In the past month, I had one-on-one consultation sessions with my 300-hour YTTC graduates. Instead of having a long lecture about where to go from here for everyone, the idea was to discuss each unique situation. I believe it was helpful for them, but it also made me realise that most of us (yes, I include myself as this was me before) are reluctant to promote ourselves. Most of us were/are taught that exposing and promoting oneself is almost narcissistic, so the shame attached to this is totally understandable. But, if you are a yoga teacher, therapist, or similar, and you want people to find you, promoting is essential. You are not offering a product; you are offering your guidance, and you need to advertise what you offer.
Socials made this a bit easier and more socially acceptable. It became normal for us to post our photos and our lives, so I see my students and friends focusing A LOT of their energy on creating IG content, yet many don't have a website, and I was surprised how many of my students were still uncomfortable with having a website, as they feel they are not having enough events to have one. But that is not important. Once you do have more events to promote, you will already have a website that is visible on search. If you're offering a service and want people to find you, a website is essential. Just think about it; if you are in a new city and want to find a yoga teacher, studio, massage etc., you will google it, not Instagram it;). Instead of spending hours creating IG content, use some of that time to create content for your web.
Not all websites are created equal, so it's essential to use a good platform and do it yourself if you can. Waiting for your web designer to change something and post events can be frustrating and slow. Trust me; I've done it for many years. It was necessary before, but with all the fantastic tools we have today, it no longer is.
To get your website to rank high on google search and enable people to find you, you will need to put in some work in creating content. Blogs are a great way to do this and they provide constant traffic regardless of when it was posted; some of my old blogs are the most visited and read content on my webpage. It’s the same as growing your IG account - you need to post things constantly. If it's always the same and you never post anything new, it won't create traffic. Paying google ads won't get you there faster either, as Google won't rank you just because you paid; they want to see organic traffic as well. I have learned this the hard way with our new Spanda Institute website. Still, if you create organic traffic as well, Google ads are worth the investment, and from my experience, much more than paying for sponsored posts on socials.
I have been using Squarespace for all the websites I had in the past decade since I decided to create one I can edit myself. They are still my choice. The platform is very user-friendly, they have the best templates, and still much space for creativity, great analytics etc.
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Please note that I am not a marketing specialist; I share what I have learned in 15+ years of running my own business, which has been slowly but exponentially growing since then. There is a lot of good advice available out there (if you google it;), and I hope this has just inspired you to start exploring beyond socials.
