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If searchers search for a specific business in your area, it's important to appear near the top to get the maximum benefit. The question is, how do you ensure that you are showing up? The answer is simple, by utilizing local search engine optimization (Local SEO) techniques. 

If you think of SEO as a broad category, local SEO is but a subsection of it. However, if you are looking to attract local businesses, then local SEO is key to your success. Organic SEO refers to any method of marketing that relies on natural, organic listings in the search results instead of paid links such as paid social media marketing or pay per click (PPC). For most small businesses, paid social or PPC can be cost-prohibitive. However, utilizing organic SEO techniques, you ensure your website ranks for key searches.

Think about this, today’s school-age children have grown up with the internet being nearly at their fingertips. For most, Google has always been around, and “smartphones” have always been in their parent’s pockets. These kids will use their cell phones, laptops, or tablets to communicate, entertain, and learn new information.

If you were to show them a phonebook, an encyclopedia, a card catalog, or a printed map, they may look at you dumbfounded and say, “Bruh.” This is code for why you are using such an outdated and archaic method to find something.

To those of us who grew up and can remember when the internet wasn’t in our pocket or a voice command away, we know those items were how you found information. Now they are found in museums, antique stores, and possibly at the Grandparents’ house.

Having an online presence is a necessity. Your private school’s website and social media accounts should constantly produce new enrollment and brand awareness opportunities. If you are a principal, headmaster, or over admissions in some way and you realize that your website or social media isn’t producing, then you should consider spending time make sure they maximize their purposes.

Let’s address your website as you have the most control over it. You will want visitors to navigate through your website on a particular path. Think of it as a good story, but one where they can jump in at almost any part and realize exactly what is happening.

Think about this, as you perform a search, you are taken to a page that should have the answer to your question. Chances are this isn’t going to be the front page of the website that you may have agonized over to make sure it was perfect. A prospective parent may come to a blog or a landing page. These need the same amount of attention as your front page, and they need to drive traffic to your appointment page or at least take them into the next step of their journey.

Before we go any further, let us address the website. Your website should be indicative of what your school looks and feels like. This means carrying the same school colors and feel throughout. If your school is very conservative, make sure the website conveys that. If your school is focused on technology, an edgier look may work. In other words, your school’s website is what prospective parents see first, and as we all know, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. 

If you have a good clean website design that conveys the same feel as your school, this will ensure that your users and prospective parents will spend time on your site, reading your content, and clicking on your call to action (CTA) buttons. If they have a good experience, they will be more likely to return. This will happen more often if they are finding the answers to questions. As a general rule, you always offer them a way to dig deeper through links to other content and CTA buttons. This will help them if they are trying to decide if they want to enroll their child or children.

Before going any further, let us agree on one thing. The main goals of your website are to leave a lasting impression, to educate, and to inform your prospective clients. To achieve this, you need a functional and high-quality website. 

Sure, you can sign up for an online web design course or use one of the many do-it-yourself web page building solutions you can find online. You can even ask your neighborhood whiz kid to put together a decent website for you. It may only cost you some pizza money.

However, you need to understand that what you are investing in is a website that will showcase your business to your customers. You can best do that with a website that provides a great user experience, reliability, and design.

Having said that, here are some factors to consider when choosing between do-it-yourself websites and professionally made ones:

Which is better, a small digital marketing agency or a large one? The short answer is it depends on your needs. Don’t you love the vagueness there! Before we dive into this topic, let’s first examine what the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) says is a small business based on their table of standards.

If you are a Wireless Telecommunications Carrier (except Satellite), you are considered a small business if you employ 1,500 or fewer. Motor Vehicle Parts (Used) Merchant Wholesalers or, the junkyard, is 100 or less. Now you might think that they would base the size on the number of people employed. Well, you would be wrong. Supermarkets and Other Grocery (except Convenience) Stores need to have $35 million dollars in total income to qualify. So that means if your local, regional grocery store chain is $35 million in size, then they would be considered a small business. 

Take Cube Creative as an example, we consider ourselves to be a digital marketing agency. The SBA doesn’t have a classification for that. Therefore, I looked at what might be closest, which varied from $16.5 million to $30 million.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t consider an agency with $16.5 million a small business. Therefore, for this post’s purpose, I want to reference Dunbar's Number and look at it as in the number of clients an agency actively manages. You may be asking what is Dunbar’s Number is and what does it have to do with a small agency versus a large agency.

Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.

Wikipedia

 

Ideally, it is somewhere around 150 people. This includes your work colleagues, clients, family, and friends, or any other interpersonal relationships you might have. Therefore an agency that has around 100-150 active monthly clients is a good starting number as this is most likely spread across a handful of people.

Let’s look at a small agency versus a large agency.