I feel like I'm stabbing in the dark: driving my business forward.

5 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
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I'm after some advice please. I run a mountaineering guiding and instructing business, which I've recently acquired. It used to be the no. one guiding company in our area, but over the past couple of years, has definitely taken a downturn, due to the former owner semi-retiring and passing the business on to another chap. The new director has asked me to run the show, which is a great opportunity, but I'm a bit lost as to how to move things forwards.
www.westcoast-mountainguides.co.uk

The website is ok, probably needs a new theme, but I'll wait until after this winter.
Facebook has 1100 followers, which is reasonable, more would be good.
My Twitter account has 1000 followers, ditto.
The domain name does reasonably well on Google, but would like to move it up for various search terms.

Bookings for this winter (peak season) seem to be slow, whereas I know that some of my main competitors are doing better.

I'm ok technically, but not brilliant. I have a vague grasp of SEO, but again, far from brilliant.
I'm not sure where to invest my time and small budget when it comes to marketing and advertising, and so as a result end up feeling a bit overwhelmed, and so not achieving much at all.

Any advice would be great!
#business #dark #driving #feel #forward #stabbing
  • Profile picture of the author PassiveIncomes
    SEO, Facebook ads, Google adwords ads. These 3 are the most effective ways.
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  • Profile picture of the author onSubie
    Do you have a YouTube channel? Since you do lessons and instruction it would be easy to video some of the lessons and put short videos with introductory lessons and tips on YouTube. A good way to introduce the people who are instructors and guides too.

    At the top of the video description put a link to your site. Make sure to include http so it is clickable. And make sure it is the first line of the description so viewers see it without having to open the description by clicking "More..."

    I think the attraction of hiking and mountaineering is the beautiful untouched scenery you get to experience. This lends itself well to photos and videos.

    After posting, share them on your facebook page.
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  • Profile picture of the author arrival7
    You have a real business my friend, not some website thrown up striving for traffic. My advice would be to first set up a really good affiliate program and really give away some awesome commissions. Then I would market my affiliate program instead of just trying to sell courses yourself, allow others to sell for you. Most of the greats made their company great through their affiliate program, Google, Hostgator, Ebay, I can go on for days. We see those companies how they are now, but the partner programs is what made them big. Then I would take it a step further with an awesome Offline rep program, place ads for reps to work for commissions only. I would start this process in the job section of Craigslist or any other free ad listing until you begin to grow. I mean what do you have to loose???? You should still improve with your social media marketing but even with that I would concentrate on marketing my affiliate program.
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  • Profile picture of the author jogunn
    Facebook ads can have a great return and they make choosing an audience incredibly easy. As you mentioned 1100 followers is a great start, but you need to gain some momentum within your social media channels. You can try to do this on your own, but it will take some serious investment of time and effort, though you don't have to spend a fortune. Once you start to gain more followers and more targeted leads, you can use your fan engagement to further help your efforts.
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  • Profile picture of the author Augustinus
    Think about paid advertising for facebook and adwords , focus on conversions like bookings and test and then when you find right combination scale up ! You can find good adwords or facebook ad courses on Udemy
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