Recently I talked about the strategy of having a distribution platform by way of an online yoga shop for yoga teachers and yoga business owners. I talked about how a yoga shop is a platform to distribute your own content and products and others products and why this is providing a benefit and service to your yoga tribe.
I’m going to take a step back however and address the fundamentals of the importance of having an online presence, meaning having a website as a yoga business owner.
Essentially, in a nutshell, a website is crucial to letting the world know you exist. Having a website is similar to being in the yellow pages, but in the online space instead. But having a website and being on the internet is much much more. A website is a tool that you can use to leverage your yoga business.
But stepping back again to fundamentals. Without an online presence all the budding yogi’s searching for a yoga teacher, yoga information or yoga class in your area will be missing you. You will not be connecting.
The internet is the tool of today that people use to people search for whatever they need in life be it shopping, information, holidays or yoga classes. Through searching on the internet, people find what it is they are looking for.
So essentially without a website presence you are missing out on students because you do not have a presence in the online space. Yoga students searching for a teacher will not find you.
When you do have a presence in the online space, ie a website, it means that not only can potential students find you, but all the information they will need to know about your classes is there for them to read at their leisure.
Your website should contain information on what you teach, such as what style or tradition and ideally a bio too so that potential students can get a feel for who you are and what your motivations are for teaching.
All your schedules should also be on your website for students, new and regular to refer to as and when they need. This means all class schedules, all course information and retreat dates and all other event information.
Having all this information in once space not only shows professionalism but it also saves time. You can directly refer students to all the information they will need instead of having lengthy conversations about logistics. Students can then read this in their own time and then come back with any questions they may have.
Enhancing your business even further, there are many more strategies to harness the power of a website. Above are really the fundamentals. One way of taking your website a step further is to harness the technological evolutions of video and podcasts to create something extra special for your yoga business online.
More on this to come…