This article is actually an expansion of the original article The Three Biggest Mistakes To Avoid With Online Reviews, where we point out what the problem, in general, is with companies’ behavior towards people writing online reviews about their language schools.
Surprisingly for many still Tripadvisor is not on their radar.
Surprise 1: Tripadvisor is not just for restaurants
For many companies, Tripadvisor is just about hotels and restaurants and travel. Interesting enough any business that is interesting for travelers is now on Tripadvisor. Guided tourist tours for example. Many language schools offer guided tours to their towns – have you ever considered to add an entry your TOURS ONLY on Tripadvisor to get additional exposure.
There are actually some companies that offer free tours. Why not adding your language school city tours as part of your language school business so people that might be interested in a free tour will realize that they could book language lessons while they are on a trip to your town and area? You do not even have to offer FREE tours if you offer PAID tours, this is a valid and good idea.
Of course, you should list ALWAYS list your language school as the main business entry on Tripadvisor. You do not have any tourist activities because your school yourself will count as touristic activity and if you play your cards well you could get Tripadvisor to list you as “Top Thing To Do” in your area.
Surprise 2: Tripadvisor will bring you customers that travel to your destination
While your main idea is that you are actively looking for language students that want to study a language and THEN plan a trip to your city and area to study with you – Tripadvisor takes this approach upside down where you will have people traveling and then realizing that there is actually a great opportunity for activities and then actually book a language course during their stay at their selected location.
Many language schools in Spain, for example, offer Flamenco and other dance lessons, offer local historic tours of interests, or other special tours that are uniquely connected to their city, place, and geographic region. If you offer anything that can be tagged to your geographic region, visit Tripadvisor and think about what kind of service you could offer to tourists that would lead them to your school.
Surprise 3: With Tripadvisor, you have an additional place where people can positively talk about you
Getting reviews is so essential and we already shared this in our article The Biggest Mistake To Avoid With Online Reviews, so we won\’t repeat the insights here, but want to make it absolutely clear that Tripadvisor is an important authority site.
It is not only beneficial as a platform where you can encourage people to share their opinion and experiences about your language schools, but it also has an additional SEO, search engine optimization, benefit. The search engines will notice if people will proactively write about you and you will have a link from your entry at Tripadvisor back to your language business.
Tripadvisor will be in addition to Google, Facebook, and any other review website including our own MyLalnguageBreak.com a valued asset and ally to promote your business in a very meaningful way that will generate trust for new students to discover your language school.