In this blog, we’ll share with you how important SEO for Driving Schools is along with some tips on how you can improve your ranking on search engines so that you’ll get more new customers!
Table of Contents
ToggleWhat is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality of your marketing efforts so that your driving school ranks high whenever someone searches for driving courses near their area. It has three types which are on-page SEO, Off-page SEO, and Technical SEO.
On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your driving school’s web pages so that it ranks high on relevant search results. While Off-page SEO is the process of improving the rank of your driving school’s website by taking actions that are outside your website. On the other hand, Technical SEO is the process of enhancing the quality of your driving school’s website by making sure that it meets the technical requirements of top-ranking sites.
In the later part of this blog, you’ll learn more tips on how you can optimize those three aspects to get better results out of your marketing strategy.
Want to do SEO for driving schools but don’t have time to do it?
Why SEO for Driving Schools?
Optimizing your website for search engines makes your driving school visible which results in more traffic and more business opportunities. Since not everyone has the time to spend scrolling until the last page of the search results, those that rank high on the first page get more clicks and views. With the use of SEO strategies (which we will be sharing with you in a bit), you’ll get a higher chance of being noticed by your potential customers.
Another reason why you should invest in SEO is that it’s a long-term strategy. Unlike Ad campaigns, SEO takes a while before you see results because improving the quality of your driving school’s website is an ongoing process. However, when done right, it can give you more new customers.
Lastly, SEO for driving schools helps you stay on top of the minds of your potential customers. When your target audience always sees your published content whenever they are looking for more information that is relevant to driving school (e.g. basic driving skills, concepts, and tips), it’ll give them an idea that you are one of the reliable sources of information when it comes to these matter and because of that, they might recommend your academy to someone they know.
Still not sure if SEO is right for your driving school?
How to do SEO for Driving Schools?
On-page SEO techniques
In this section, you’ll learn how you can improve the quality of your website through on-site SEO.
1. Keyword research
Keywords play an important role in helping your driving school get easily found on relevant search queries. That’s why you have to make sure that you’re using relevant and close variations of keywords used on your site. However, you have to keep in mind not to stuff too many keywords or else it might negatively impact your SEO efforts.
Tools that can help you with keyword research:
- Keyword Planner – If you already created Google Ad campaigns for your driving school, there’s a feature that you can use to discover new keywords and see keyword forecasts. It’s called Keyword Planner. This tool allows you to see the average monthly searches of the keywords that you’re planning to use along with how easy/hard the competition is in ranking for that certain keyword.
- Keywords Everywhere – If you want to see relevant keywords along with the search results page, there’s a browser extension that you can use. It’s called Keywords Everywhere. This tool gives you an idea of the trending keywords, related keywords, long-tailed keywords, and search terms that people also search for.
2. Implement focus keywords throughout your content
When writing blog posts for your driving school, you have to make sure that you use relevant keywords in the right places. This includes the headings, body, URL slugs, title tags, and meta descriptions. This helps search engines like Google become familiarized with your content.
In addition to that, you also have to consider using different variations of your target keyword to increase the chances of your blog ranking high on closely related search terms to your focus keyword. For example, if you are going to use the keyword “driving school” on your posts, you should also consider using “driving academy”, “driving instructors”, or “driving lessons.”
Here are the steps on how to do keyword research manually:
- Search for the keyword that you want to rank for. Let’s say you want to see the type of content that ranks the keyword “Driving lesson for beginners.”
- Then, visit each post from your competitors (based on the search results page). In this case, let’s check the content of the blog that ranks #1 for the keyword “driving lesson for beginners.”
- After that, press Ctrl+F and enter the keyword that you want to search for on your competitor’s post. For example, you want to know how many times the phrase “driving lesson” was used.
- This will give you an idea of the number of times a specific keyword was used on other blog posts along with the strategic places where you can add your focus keyword (e.g. beginning of the content and headings).
- Repeat the steps on other posts from your competitors (based on the search results page).
- From there, you’ll have an idea of where you should place your target keywords and the number of times you should use them.
3. Internal links
To improve the browsing experience of your potential customers, adding internal links to your content can help them stay longer on your driving school website. By these to your content, search engines, and crawl bots will have a better understanding of what your page is all about as well as the internal structure of your driving school’s website.
Best practices when using internal links:
- Use keyword anchor texts (this adds context not just for your page visitors but even for search engines)
- Create lots of content so that you have more internal linking opportunities
- Make sure that when adding internal links, these are relevant to the content that you’re writing
- Remember that you’re adding links to add context and not to spam your page visitors
4. Optimize images
High-definition images may look great from your potential customer’s perspective. However, these images take quite a while before it fully loads. When your page takes more than 3 seconds before it fully loads, there is a high chance that these potential customers will leave your driving school’s website without taking action.
To prevent that from happening, make sure to compress the size of your images before uploading them to your website. If you are looking for image compression tools, Compress Now and TinyPNG are some of the tools you can use.
5. Alt tags
Another factor that you should never miss out on when doing on-site SEO is the proper use of alt tags. Alt tags add context to the images you use on your blog posts. Aside from that, it’s also useful, especially for those with visual impairments, and whenever your image fails to load due to a slow internet connection or other reasons.
Best practices when using alt tags:
- Don’t start with “image of” or “photo of.” It’s already understood that you’re describing a photo. Keep the image description short but with context
- Use your focus keyword on your alt tags (if applicable)
- Don’t stuff your alt tags with too many keywords
- Write a description that relates to what the topic of your blog is all about
6. Publish high-quality content
Content gets easily consumed nowadays. Because of that, you want to make sure that even if you’re consistently publishing content, all of it is made of high-quality information.
But, the question is, “What makes high-quality content?”
- It should be easy to read. Use bullet point lists, headings, table of content, and bold texts to highlight important phrases or ideas in your content.
- It should be relevant to your audience. When creating content, the topic should be something that matches the interest of your potential customers. Since your target audience is individuals who want to learn how to drive or want to get their driver’s licenses, make sure that the content you’re posting is relevant to those topics.
- Have a content checklist. To make sure that you are not missing an important element from your posts, it’s best to have a content checklist. This way, you can check which steps you might have missed or which are the ones that you already did.
- It should be comprehensive. Before writing your content, another thing that you should consider is what your competitors are writing about. If you see that most of the search results about the topic you’re planning to write about are mostly short-form content, creating a long and comprehensive one can help you outrank your competitors. However, other than the length, there are lots of things that you should consider if you really want to rank #1 on relevant search queries.
Off-page SEO techniques
In this section, you’ll learn more about what you can do outside your driving school website to rank high on relevant search results.
1. Guest posting
Guest posting is when you write a post on other people’s websites. Its main purpose is to improve brand awareness and get more traffic and gain backlinks to your driving school’s website.
How to find guest posting opportunities:
- Use the keywords “driving school + write for us” or “submit a guest blog + driving schools.”
- Join online communities on LinkedIn and Facebook. Actively participating in relevant discussions helps you build Trust and earn guest posting opportunities.
- Set up Google Alerts to stay updated for new guest posting opportunities.
Tips when writing a blog on other websites:
- Make sure to follow the guidelines they have for guest posting.
- Add internal links from the website you are writing for (this way, they’ll be impressed that you’re familiar with the content they publish.
2. Social media marketing
76% of consumers buy a product based on a post they see on social media. So, if you want to get more traffic to your driving school’s website, sharing relevant content on your Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn profiles is another strategy that can help you get more new customers!
Tips when promoting your content on social media:
- Use relevant hashtags in your captions
- Add aesthetically pleasing visuals along with your posts
- Post your content when most of your audience is online
- Create engaging content
- Be consistent in posting
Want to read an in-depth explanation about the strategies that you can use to promote your driving school on social platforms? Check out our blog about Social Media for Driving Schools to learn more.
3. Optimize your business listings
Another off-page optimization strategy that you can do is by optimizing your business listings. If you already have your driving school listed in online directories like Yelp and Google My Business, make sure to have all of the basic information about your driving school updated. This includes your exact location, contact details, and business hours.
Other ways to optimize your business listing:
- Upload relevant photos of your driving school
- Respond to customer reviews
- Immediately respond to a potential customer’s question (from the Q&A section)
- Enable the messaging feature
Check out our blog about Google My Business for Driving Schools to learn the step-by-step process of how you can set up your business listing.
4. Engage in relevant discussions
You can also share your expertise when it comes to driving concerns by joining relevant discussions on platforms like Reddit and Quora. Here, you can leave a comment under a question that’s relevant to your driving school and if you have a blog post that further explains your answer, you can attach the link along with your comment. This way, when people see it, they have the option to click on it if they want to find out more details about your comment.
5. Partner with influencers
You’ve probably seen posts from influencers as you scroll through your newsfeed. This is called Influencer marketing. What happens here is that you reach out to famous personalities to promote the services that your driving school offers.
This strategy works best especially if you want to showcase your driving school to a brand-new audience. It’s like you’re expanding the reach of your marketing efforts to individuals who might be interested in the services you offer.
Types of influencers
Before choosing an influencer to promote your driving courses, it’s best to know the different types of influencers based on the number of followers.
- Mega- influencers
- These are the ones that have millions of followers (like celebrities)
- Macro-influencers
- These are the ones that have 500,000 to 1 million followers
- Mid-tier influencers
- These are the ones that have 50,000 to 500,000 followers
- Micro-influencers
- These are the ones that have 10,000 to 50,000 followers
- Nano-influencers
- These are the ones that have 1,000 to 10,000 followers
Tips when choosing an influencer to partner with:
- Check out their posts’ engagement rate. You’re not just after the number of likes their posts get. It’s also about how actively engaged their audience is and how effective they promote a specific product.
- Make sure that they have a good reputation. You have to check if the way they market other brands or services is in a way that matches how you want your audience to perceive your driving school. Do their followers comment good things under their posts?
- They should share the same value with your driving school.
- Go for influencers that are not that costly but can help you get the best results that are within your budget.
Technical SEO techniques
When it comes to technical SEO, it’s mostly about indexing, ranking, and crawling capabilities of your driving school’s website.
Indexing is the way search engines analyze, organize, and store information about your driving school’s web pages.
Ranking refers to your position on the search engine results page.
Crawling is when search engine web crawlers collect data from your web pages so that they can connect it to relevant search results.
In this section, you’ll learn what areas you can improve when it comes to the technical aspects of your site.
1. Optimize URLs, title tags, meta descriptions
URLs are the ones that you see on your browser’s title bar and even on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Its purpose is to let your potential customers know about what page will they land on once they click on your website.
URL best practices
- the ideal length is 50-70 characters
- don’t use random characters
- keep your URL slug short (3-5 words)
- must contain your focus keyword
On the other hand, Title Tags are the ones that you usually see on top of your page’s header section, on your browser’s tab, on social media platforms, and on the search results page (under your website’s URL).
Title Tags best practices
- write it in a way that your target audience can’t help but click on it
- don’t use the same keyword over and over again
- it should accurately describe what your page is all about
- start with your focus keyword
- add long tail keywords
Lastly, meta descriptions are the ones you see underneath your title tags. It serves as a brief summary of what your page is all about.
Meta descriptions best practices
- there should be unique meta descriptions for each page on your driving school’s website
- it should have your focus keyword in it
- should be a short summary of your page
2. Improve page loading speed
Page loading time is important in SEO because it determines how long your page visitors stay on your site. The goal is to have a page loading speed between 1-2 seconds. The longer your page takes before it fully loads, the more likely you are about to lose a potential customer.
To prevent that from happening, here are tips on how you can improve the page loading speed of your driving school’s website:
- choose a hosting provider that offers a fast page-loading speed
- as much as possible, reduce the number of redirects on your pages
- optimize the images used on your website
- upload/store your videos on third-party apps like YouTube
To check how long it takes for your page to load, visit your driving school website and do the eye test instead of page loading speed tests. It’ll give you an idea of how fast your page loads from a page visitor’s perspective.
3. Optimize for mobile users
Did you know that almost 60% of web traffic comes from mobile devices? It’s because compared to a desktop, you can bring a phone anywhere you go and as long as you have a mobile data connection or are connected to a wifi, you can easily search whatever information you’re looking for. Because of that, you want to make sure that your driving school website is mobile-friendly.
Here are some tips on how to do it:
- Test to see if your driving school website is optimized for mobile users with Google’s Mobile-friendly test
- Choose plugins and website themes that are mobile-responsive.
- If you can’t get rid of pop-ups, make sure that it automatically adjusts its size on mobile phones and exit buttons are working.
- Test your driving school’s site on other devices.
4. Indexing
Another thing that you should check when optimizing your driving school’s website is the way your pages are indexed. Indexing refers to the way web crawlers learn more information about the content you have on your driving school’s website.
Indexing is important because it lets you know if your website will show up on SERP or not. If you are experiencing indexing issues on your site. Check out this blog about the 14 Reasons Why Google Isn’t Indexing Your Site to learn possible reasons why it happens along with some tips on how to fix them.
5. Make sure that you have a secure website
Does your driving school website start with HTTP:// instead of HTTPS://? If yes, you should consider migrating it to a secure website. But before we proceed with the reason why you should start the switch, it’s important that you know the difference between the two.
HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Websites that start with HTTP transfer information between a user’s browser and your server in clear text which means that third parties (like hackers) can see the personal information that is sent by your potential customers.
That’s where Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) comes in. Compared to the first one, HTTPS provides a secure connection between your users and your website. Here, when they enter sensitive information, it is encrypted (meaning third parties won’t be able to read or get personal information like credit card details, email, password, and phone numbers added by someone who sends their data on your driving school website).
Now that you are able to differentiate those two, here are the reasons why you should start switching to a secure website:
- It protects your customer’s personal details from being leaked.
- It adds confidence to your customer’s trust towards your site.
6. Fix errors
Another factor that impacts your SEO performance score is the number of errors you have on your driving school’s website. That’s why it’s best that you check these potential errors before your potential customers encounter these issues.
To help you keep track of pages on your website that needs to be fixed, tools like Google Search Console notifies you whenever there are crawling, indexing, and performance errors on your website.
Need help optimizing your driving school’s marketing efforts?
Want to know how ad campaigns work? Check out our blog about Google Ads for Driving Schools to learn the step-by-step process of creating your driving academy’s advertisements.
Key takeaway
One of the most effective strategies that will help you rank high on the Search Engine Results Page is by doing SEO. Although it takes 6-12 months before you see its full potential in getting you more new customers, investing your time in optimizing your marketing efforts will help you get the best results in the long run.