The Client
I built a piano teaching business from scratch using nothing but SEO and Google Ads, and by 2019, we were receiving 30+ leads per month.
The Need
I needed to build a website, establish a brand, and market it through SEO and PPC. The goal was to create a steady lead of organic leads that we would supplement with PPC traffic until the SEO work kicked in.
The Work
Building a Site
Because of a limited budget, I decided to use a Squarespace theme for this project. The theme was beautiful, and since we were launching a luxury brand of sorts (in the top 5% of lesson fee costs in Philadelphia), I thought the out-of-box appeal that Squarespace provided would work well for us.
I optimized the homepage for our target term (“piano lessons philadelphia”), and created a number of other service pages as well. The blog targeted related terms, like “how much do piano lessons cost” and “piano scales for beginners.”
SEO Optimization
Through PR, article writing, and other means, I acquired backlinks from The Philadelphia Inquirer, Expertise.com, WHYY.org, Digitalist Magazine, and many others, and I landed PR hits on IGN and the Epoch Times.
I also optimized our Google My Business listing for local traffic, and we started getting organic leads within 30 days.
All of the other usual SEO work ensued: fixing 404s, optimizing images, writing title tags and metas, and everything else. It was a full-service SEO project if ever there was one.
Google Ads Campaign
I built a Google Ads campaign targeting potential students within a five mile radius of our studio, and we acquired $25,000 worth of annual business within the first 30 days of advertising (that was roughly $1500 in advertising budget).
I found that it was worth putting the price of lessons in the ad headlines or descriptions – I didn’t want people clicking ads who ultimately wouldn’t want to pay our rates.
Results
Within six months of building the site, philadelphiapianoinstitute.com ranked #1 for the phrase “Piano lessons Philadelphia” in both the map pack and on the Google SERPs. We now also rank for a number of other high-value terms, including #1 globally for the phrase “live online piano lessons.” We receive about 35 music student leads per month.
Due to a consistent content and SEO effort, our organic traffic has steadily increased since 2018:
