SEO Dynamics Every Golf Course Needs To KNOW!

If you have been in the industry for 10 years or more, you likely remember when paying for your yellow page directory advertising was something you considered non-negotiable for your business.  Could you imagine managing a golf course in a destination market and NOT being in the yellow pages?  Now, that same directory advertising seems irrelevant and would be an unlikely part of your overall marketing strategy.  

People still look for local businesses, but they now use the internet almost exclusively.  When someone does an internet search for “golf courses near me” or private clubs in the area, does your business listing or business website pop up? If not, then it is time that you start with SEO or search engine optimization. The right SEO helps get your website visibility and brings it on top of the results in the search engine in Google. So, if your website or a page of the website doesn’t show up, it is time you use these tactics to increase your visibility. 
 

What is SEO for Golf clubs?

SEO for golf clubs means helping the course appear on golf related searches on various search engines like Google, Bing, Ask, etc by optimizing the quality and the quantity of the content available on the website and its social media pages by organic means.  The first few results in a google search are usually paid advertisements.  SEO impacts the organic search results, just below the paid results.

Why do you need it

Google is responsible for almost 60% of the traffic which comes to your website. You have to ensure that your website is optimized and the content on it directs the people looking for golf courses to your website. When you consider that your local market is likely filled with local competitive golf courses in your area, a strategy to reach potential customers in the marketplace is a smart first step in your overall marketing plan. The competition is very high on Google for every golf course clamoring to get on top and be visible on the search results, so be ahead of the competition with SEO strategies in place. Here are the google and other search engines and their rules to increase organic ranking. 

Authentic business Information

To start with, the search engines use the NAP (name, address, phone number) to verify if a business is legit or not. Having the address on the website will help you appear in the local searches as well. Other details to include in the website are the correct social media links, adding directions, Google Map coordinates, customer reviews and registering your business on Google My Business, Yahoo My Business, Bing Places etc. 

Site security

You have to ask your web developer to migrate your website from HTTP to HTTPS. The ‘S’ stands for secure and tells Google that your website has an extra layer of security and can be trusted. In fact, people who land on your website via Google Chrome, will get a “Not secure” warning and won’t let them get to your website. This in turn will only increase your bounce rate and demote your SEO ranking. 
Mobile website: Google and other search engines look at where the traffic is coming from and there was a significant surge in the mobile traffic in 2015 when Google decided mobile-friendly sites are very important in determining SEO ranking.  You should ensure that your website is mobile friendly or at least mobile responsive. 

Page load speed

If your website is very slow and it takes forever for the page to load, then your bounce rate will increase and your SEO ranking will reduce. According to Google, if your page takes more than 3 seconds to load, then your ranking is affected. You can use Google PageSpeed insights to gauge your website and improve it.

Technical Keywords

This is one of the most important parts of SEO. Every CMS (content management system) or the backend of the website has sections where you can add ‘Meta description, meta keywords, content keywords, image alt tags, target keywords when adding any sort of content.  It can be an image, a blog post, or a page on the website. Use websites like Google Trends to get an idea of the most searched keywords. You can use Hashtag Generator as well and the get the most used keywords and add them to your meta keywords section. 

Content is King

This is a no-brainer that your content needs to be really important for people to come back to your website. It needs to be educational, informative and needs to answer the questions people typically are looking for an answer to in their online search inquiries. We suggest starting a blog on your website and posting articles often to help rank on search engines. To create relevant content, visit social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and see the kind of questions people are asking about Golf courses, tee times, golf terms etc and create answers for them. Reddit and Quora are other excellent choices to see the questions people are asking in real time. 

Time is running out

Google favors the articles on the web which have been published for a while now. You won’t see an article which was recently published on the first page ever. To make sure your article is ranking, you need to start publishing articles right away and wait from them to crawl to the top. The time factor applies to how old the URL is as well. Its time you get in the SEO game right away. 

All in the all to crack the SEO code, just follow Google’s E-A-T quality standard, and you should begin seeing results: 

E- Expertise – It refers to the main content of the website. The home page and the visible pages of the website. How much correct information do those pages provide and if the information can fall under the expert level.
A-Authoritative – It refers to if you are an industry leader and have that authoritative impact on the people visiting your website. 
T-Trustworthiness- It refers to having your website secure and see if the people can trust you because of your content. It is built by reviews and ratings on different platforms. 

For more information, please contact:

Lance Merrihew
707-779-2592

Lance@totaleintegrated.com

www.totaleintegrated.com

About Total e Integrated

Total e Integrated is a leading provider of end-to-end business management solutions for recreation, retail, hospitality and community organizations. For over 20 years Total e Integrated has helped organizations to integrate departments, automate marketing, streamline operations and boost revenues with our innovative solutions and expert consulting services team.