When you have your own martial arts club, you also need to have an online martial arts club. If you don’t have an online presence with martial arts, then you are already falling behind your competition. Every serious business these days needs an online presence and that is one of the most powerful and effective ways to promote your martial arts club. This article describes some online resources that you can use to promote your dojo.

Local Online Directories – Today, Internet Service Providers have become much more efficient at returning important searches for their customers. For example, when your local customers search for “martial arts schools”, the first results will be local. If you advertise with local online directories, you’ll get more first page rankings and that’s one of the keys to success.

People no longer look in the yellow pages to find local businesses. They go online and use Google, Bing, Yahoo or any of the other search engines. That means if you are not an online martial arts school then you are not getting the exposure you need.

Online Fighting Arts Directories – Just as there are online directories for any local business, there are also online directories specifically for self defense and fighting arts. When you list these, you will further increase your exposure. These work the same way as other local directories, but they are likely to compare you to some of your competitors. Depending on the directory, you may have options that will rank you above others and display positive reviews to elevate your club above others.

Google AdWords – Also known as pay-per-click marketing, Google AdWords allows you to advertise through the major search engine. Your business and website will be published to the top of the search page based on the keywords you want, and every time someone clicks on the link to your website, you will have to pay Google an agreed fee. When you combine this with other marketing efforts and fine-tune your search criteria, you’ll see a lot of traffic start coming to your site.

Use contests and giveaways to promote your school – they don’t have to be strictly online for martial arts, but it helps when you’re focusing on the online status of your business. Offering a free iPad to the person who brings the most referrals to your martial arts school in a month is just an idea. You can also offer to enter new students at your school in a drawing for a free gift. Offering a free class to new students is a risk-free way for them to test whether they like your club and allows for good word-of-mouth referrals.

Social Media – Of course, Facebook and Twitter are the two biggest social media franchises and they are also a great way to promote yourself online. Dojos appeal to many different people from all over the world and when you get the exposure your business deserves, you will find more people looking for you and your registration will skyrocket. Using blog posts and videos to dig into interesting topics about your club’s style, tournament results, or coaching ideas highlights that you are an expert in your field and opens up a discussion.

These types of ideas can help you turn a trickle of interest into a huge stream of new revenue for your business.