BWS-06 Website Usability Testing

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About this guide

One of the most important aspects of your website is how easy it is for a visitor to navigate and find relevant information. This is called usability. A website with good usability will end up with better results as visitors find it easier to navigate the site. A website with poor usability will frustrate visitors and they will leave.

As a guitar teacher this means it's important your website uses good usability principles. This guide will explain how you can use usability testing to find problems with your site for you to fix. Finding all the problems with your website isn't possible on your own - especially if you built the site. That's why usability testing is crucial.

What is Usability Testing

The main purpose of usability testing is to find problems with your website. It is a test to see how people actually use your website. Most of the times how people actually use your site is very different to how you think people use your site. A usability test will show you exactly what people think of your site and whether they can navigate it properly.

The actual test is quite simple, you will observe somebody navigate your website and you will take notes on what links they click, what text they read and their general thoughts. The basic idea is to gain insight to how somebody might view your website on their own.

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TPD-01 Myths About Learning

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About this guide

Your effectiveness as a guitar teacher depends on your knowledge of guitar as well as your ability to use effective teaching methods. To be able to use teaching methods effectively, having a good understanding of learning in general will help out. This guide will explain several learning myths that can cause problems with your effectiveness as a teacher.

Many of these myths are mistakenly believed by a large majority of people so it's likely that you believe some of them right now. These myths can throw your teaching off course and can impact the quality of your lessons. Read through each myth to make sure you can avoid the problems associated with the misunderstandings they bring.

Why Myths Are So Common

Our current understanding of how we learn is shaped by centuries of experience. Unfortunately, most of this experience is based around misconceptions on how our brains actually work. As more and more researchers study how we actually learn, it has become clear that a lot of what we thought we knew about learning was wrong. It can take a long time for results from studies to reach the mainstream so a lot of what we hear about learning is either outdated or not based on actual studies. As you will see in the below myths, learning isn't as straight forward as we believed in the past.

The reason myths are so common is that a lot of them make perfect sense. It's only when we learn more about brain science or from studies that we discover that they're incorrect. So if you see a myth below that you thought was accurate, it's only because other people passed on incorrect information.

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TEC-12 Whammy Bar Techniques

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About this lesson plan

While the whammy bar is often used for wild tricks and effects, it is a useful way of controlling pitch. This lesson plan will provide your student with a few musical exercises to demonstrate different ways the whammy bar can be used. The techniques require the student to listen to the pitch in a similar way that they do when performing a bend. The Teacher's Guide will explain each exercise and key points to mention to the student.

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PRA-05 Finger Exercise Progress Tracker

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About this lesson

Using a progress tracker is a great way to check if your student is practicing and whether they're improving or not. This progress tracker uses a simple finger exercise to help your student develop their finger speed and dexterity. It's a fundamental skill every guitarist should spend some time developing. The included Teacher's Guide will explain how to get the most out of the tracker.

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Related lessons

BEG-06 1234 Finger Exercise

BWS-05 Website Traffic

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About this guide

When you first create a website, the thing you will probably want more than anything else is traffic. Traffic is the number of people visiting your website. Understanding how to build relevant traffic to your website is the key to your website's success. This guide will explain some common misunderstandings about traffic and how to build the right type of traffic.

The end result of more relevant traffic to your website is more students and a better online presence. Implementing the advice in this guide will help you achieve your goals faster.

Mistakes People Make With Traffic

Understanding the mistakes people make with traffic will ensure you don't fall for the same problems. We'll cover two of the most common mistakes we see people make with traffic.

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BWS-04 Website Landing Pages

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About this guide

Once you properly set up and structure your website (BWS-03), it's important you take some time to create effective landing pages. A landing page is the first impression a visitor will have of your website so it's crucial to get right. You have a very short time to send the right message to a visitor or they'll hit 'back' and check out somebody else's website. This guide will explain what landing pages are, why they are important and how to set them up properly. Examples of effective landing pages are included so you can see how they work in practice.

What is a Landing Page

The first page you see when you visit a website is a landing page. Quite often this will be the homepage. Your website's homepage is your biggest landing page but it's not the only one. While a lot of people will land on your homepage, quite a few people will land on different pages depending on what link they clicked on to get to your website.

As an example let's say you have a page on your website called 'Guitar lessons in Smallville' that contains specific information about your location. Now if somebody does a Google search for 'guitar lessons in Smallville', it's likely that this page will show up in the results (to find out why, read through BWS-02). If that person clicks that link in the search results, they will land on that page. They may not even see your homepage at all. So for a lot of people, the landing page they see will not be your homepage.

Why are Landing Pages Important

When a new visitor sees your website for the first time, you have about 3 seconds to make a good first impression. The key questions a visitor will ask themselves are:

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New podcast episode available

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Episode 2 of our podcast for guitar teachers is now available on iTunes. This new episode will explain how to build up your trust and credibility as a guitar teacher. This is a topic that's often misunderstood. Unfortunately it's a bit more complicated than most guitar teachers think.

In the episode you will learn how people will determine your credibility as a guitar teacher and how it impacts their decision to choose you or not. You will also learn how you can build up your credibility by looking at specific factors that influence it.

Check out the podcast here and subscribe to it in iTunes to receive updates on new episodes. A new episode will be available every month and if you haven't already, you can listen to Episode 1 here.

Episode 02: Building Trust and Credibility as a Guitar Teacher

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About this podcast

This podcast will explain why trust and credibility are so crucial to your success as a guitar teacher and explain how you can build your credibility. Real world examples are given to show just how much of an impact credibility has on a prospective student's decision making.

The episode will discuss:

  • How credibility changes what people think of you
  • How people decide whether you're credible or not
  • How to use credibility indicators effectively
  • Examples of credibility indications in action

Even if you've been teaching guitar for decades and have formal education, it's still a good idea to listen to this podcast. Regardless of your current situation you can build your credibility as a guitar teacher.

Click the play button below to listen to the episode:

Download PDF Summary

We've put together a one page summary of this episode including the most important points to remember. Download it below.

Download PDF

Links to relevant resources

The PDF for this episode lists relevant resources to help you start working on specific credibility indicators. After listening to the episode, download the PDF and go through the list. Choose one indicator that feels more relevant to you and check out the listed resources to help you out.

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BMK-17 Using YouTube

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About this guide

YouTube is an incredibly popular website with millions of people watching videos every day. Depending on your goals you can use YouTube to extend your reach to a very large audience. This guide will give you some ideas on how you can use YouTube and how it can help you grow your teaching business. It takes a bit of work to create videos but if you use the right strategy and work towards the right goals, the results can be fantastic.

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EXP-11 Creating Physical Products

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About this guide

It's now easier and cheaper than ever before to create your own physical product to sell. If you've ever thought up of a guitar related product and thought it would be great to be able to sell it to your students or the entire world, now you can. This guide will help you decide whether you want to create your own product and how to get started.

Compared to other guides in the EXP series, it takes a larger investment in time and money to create your own products. The upside to this is that it's possible to earn a lot of money over time from your product. This guide will first cover the financial aspect first to give you a good idea on the investment you would need to make, then explain the different options and paths you can take.

Deciding on a Product

To be able to create a product, you must first have an idea for something that people will be interested in buying. There are three main types of product ideas you can come up with:

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