, not just tutoring ones, to see what I liked and disliked. I then came up with a plan for my homepage. I decided I wanted a nav menu along the top, image banner, and then six illustrated buttons underneath that would take you to the main pages that I wanted to have: 1:1 lessons, online group lessons, face-to-face home-ed lessons, virtual playground, parent workshops and blog. I wanted the homepage to be incredibly simple and easy to navigate, but also fun and colourful.
Illustrations
Once I had this clear vision, I got in touch with one of the home-school mums, who I knew was an amazing illustrator, and luckily for me, had just decided to launch her own illustration business, Lemon Disco Designs. I dived straight in and sent her some extremely rough mock ups of the ideas had for each button. Remarkably, she completed the first drafts by the following day!
They were perfect so she went for it and then two days later, I had all six illustrations!
Finding a web designer
Next came the job of finding someone to turn the design into a reality. I knew I wanted to support a local business so put a post out on my local business groups to see what recommendations I got. I had a few people to choose from in the end, but went for SK Web Design as I really liked the way he marketed the websites he’d made on his instagram, and they all looked really professional. His pricing was also very competitive. I signed up, and sent him all my ideas and the colour palette. He then spent the next two-three weeks after Christmas working hard to get all my pages set up.
Getting a professional photographer
My next job was to get some professional photos taken. One of the parents of one of our Truependous Tots is a photographer and has her own business Luna and Light so I asked if she’d be able to come and do a shoot, and also get some pictures of my homeschool group in action. I had already obtained permission from the parents of the children to feature in my images, so we were good to go!
Claire, the photographer, was absolutely brilliant! She had so many artistic ideas and got various shots at my table with my Lemon Disco artwork on the wall in the background (couldn’t have worked out better really!) and then some shots in the attic office and classroom. She came after my homeschool lesson and I did some extra ‘teaching’ to get the shots. It felt like pure chaos haha, as the children were super excited, but I think the photos look magnificent!
Going LIVE!
When I got the photos back, I had to choose which ones I wanted for each banner, and then sent this to my web designer. By the end of January, we were ready to go live! He then gave me the admin details so I could amend any pages as and when I wanted, and also write my blogs. He also offers a service though where he makes any changes I want (included in the monthly fee) if there are some things I can’t do myself.
Lots to learn!
For the first couple of months, I didn’t notice a major difference in the amount of enquiries I was receiving, but this did pick up week by week. Also, I noticed my site wasn’t coming up on Google, even when I typed in Truependous Tutoring. I asked one of my very tech-savvy friends, who realised the page hadn’t been indexed. So he did some magic thing on Google Search Console, and VOILA! It was there!
Around June/July time, I got an influx of enquires, all through my website, from people who wanted summer holiday tuition. I had never had this before! When I asked the new people who came, they said they’d found me on Google – so they must have typed in ‘find a tutor near me’ and then because I’ve got a fair amount of reviews and a super-colourful website, they were sold!
SEO
In the last couple of months, I’ve managed to go on a few 1:1 SEO workshops with Cosmo. I found this through a government site, and it’s all free, which is incredible. I’ve learnt absolutely heaps so far. The main thing I’ve learnt is that currently, I have very limited organic traffic to my page, which is all to do with my keywords. So that’s my next mission! Then maybe some people from all over the world will end up reading this blog! Hi!
My naivety
Even after making the decision to pay someone to make my dream website, I was fairly naive about the amount of extra work it would be. Luckily, I enjoy doing it and like the challenge, but the main thing I’ve learnt is that having a website doesn’t mean that immediately you get more business. I also thought getting visible on Google would be easy (oh how we laughed haha). It’s practically another full-time job to get your website to work for you effectively. It’s like someone from Yell who rang me the other day, said “You’ve basically got a Ferrari, but it doesn’t have an engine.” I took that as a massive compliment haha but obviously need to work on the metaphorical engine over the next few weeks, in and amongst planning lessons, teaching lessons, parenting, childminding and starting my level 5 dyslexia course!
Wish me luck!
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