Ideally, dance studio owners should continually be making changes to their websites, not only to keep content fresh, but also to take advantage of SEO (search engine optimization) methods that will help each studio display at or near the top of the list when people search for a studio in their area. But honestly, who has the time?
While I don’t own a dance studio, I am a small business owner in a dance-related field, and I’ll tell you what — it’s tough to find time to keep up on these things. When I find quick and easy ways to keep your website search engine friendly, I’m more than happy to share them. Here’s an easy tip to help your dance studio rise through the search engine rankings, just by ‘tweaking’ your existing content.
Internal Links:
Often, studio websites will have internal links that take dance parents from one of their pages to another, with an eye towards helping these visitors navigate more easily through the site. It turns out that search engines look for keywords in these hyperlinks and any text immediately surrounding the links. What this means is that to obtain the most ‘link juice’ (ranking power), your most important keyword phrases should be included in the link itself and possibly the surrounding text.
Here’s an example (using a fictional dance studio):
Let’s say that on the current Figtree Academy of Dance website, the following sentence has a link to further information…
Click here for a current schedule of available classes.
Using the technique mentioned above, we might change the sentence and link to the following…
Visit our Schedule of Classes page to find the perfect ballet, tap or jazz class.
If it seems a bit much to have the whole sentence as the link, this option would also be valid, if not quite as effective:
Visit our Dance Class Schedule page to find the perfect ballet, tap or jazz class.
The result is that your most important keywords are incorporated into your internal link, and they are given more weight by the search engines. They help establish site architecture and spread awesome link juice throughout the entire site, thereby increasing the ranking potential for each page.
Remember that these internal links will be visible to your customers and prospects, so it’s good to take special care in creating them. In other words, they still need to make sense to dance parents!
Don’t have Internal Links on your Dance Studio’s Website?
It’s quick and easy to add internal links, so if your studio’s website doesn’t have any, never fear. Using the guidelines in this post, go ahead and add a few, linking a line of text to another page within your own website. And add a few more while you’re at it. A couple of internal links per page is a good rule of thumb. On some of your pages, it wouldn’t make sense to have internal links, but on others 3 or 4 of them would be appropriate.
This exercise will be easiest to accomplish if you can make your own website changes, but if you’re not able to do that, you can email the person who maintains your website with your needed text changes.
Your Homework (Should You Choose to Accept It)
Ok, now it’s your turn! You can jump right in, go to your studio’s website, and rework your internal links. If you’d like to practice first, then try optimizing these:
Exercise #1:
The fictional Figtree Academy of Dance has a paragraph on their About the Studio page regarding their faculty, with a link to their Faculty page:
“Figtree Academy has assembled an outstanding faculty of dance professionals with extensive performing and teaching experience, as well as a thorough knowledge of anatomy in relation to dance. They meet often to share ideas and discuss students’ individual progress. The goal at Figtree is to make each student an important member of the school, building their confidence and self-esteem so that they may dance and achieve their goals freely and without inhibitions. Click here to learn more!”
How would you change “Click here to learn more!” to something that will help the search engine spiders better categorize your website and its faculty page?
Exercise #2:
“Figtree Academy of Dance offers a variety of dance subjects including Jazz, Tap, Ballet, Pointe, Lyrical, Hip-Hop, Tumbling and Creative Dance, which are taught in a positive atmosphere by caring faculty. Figtree accepts students ages 18 months to adult with beginner, intermediate and advanced classes. Click here for our Class Descriptions.”
Ooh, such a wasted opportunity! Try reworking the hyperlink text above to make better use of keywords.
I hereby declare you an expert! Try going to your dance school’s website now, ‘tweak’ and/or add internal links, and behold your optimized website!
Best wishes,
Stacey
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