You, the eagle eyed reader, will no doubt be aware that one of the tags/labels/subjects of this blog relates to driving, and specifically, how people have failed their driving tests.
Being loosely based around google earth, and it's associated features, I've tended to provide images of how and where things went wrong.
So far, I've only done three posts on this subject, but today, while driving today's abject failure home from his test, I had the idea of really expanding the concept. I had visions of an all-singing, all dancing site, with it's own domain name, where people could post their own experiences, but then I realised that all I needed to do was set up another blog.
This one is a semi-commercial venture - one that would direct people living locally to me for driving lessons, as well as providing useful information on how not to do something, and by negation, how to do something.
So it will probably carry advertising too, unlike this blog, which proudly doesn't.
http://howtofailyourdrivingtest.blogspot.com/
So far all that's there is a name. No real formatting or anything. And no posts as yet. But if it turns out to be a popular resource for learner drivers, it might become fairly frequently visited.
Update: 5th June...
Well, it's underway, and I've got it off to a good start, with 10 posts that establish a format and will provide an ever growing body of information. The tag cloud will become a useful way for anyone who's failed their test to look up any marked faults, and get advice on why they were marked this way, and how to do it better next time.
It's a way of promoting myself as a knowledgeable instructor, and provides contact details.
Later, if I sort out my own school, It can be linked into any web presence I have, as well as directing people to my website.
When the content is a little more comprehensive, I will start to promote the site much more. For now, I don't really want to "stumbleupon" it or pay for advertising, but it does make me stand out from the usual slew of driving instructor websites.
2 comments:
I do a similar lesson "how to give a bad presentation".
But seriously, test that it using guinea pigs to see how easily they come across your site. e.g. I just typed, "I failed my driving test," into Google and I didn't find you but I didn't come across any adverts for driving instructors at all so you didn't gain but neither did the competition.
My stats show roughly 4 visitors a day right now. The site is really a foundation, and while the content is still relatively scant, I'm happy that it's not attracting a huge number of visitors.
It's an expandable idea. It would be relatively cheap to secure "howtofailyourdrivingtest" domains for a few years. I reckon the big thing here is the tag cloud. I've just started adding the test centre to the post tage for example. My vision is that at some point, visitors to the site will be able to search for their local test centre, and find out where and how other people have been failing.
All this bloggy stuff can be copied and pasted to a "proper" site at some point. The work is already being done.
Your post gave me the idea of mirror sites. ifailedmydrivingtest.com, etc. All carrying the same content for minimum expense, and minimum work. If I got sufficient content, it could become a useful resource for other instructors, who would then perhaps contribute fails of their own.
So there's the rub. I put as much in as I can now (costing me nothing but time) but at some point, I heavily promote this thing, by whatever means. But until I do, the content will remain pretty parochial.
Seems like giving stuff away is the way things are going these days. I give away knowledge, and in return I get 0.001p from google, and the chance of a couple of pupils each year. I let instructors know that if they submit fails, I will provide a link within their post, to their website.
I can't compete with my current "employer" using conventional means. An abstract twist is called for.
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