Online Advertisting and Off line Advertising

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Permalink Reply by Gihane Doeman on February 6, 2010 at 7:27pm

Wow. No one responded. Scott P, do you have any thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by Scott Palat on February 7, 2010 at 8:53pm

Sorry, sometimes ning doesn't notify via email me when people post. I just happened to check today.

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Permalink Reply by Scott Palat on February 7, 2010 at 8:53pm

Google maps offers free local advertising, but they will verify your address with a post card. Just click maps and you'll see the submit a listing link. I come up #2 on Denver tutoring for my old OwlOnlineTutoring.com website. That one listing generates a few leads per month.

I don't recommend adwords, because too many kids click on those links and you would not be selling your online tutoring service to kids. It just costs too much money and it's hard to even break even on your investment.

Seo is a whole other story. There's a lot to know about seo. To keep it simple, I would recommend targeting local keywords like your town name tutoring + your surrounding towns too. Place them in your title tag, meta tag and within the bottom part of your website.

Hope that helps!

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Permalink Reply by Gihane Doeman on February 8, 2010 at 11:18am

Thanks. What about off-line advertising. I have the flyers ready to go with the little rip offs for people that are interested in my services, but what else can I do to get the word out about my site. Where should I place the flyers? What other avenues besides flyers can I use? Any thoughts.

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Permalink Reply by Scott Palat on February 11, 2010 at 3:22pm

Flyers can be tricky, because you are limited to places you can hang them. Supermarkets, community rec centers and if possible libraries work best. Be sure to include your online tutoring website and phone number on each rip off.

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Permalink Reply by Gihane Doeman on February 23, 2010 at 5:16pm

I am done with my site.

www.aceonlinetutoring.com

I just need to aquire students. I have hung flyers in a lot of supermarkets. I see some of the tabs are ripped, but i have not gotten any calls and I'm worried. I want my business to work. How can I aquire more students realistically. I was thinking a news paper add or ads on homeschool websites. As well as placemat ads on diner placemats. I want to be as big as Tutor.com. I wont stop until I get to that point. I ust need my first client. Any thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by Scott Palat on February 24, 2010 at 12:00pm

Great work on your graphics! I really like the header.

These are the improvements that you need to make for your online tutoring website:

1. Place a picture of yourself near the top and make sure you are smiling
2. Place your phone number directly below your picture.
3.It's a hard sell for someone to come to an online tutoring website and instantly pay without knowing more about you or the tutors. If you want to sell your 1 hour tutoring session, you can do it, but you'll need to explain more about you and the tutors and I would not put the price near the top.

In fact, I wouldn't recommend talking about the price until the parent scrolls down or on a separate page. If you end up adding more text, you should also include your phone number a few times + you might want to include a form that parents can fill out to explain their child's academic problems in more details. This way, you could call them and have most of the information about their child and what type of tutoring they are interested in. This will give you 3 options. 1. They call, 2. They complete the form or 3. They complete payment.

Also, for your intro offer, I would include some bonuses such as a study skills guide or something like that.

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Permalink Reply by Alison T on February 25, 2010 at 1:56am

There are tutoring sites where you post your details and students contact you like www.cafetalk.com as Scott points out there are a lot of tutors working for bottom dollar. I have an offline tutoring business I advertise in free newspapers and local internet forums. I haven't had that many leads but once you get a student they can stay with you for some time. Like you I'm thinking of ways of advertising e.g: leaflets and flyers. I have a lot competition in my area from English Institutes as they're called but as I offer private tution this would be a matter of choice. By the way you made a spelling mistake in the header on your website - it should be: convenient.
Best of luck!

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Permalink Reply by Scott Palat on March 16, 2010 at 12:14pm

You said it right Allison!

Tutors should expect to keep any student for months/years. It just comes down to caring and consulting with the parent on an ongoing basis. That's all it takes for them to realize they could never find another tutor like you.

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