The Definitive SEO Guide for Driving Schools

Let me guess – you’re the owner of driving school or your thinking about getting into that line of business? Either way, making sure your school has a digital presence and a website that potential students can find is essential to building a customer base and a profitable business.

This monster guide will tell you everything you need to know about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) if you’re running your own driving school and need to bring in new students.

Here’s our agenda in this massive guide. Feel free to click on the links below to move directly to your area of interest.

1. What Is Search Engine Optimization?
2. Should Driving Schools Even Focus on SEO?
3. Does SEO Really Work?
4. WordPress vs. The Rest
5. WordPress Plugins
6. Tools / Software
7. What Is On-Page SEO?
8. What Is Off-Page SEO?
9. A Responsive Website for Desktops, Tablets and Mobile Devices
10. FREE SEO AUDIT OF YOUR WEBSITE

1. What Is Search Engine Optimization

1. 7,611,240,000 searches are performed on Google every day. People are looking for all sorts of things, including products and services.
2. 10,000,000+ people performing searches related to driving schools every month.
3. Thousands of potential new customers in your area are most likely searching for a local driving schools.
4. If they find you, you win new business.

2. Should Driving Schools Even Focus on SEO?

The real question we need to be asking is, “will spending money on search engine optimization provide my business with a return on my investment.” Simply put – will investing in SEO bring in enough new students to make sense financially?

The good news is that there are a TON of people performing driving school-related services.

As you can see above, well over 1,000,000 searches are being performed for driving schools every month.

And that’s just a small sample. It’s likely that in total, over 10,000,000 searches are being performed every month for local driving schools, lessons, behind-the-wheel instruction, defensive driving, and other queries related to your business.

Not only are people searching for driving school, but they’re searching for driving school services. That means people are actively searching for classroom lessons, behind-the-wheel instruction, defensive driving courses, and the ability to earn a driver’s license in your area!

Think of it like fishing where all the fish are biting. It’s a no-brainer that’s where you want to be looking for new business.

3. Does SEO Really Work?

We wouldn’t recommend doing your own SEO. The learning curve is too high and it requires about $1000 / month of fancy tools. But a team that’s experiences in search engine marketing will give you the best chance to be successful.

Here are the results of one of our clients after just a month of our Gold Package, which includes a comprehensive SEO campaign.

52% increase in website visits and 61% increase in new visitors! That’s a big win after just a month.

And our goal is to have your website traffic looking like this.

So does SEO really work? If you can build a strong relationship with a qualified and proven SEO agency or freelancer and give them the reigns to your campaign, you’ll be in good shape.

4. WordPress vs. The Rest

We build all our clients websites on WordPress. It’s easy for us to create beautiful websites and the user-experience is simple for our project managers, developers, and clients alike. As if that wasn’t enough, 25% of all websites are built on WordPress; that means Google is getting really good at reading these sites for search engine marketing purposes.

Those are all big advantages to using WordPress as opposed to using one of their competitors.

5. WordPress Plugins

One of the best parts about building websites on WordPress is that library of available plugins. Here are the best ones to help support your SEO campaign. We use all of them on all of our sites!

• Yoast SEO – this plugin allows you to customize all on-page SEO and become the Obi-Wan Kenobi of search engines.
• Google Analytics by MonsterInsights – Allows you to easily connect your website to Google Analytics and track website visitors. This is a must to show your SEO campaign is increasing traffic and, more importantly, investing in your services.
• Jetpack by WordPress – this really is a jetpack for your website – provides you with additional security measures, speed updates, and useful plugins to promote your website and business.
• Broken Link Checker – Google loves to hate on sites with 200, 300, and 400 errors. This means you have broken links, which leads to a bad user experience and lower rankings. This plugin tells you whenever a link breaks so you can fix it ASAP.
• Eggplant 301 Redirects – This also helps you deal with broken links. If you find a broken link, redirect that page to another on your site that makes sense. Keeps your user experience flawless and Google happy.
• WP Super Cache – This plugin keeps your site super current so visitors are always seeing the most updated version. With this installed, you don’t have to worry about old edits not being available.
• Wordfence Security – Even the free version of this plugin tells you when plugins are out of date and what IP addresses are trying to hack into your site. A hacked website could spell disaster for your search engine rankings, so keeping your site safe is one of our highest priorities.
• WP Smush – Google loves fast websites, so keep yours up to speed with a plugin that automatically optimizes every image you upload.

6. Tools / Software

All search engine marketers have their favorite collection of tools and software to run successful campaigns. Here are ours at Driving School Marketing.

• Wordtracker – $99/month
• SEMrush – $150/month
• Moz Pro – $150/month
• Advanced Web Ranking (Cloud) – $199/month
• Rackspace Dedicated Servers – $150/month
• Mailchimp – $75/month
• Screaming Frog – £99/year

That’s almost $1000 we spend on software and hardware tools every month for our clients and their SEO campaigns.

That’s over $10,000 spent every year on tools to perform keyword and competitor analyses, track search engine rankings, send email newsletter, and do much more.

Here’s a screenshot of the rankings of one of our clients. Not to shabby.

7. What Is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO is really just what it sounds like – what you can do on your own website to help you compete for search engine visibility.

Let’s go over the most important on-page rankings factors and what you should do to rank your website for “driving school in Washington, DC”:

> Page Titles
Each page or post on your website should focus on a specific group of keyword phrases (“driving school in Washington, DC” and “Washington, DC driving school”). The title is essential to ensure search engines know what each page is about.

Suggested page title: Driving School Washington, DC | [Your Driving School’s Name]

NOTE: Don’t forget to keep your title at or under 65 characters! If it’s any longer, you’ll risk having Google cut it off in search results. Not very professional!

>H1 Headers
This is the the subheader to your page’s title. It should also contain the keyword phrase you want to win for.

Suggested H1 header: Why [Your Driving School’s Name] is Washington, DC’s Top Driving School

> Image ALT Tags
These are technically for website visitors with visual impairments, but they also happen to be an on-page ranking factor. The images on your page should be related to the keyword phrase you want to rank for.

Suggested image alt tag: Washington, DC driving school

> URL (www.yourwebsite.com/[this-part])
This is a minimally important on-page ranking factor, but it will absolutely affect clickthrough rate (who clicks your website in Google search results).

Suggested URL: yourwebsite.com/washington-dc-driving-school

> Internal Linking
Links to your page from other websites will help that page rank well. But to get started, link to that page from other relevant pages on your own website, such as related blog posts or service pages. That will help to start getting your page some authority.

Suggested: Link to this page from related blog posts

NOTE: Use anchor text (the linking text) that’s relevant to the keyword you want to rank for! That means links from other pages should use anchor text similar to “driving school in Washington, DC”.

8. What Is Off-Page SEO?

Off-page SEO is also just what it sounds like – factors that affect your rankings that depend on signals from websites other than your own. This is mostly influences by links from other sites back to your own. This suggests to Google that other sites online consider yours as authoritative.

We execute a customized linking strategy for each client based on the level of competition in their area. Many driving schools in smaller towns who have less competition may need to focus more on on-page optimization rather than off-page.

NOTE: Remember – SEO doesn’t work like a light switch you can simply turn on. It takes time for Google to index your on- and off-page SEO to and climb in the rankings. Our clients usually start seeing upward movement within the 1-3 months and more calls and emails within 3-6!

9. A Responsive Website for Desktops, Tablets and Mobile Devices

Internet usage on mobile devices has officially overtaken that of traditional desktops and laptops.

That means having a website that visitors will enjoy and be able to use easily on their mobile devices is not only a good idea to make visitors happy – it’s actually part of Google’s ranking algorithm. If your site doesn’t pass Google’s Mobile Test, your rankings may suffer as a result.

10. Free SEO Audit of Your Website

Is search engine optimization complicated? Yes. But building a solid relationship with an agency that has all the tools and know-how to run an effective campaign is well worth the investment.

If someone asked you to give them $100, and then gave you $300 in return, you’d do it right? Although SEO can be difficult to understand, measure, and implement, it’s the same concept. Paying someone to bring in enough business to cover their costs, make you a profit, and attract new customers is a no-brainer!

If you’re like to receive an SEO audit of your site, Driving School Marketing provides one free of charge. Please fill out the following form if you’d like to receive one, and we’ll email it to you within 24 hours (unless it’s the weekend or a holiday – then give us a few days!).

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Josh Meah

Josh is the CEO of DrivingSchool.Marketing. His goal is to be the marketing and business development partner of driving schools around the world, helping them become thriving businesses while also expanding general awareness for the importance of traffic safety standards and education.

Latest posts by Josh Meah (see all)

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• How To Protect Your Driving School From An Instructor Who Leaves To Compete With You - April 10, 2018