Would you like higher driving school enrollments? Of course you would! Did you know that one of the best ways to do that is by updating your website? Yep! Just a few tweaks to your website could mean the difference between the same old nothing ever changes website to a powerhouse that spits out traffic and conversions like a well-oiled machine.
What are conversions you ask? Great question. A “conversion” happens when one of your website visitors completes a desired action. Trying to get them to sign up for a newsletter or email chain and they do? That is a successful conversion. In your case, the most likely form of conversion will be registration and payment for your driver’s education courses.
And conversions are just money in your pocket. You’re already getting traffic to your site, improving your conversion rate is the same as increasing your profit margin!
So, let’s talk about what you can do to your driving school website that will not only make it easier for your visitors to use, but will also convert those visitors into buyers.
1. Eye on Analytics
The most fundamental step to improving your website performance, and therefore your conversion rate, is to know where you stand. There are several paid tools at your disposal, but the easiest to get started is with google analytics.
Google provides a comprehensive guide on the subject, but the basic steps are as follows:
Register an Analytics account
Find your Analytics Property ID
Add the Property ID to your site
Start tracking your data
The analytical data you receive is the most valuable resource you have for improving your website, and improving your website is a never-ending pursuit.
So never ending that it may be difficult to keep up with the constant demand for site improvement. Thankfully, you have options. Freelance service sites such as Fiverr offer a wide range of specialist assistance.
For a few hundred dollars a month, you can find dedicated help that can own and improve your webspace.
2. Optimize Your Website for Mobile Device Users
According to Oberlin, the number of global smartphone users is estimated at 6.6 billion, and that number increases by almost 5% each year. And, according to Zippia, there are almost 295 million smartphone users as of 2022 and 47% of all U.S. web traffic originated from a mobile device.
Knowing that, if your website isn’t optimized for mobile device users, that means most of your traffic is probably clicking away from your website and going to other websites that are mobile-friendly and easier to use.
It’s important to remember that your key demographic, adolescents, and teenagers, are a huge driver of these statistics. You want to meet your audience where they live, and that means top-notch mobile optimization.
3. Improve Your Page Speed
The longer your website’s pages take to load, the more traffic and conversions you are losing. According to Cloudflare, most people will click away from your website if it takes longer than two seconds to load. So, make sure your website loads in less than two minutes.
Unsure of your current page performance? Not to worry. Pingdom, and similar free services, will test your page speed and provide a detailed report. There are few aspects of a website more important than page speed, so if you’re working with a developer that’s not sure how to improve it, find one that can.
Not only will it reduce your bounce rate, people leaving your site quickly without engagement, but you’ll get a boost to your google SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as well. And again, make sure to pay particular attention to page speed as it relates to mobile devices. Your customers and google sure are.
4. Add Reviews and Testimonials to Your Website
According to Oberlo, nine out of ten consumers consult online reviews before making a purchase. Most people want proof that a driving school is reputable and of high quality before deciding on whether to enroll. And the first thing people look for before deciding on which driving school to choose is social proof. So before deciding on which one to choose, most people will read as many reviews and testimonials as they can before enrolling. So why not make it easy for them by including reviews and testimonials on your website?
You best source of these reviews? Your students. Every student that takes your courses are a promotional opportunity. Offer incentives. An inexpensive Amazon gift card can go a long way in helping to convince a graduate of your program to give a nice review.
Make sure, however, that you get full consent from both your student and their parent or guardian if they are under the age of 18. Feel free to use our publicity release consent form for your testimonial needs.
Accompanying images of students go a long way. Remember, you don’t need a professional production company to get a high-quality image of your student reviewers. With a little practice you can get a great picture with your phone, and prospective students will appreciate it. Just take care to present a good cross section of your student base.
5. Include Videos on Your Website
Everything about driving is visual. Therefore, it makes sense to include a variety of driving videos on your website. People love videos because they are easier to consume. And videos are shared 1,200 times more on social media than text and links combined. Additionally, videos are great for building your brand and your brand’s reputation.
These could be videos of your instructors teaching a class, a worst driving mistakes and how to avoid them video, an accident video and what the driver should have done video, a review video, an FAQs video, or even an overview of what you do video.
Ask yourself what types of videos your audience wants or need to see when they visit your site. Don’t be afraid to cover topics like preparing for a driving test, or a comprehensive preview of what they can expect from your courses. Engagement is key and a great source of engagement is to provide real value to your visitors.
6. Live Chat and/or Chat Bots
Adding a live chat option is a great way to increase your driving school enrollments. Today, when people want an answer to their questions, they don’t want to wait—they want their questions answered NOW! If you make them wait until you are back in the office, they probably won’t. They will move on to another website that does have a live chat option. Additionally, 42% of online web visitors prefer to chat with someone versus using more traditional methods such as the phone or email. And live chat experiences have a 92% satisfaction rating among consumers.
If you don’t want to offer a live chat service, you can always opt for a chatbot and see how it goes, but most people would prefer to chat with a human. If you don’t have the staffing to offer a live chat option, there are services available that you can hire to handle your live chat service for you.
Providers such as Twilio can automate text message responses to live questions. As most of your prospective students would prefer to receive a text than deal with a live phone call, trust us on this one, this is a great option to provide feedback.
7. Shorten or Eliminate Your Contact Forms
People are generally impatient and don’t want to take the time to fill out a long form. So why not make your contact forms shorter to remove that one obstacle that might make a visitor not want to bother? Then you can get the other information you need from them once you are able to connect with them.
In fact, where possible, consider eliminating your contact forms. Consider a registration as the ultimate means of contact, and drive your visitors to that point, as opposed to the extra step of a contact form.
8. Tweak Your Call-to-Action (CTA) Methods
You should include CTAs at several points on every page, not just at the bottom of a page. You don’t want to make your website visitor wonder what they are supposed to do or to have to search for how to contact you.
Make it easy by adding a variety of CTAs at different points on each page. Additionally, if you want to make your CTAs more effective, create a more personalized CTA that specifically addresses potential driving school enrollees.
For example, your CTA button could say something like:
GET YOUR FREE DRIVING SCHOOL CONSULTATION HERE versus one that says CONTACT US.
Or,
CLICK HERE FOR YOUR FREE DRIVER’S ED GUIDE versus one that says CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.
Testing your different CTA’s is crucial. You want to test different variations as much as possible to find what really works. Speaking of testing…
9. TEST TEST TEST TEST!
Always be testing! Testing all the above methods for improving your site’s performance is the most important thing you can take away from this guide.
Does your developer think they have a way to improv site speed? Test it! Do you have a clever new idea for displaying testimonials? Test it!
Test anything and everything as much as you possibly can, but remember, like any good science experiment, you want to isolate variables as much as possible. Make a single change, and then measure adjusted performance over a month or so. Then analyze and target a new variable to test.
Your site is a never-ending work in progress, so a willingness and ability to test every component will serve you better than any other method to improving your site and upping your conversions.
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Liam Hoch researches and writes about safe driving for DriverZ.
Having been a passenger in multiple near-catastrophic vehicle collisions, Liam knows first-hand the dangers of distracted, reckless, and unsafe driving.
Passionate about our core principles of helping to make safer drivers and, ultimately, saving lives, Liam stays at the forefront of driving safety innovation and research.
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