Coming from a professional viewpoint, I think every school could use one. That said, how much of one is the big question.
For the small group that meets at the local gym 2x a week, and isn't an majorly formal group, a 1-3 pager stuck on a free service is probably all they need. I'll have a description of what they do, how to find em, and maybe some lineage or training outlines...not much else really is needed.
For the more 'official' school how much depends on what you do. The bigger, more active your school is, the larger and more professional your site needs to be. You wouldn't hand your students paperwork with food stains, or dozens of cross outs would you? You want your web site to show case your professionalism. (Plus, if you place pics up, you can choose when to take them and which ones are shown for optimum impression.)
You can:
- Use it as a virtual tour of your school, open 24/7/365.
- Highlight your training and experience (a resume)
- Showcase your instructors backgrounds and diversity
- Promote future events
- 'Scrapbook' past events
- Post class schedules. Whens the kids starter class? When are you open?
- List what arts you teach.
- Post test schedules (cuts down on paperwork)
- Post test results...Let your students know they are up. Great for the kids IMO.
- Curriculum aids. From the simple technique list, to full blown video walk thrus (for your students only of course)
- Got a special guest instructor or seminar coming up? Great place to promote it is on-line. Get enough of a jump on it and folks may contact you from all over, just because they want to learn from your guest.
The bigger your school, the more useful your site becomes. It is the job of your web designer to pump you for information so that you have the best site possible, and its truly what -you- want...not what the designer wants cuz 'its cool'.
You pay a small amount every month to maintain the space, and maybe some content updates (depends on the design contract, etc). In return, you get a ton of potential. You can fit a heck of a lot into 1 MB of web space (If the designers good at squishing the images down and doesn't use the bloated editors like Frontpage) 5mb allows a great deal of flexibility, esp with picture galleries.
Ok, ya built it...now how do you get traffic to the site? Simple. You tell everyone. How? Simple again. Put the address on your business cards...on your flyers...in your phonebook ad...in a BIG! sign in your front window...on the bumper of your car...you tell -everyone- who calls to check out your web site...post it on the proper forums, newsgroups, search engines and directories on the internet...tell your 'friendly' competition about it and get them to link to you (You swap links, great for increasing some search engine rankings)...have I mentioned -YOU- tell people about it?
If you didn't have a web site, how would you find new students? Add the web site to your marketing toolbox and really use it.
Lets spec this out....
10 pages @ $65/page = $650
1 year hosting at $25/mo = $300 (high estimate, most schools fit in under 20 MB, I charge $11/mo for that, less with annual payments ($112.20/yr for MartialTalk members)
lets round this up to an even $1000 for the first year. (I'm estimating high here...)
If your average monthly rate for students is $65/mo, you need about 1.5 students per month to break even.
A website is only as good as the designer, who can only be as good as the quality of the information provided them by the client. Give your designer the information they need to give you the website you deserve.
Heres some of the costs and what you need:
Domain name: $7-10/year through godaddy.com more professional than those long names with the ~ in them, and easier to remember. Whats easier? karate.com or
www.widgit.com/~karate
Hosting: Free to hundreds per month. The free sites tend to be over crowded, have ads, popups or other content killers, restrictive requirements, limited bandwidth (How many times have you hit a tripod or geocities site thats been temporarily off due to exceeding its transfer?), etc. The -really- cheap hosting also falls into similar categories. Crowded servers, low reliability are often the norm, sadly. Of course, you can also pay a ton for your hosting and end up just as bad. So do your research first.
Design: Free to $100,000+. You can trade lessons with students in return for doing your website. Problem is, what do you do if the student leaves the school? An amateur designer -can- produce a good site. It won't be an award winner, but it can still be functional and look good. The downside is that they may not have the depth of experience or resources to take things to the next level. This is where the pros come in. Make sure to check out samples of their work. Ours is available at
www.silverstarsites.net/clients.html for example. You should like their work before you hire them. WebDesign doesn't have to be super expensive. We've designed many sites for under $500. You can make things cheaper by having a student/secretary do alot of the prep work. Deciphering handwriting takes time and time is what you are usually paying for. Give your designer all of your text on a floppy-disk in a .txt or MS word format and you'll save a few hundred bucks just from the proofreading and spell-checking. Keep your hand in it. Check out your site on a regular basis as its being developed. Make sure you can do a review or 3 during the development process to make certain things are going right, and on schedule.
A good website, like a good brochure, or a good looking school can go miles to help you market and promote your school. A bad website, just like a poorly done brochure or poorly maintained school can do just the opposite.
Hope this helps.
Any questions, I'll help as best as I can.
:asian:
