CFI Business Websites

Kristie

Kristie

Mama Bear....
Staff member
I'm taking a pole on how many CFIs have or want to have a website to beef up leads for their business....

I'm also wondering how many CFIs are interested in possibly leasing a website instead of owning since CFIing is typically seen as a temporary step up.

Keep in mind that having a website now a days can really generate a lot of business leads, especially with the younger generation. They look for blogs, reviews, locations, references and all that via internet, which a business website can easily offer.

Please help me out! :)

OH also, if you've been a CFI and have had a website, how well did it work for you? any tips and tricks for those creating a CFI type business oriented website?
 
How hard could it be? Post who you are, what you do, how you do it and where. Throw up some reference material and pictures, maybe a video, some contact information, and done. website.

Your post sounds like borderline spam...
 
My post? spam? nope, you don't know me too well :) I'm just looking into a potential new venture for the CFIing JC members...and I'm collecting market research to see if it's a worthy cause or not.

It's not difficult to put up a site but why worry about the cost of domain and hosting along with continually having to add content in order to keep it at the top of Google SEO wise if CFIing is only a temporary stepping stone in your big game plan...
 
i maintained mine for about 4 years. It was about 5 main pages, with 15 other more in-depth pages and hundreds of links to resources. I poured many hours into it and it was a very well received site. It, on average had 5,000 hits per month.

From that I generated exactly 0 leads and new students....
 
moxiepilot said:
i maintained mine for about 4 years. It was about 5 main pages, with 15 other more in-depth pages and hundreds of links to resources. I poured many hours into it and it was a very well received site. It, on average had 5,000 hits per month.

From that I generated exactly 0 leads and new students....
Click to expand...
not a single lead? hmmmmm did you have discounts posted or any type of "hook" to get them to at least call?
 
Mine does pretty well, has brought in leads. I think the trick with independent CFI sites is they will depend on localized SEO... doesn't matter if you've got the best site on the planet if the people in that CFI's local area dont find them on the front page of Google. Likewise, if you get a million hits from people in other states that's not useful. It's a localized service, needs to be marketed like one. Not sure how you'd be able to effectively broker that for people in a leased form.
 
Also, another thing to remember is that CFI's don't have very much money. Freewebs is about as good as it's gonna get for many..
 
moxiepilot said:
i maintained mine for about 4 years. It was about 5 main pages, with 15 other more in-depth pages and hundreds of links to resources. I poured many hours into it and it was a very well received site. It, on average had 5,000 hits per month.

From that I generated exactly 0 leads and new students....
Click to expand...

That's kind of what I was worried about when I was going to make a website. There are several very good websites already out there with a ton of good tech info and how-to's on the aviation industry. I didn't know how I would be able to attract clients local to the area because even when they searched for ''learn how to fly" the more popular sites would show up, and mine wouldn't make the first few pages of google hits.
 
juxtapilot said:
Also, another thing to remember is that CFI's don't have very much money. Freewebs is about as good as it's gonna get for many..
Click to expand...

$7.99/year for the domain name, $10/month for hosting. Use Wordpress ($0). I think most could afford that.
 
dasleben said:
$7.99/year for the domain name, $10/month for hosting. Use Wordpress ($0). I think most could afford that.
Click to expand...

Yes, that is true but that's more owning a site than leasing isn't it? I guess leasing just sounds like it would be kind of expensive.
 
dasleben said:
$7.99/year for the domain name, $10/month for hosting. Use Wordpress ($0). I think most could afford that.
Click to expand...

$7.99 for the domain name, a brother with his own servers for no-cost hosting, iWeb (preinstalled on Mac) or Wordpress = Anyone can afford that! :D
 
Kristie said:
not a single lead? hmmmmm did you have discounts posted or any type of "hook" to get them to at least call?
Click to expand...

Nothing. Hundreds of inquiries and emails and not one turned into a viable student. I had more success at hanging out at the airport to get people to come in. I think the major difference it that I could show them things and talk - tangible items; rather than the "idea of a dream of flying" and looking at pictures and information on a computer.

The website I created for my wife's jewelry was parallel to my website in composition and form. She made sales off the internet, and had leads for "jewelry parties". The only real difference was aviation and accessories.
 
rframe said:
Mine does pretty well, has brought in leads. I think the trick with independent CFI sites is they will depend on localized SEO... doesn't matter if you've got the best site on the planet if the people in that CFI's local area dont find them on the front page of Google. Likewise, if you get a million hits from people in other states that's not useful. It's a localized service, needs to be marketed like one. Not sure how you'd be able to effectively broker that for people in a leased form.
Click to expand...

That reminds me about more information to supply to Kristie. If you specifically used my name in a google search, obviously it was page one. PA CFI, or PA learn to fly was page 1 and two depending on how many AOPA pages showed in the search. Typing in learn to fly or something of that nature had me within page 5 of searches.
 
One last thing - was posting late last night - was 5,000 hits per year, not month :blush: The Data doesn't go back farther than 2007 which is when it was in its prime, but you can see some trending info. Here's a few pics of the data:

img1.jpgimg2.jpg
 
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