Why and how to use your business blog to engage your local golf community.
Why Your Golf Course Needs a Website
An up-to-date and well-maintained website for your golf course should be the booking tool of choice for your golfers. With today’s technology, your tee sheet(s) and booking can be managed online with automated pricing, adding simplicity for both your staff and your clients.
If you’re not sure why investing in a custom golf website is important, let us give you the top reasons before continuing with this article:
- Having an accessible hub online for your business can provide customers with important information at the press of a button.
- When your website handles the back office, your team is free to focus on customer service, marketing, and driving sales.
- Increasing digital traffic on your website directly relates to increasing foot traffic on your course.
- A beautifully designed website for your golf course can (and should!) be your marketing flagship, that results in much wider outreach across the board for your business and facility.
Why Your Course Website Needs a Blog
If your golf course website isn’t up to par, you’ll want to start by polishing it up. It can be a little intimidating, but with time and a small bit of elbow grease your website can look almost like it was professionally done. (Plus, if you use foreUP Marketing Services, it can be professionally done!)
Once you have a site up and running, (even a basic one,) it’s time to think about adding a blog—and it doesn’t have to be fancy. It only has to have quality writing and the type of content your customers want to see.
Why? Content that people pay attention to is what Google’s eye-in-the sky looks for, in order to bring your website to page one of search results.
Essentially, a blog is a compendium of timely articles you can add to your website. Each blog post makes your website one page larger which is one of the ranking factors in the search engine ranking algorithm.
Blogging also gives your potential customers a feel for what’s happening at the course. The great thing about blogging is that you can load it up with information, golf instructional tips, tournament and event schedules, new team members, the new draft beer on tap, and anything else that is cool and happening at your course.
You can also connect your blog to your social media accounts. Giving yourself “shameless plugs” on Facebook with a link to your latest and greatest blog is (free!) advertising.
So, if you have a website and blog with the stuff your customers will want to read (and tell their friends about), everyone wins. Your readers love your website and you love the engagement coming in.
How to Blog for Your Golf Course Website
1. Focus on a target audience.
Knowing where to start with your blog can be a daunting task, but it isn’t rocket science. If you’re a new blogger, try narrowing things down: Think about your target audience. Are your customers local community weekend players with double-digit handicaps? If so, think about asking your pro how they became a scratch golfer and a great instructor. Write it up as a blog piece, and watch it take off as a series. Give your pro the byline, and they could find their inner writer that they didn’t know was there.
2. Think about search engine optimization.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a strategy that many websites use to ensure their site shows up at the top of the results on search engines like Google. Optimizing your SEO can lead to a huge increase in website traffic, and the first step is nailing down the right keywords. Every business is different, so consider your course’s demographic and what your marketing goals are.
If you’re new to SEO, check out Google’s Keyword Planner. As of early April 2021, the term “golf course” elicited 622 keywords. Try different keywords in your SEO strategy and see what works best for your course’s website.
3. Create engaging content.
Intelligent keyword deployment is good, but high-quality content is even better. It’s all about what the marketing gurus call “rich content.” This includes everything your blog can do to engage readers and entice them to read all the way to the bottom of the page.
This also includes adding value to your website and answering the visitor’s question, “What’s in it for me?” It could be anything from a pro’s advice on correcting that chronic slice to taking nine strokes off your score by conquering putting lag.
Finally, remember that today’s readers aren’t into tackling “walls of text” meaning long blocks of writing with no clear breaks. Break up your blogs with plenty of subheadings, shorter paragraphs, white space, and images.
4. Stamp your brand on the blog.
Your blog is probably struggling for attention in the white noise of millions of others out there. A successful blog can build a loyal fan base when your brand’s fingerprints are all over it. You can do that with a consistent writing style and making your content visible on other industry blogs, which might seem counterintuitive until you realize you can redirect traffic from other sources to your own site..
5. Blog regularly.
A great advantage of a blog is how it injects fresh content into your website. The web crawlers love fresh stuff, as will your readers. It’s definitely worth the effort to create a blogging content schedule and a list of topics that could coincide with course events and seasonal promotions.
Your regular blog content should also have staying power. It’s called “evergreen content” and revolves around subject matter that is always relevant and worth reading, no matter how old. There’s nothing wrong with writing on more timely topics, but be sure to balance your content out with subjects with longevity.
Plus, adding links to your past blog posts on similar topics can be hugely beneficial. Having more links on a page adds SEO value, and these links can keep readers on your site for longer amounts of time.
6. Convince readers to subscribe.
Now that you are blogging regularly and with enticing content, you can’t let your readers leave without joining to your email subscriber list. You can grow that list with a successful blog, especially when your readers like your stuff and want to read more. Make sure the button or sign-up sheet for subscription is noticeable, accessible, and easy to use.
A great website and a great blog are bridges in your golf course marketing journey.
Whether your marketing goals are to polish your community image or just improve communications with your players, foreUP has the marketing services you need. Take a look at what we do and request a demo and see how our cloud technology can help you deliver the best player experience in the world’s greatest game.