As the World Changes, Online Traffic Continues to Grow
1. Call to Action
Your call to action buttons (at minimum booking link and online store) need to be a the top of your website. You need to make it very clear to your customers what you want them to do when they land on your website. There should be a at least one call to action on every page of your website – subscribe, contact us, book, schedule an appointment, come for a tour, etc, etc
2. Mobile Responsive
It is now the industry standard that all websites are built to be responsive to mobile phones and tablets. In fact, many web designers build mobile versions before desktop. How does your website display on a smart phone or a tablet? If we have to “flick” the screen to navigate the display size we are likely to leave your site. It is 2022, your website must be optimized for mobile browsing because it’s likely that 50% of people will view it this way.
3. Minimal PDFs and JPGs
Mobile friendly text is one thing but a site with too much ‘static’ information in the form of PDFs or images that contain text will not ever be mobile friendly. Try to keep PDF’s to a minimum, and when absolutely necessary make sure the font is large enough for phone readability.
4. A Clear Understanding of ‘Who You Are’
Your website needs to clearly and concisely describe the key features of your business but more than that it needs to TELL YOUR STORY. Golf saw a huge increase in participants age 25 – 39 in the last two years. These golfers care much more about ‘who’ they are doing business with than past generations of golfers. Don’t use un-needed text as attention spans are short. Put some focus on your people and in a few concise words (not over the top) try to summarize your social, cultural and environmental values.
5. Easy Navigation
Make sure your website can easily be navigated from the area “above the fold” (the area of your website that is displayed when you customers land on your page). If they have to scroll or look for the information they are after, they will likely leave your page before they find it. Web designers are tending to longer, more scrolling, even one page websites these days. These are good for mobile reading, but always make sure you top site menu is easy to see, read and navigate.
6. Contact Information
It is now likely that your contact information will be found more often directly on your Google listing than from your website but your website should still include several ways for customers to contact you (phone, e-mail, text, from, app etc.). The key here is to make sure your GMB (Google My Business) listing is ALWAYS up to date.
7. Email Collection Tool
You won’t get the bulk of your emails from your website collection tool but that does not mean you don’t need to have one. And a good one that is quick to fill out (name and email only) and found in several places on your site. Your email list will be filled with people who have willingly signed up to hear from you or done business with you recently, this is why your email list should be considered your most important digital asset.
8. Privacy Policy
It is 2022 and everyone is concern with their digital privacy. If you are collecting emails from your site (which, as above, you absolutely should be doing ) make sure your privacy policy is linked in your footer.
9. Fresh Content
Nobody knows exactly how many words a page needs to meet Google’s standards but it is assumed that it would be very difficult to rank in the google algorithm for pages with less than 300 words. Your website could be the first impression on a customer. You want to give them what they’re looking for, and perhaps even give them a reason to keep coming back. If your website is static and not regularly updated you are not giving customers (and Google bots) a reason to come back. At minimum you should also have a title and meta description on the back end of every page to help Google summarize the content on each page.
10. Social Media Buttons
The most common places to link your social media are in the footer and on your contact page. Putting little social icons in these two places should be sufficient for most websites.
BONUS
11. Website Analytics
You may have a beautiful website with all of the above checked off but if you are not monitoring your web traffic and your customers’ behaviour then you are missing a piece of the puzzle. Website analytics can tell you what pages people spend the least amount of time on and where they leave the site so that you can work to make those pages better. Analytics can also tell you where web traffic is coming which you absolutely need to know if you are spending money on any kinds of digital advertising.
We, Jeff and Tara Ciecko of CK Golf write two blogs, one is our 19th Hole Blog where we share personal experiences and the other an Industry Blog where we comment on general business and internet marketing best practices, sales strategies and give golf industry related opinions. We have owned CK Golf for 14 years and provide business services to the golf and other industries. As of July 31, 2016 our life and our business became ‘location independent’. Our 19th Hole Blog is about the places we visit and the things we do. If you have any questions or comments, or happen to be in the same location as us please reach out and contact us anytime.
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