Content is king: 3 ways to boost your SEO ranking

By Dave Allen

When I worked at Golf Channel Academy, one of the most frequently asked questions I received from coaches was, “How do I improve my SEO ranking?” Or, more specifically, “How do I get to the top of Google’s search listings?”

Why is SEO so important to businesses nowadays?  Because less than 25 percent of all searchers click through to the second page of Google’s search engine results. In other words, if you want to stand out among the competition and be found, you need to be at the top or near the top of the first page of web search browsers.

Here are three simple, cost-effective ways to improve your SEO ranking, and how Golf Content Solutions can help you climb all the way to the top of the rankings.

1) Content, Content, Content

Google’s algorithms are constantly combing websites for fresh content that aligns with the search intent of your target audience. By search intent, we’re referring to specific information that corresponds with the consumer’s search terms, or their reason for wanting to find you. If you’re a teaching professional who’s looking to attract new students, then you want your content to focus on the individual programs and services you offer, from private lessons and golf schools to junior golf development, club fitting and on-course training, and the coaching topics that dovetail into those offerings.

“The best way to think about it is that a website is constantly evolving,” says John Robinson, CEO of Our Ability, Inc., which has partnered with Golf Content Solutions on the web design and implementation side. “So for Google and other web search engines like Bing to see you on a regular basis, your content needs to change. A stagnant website isn’t seen by Google as often as one that’s in motion on a regular basis.”

Some of the best forms of content for SEO purposes are blogs, videos and photos (with captions; more on this shortly). Many businesses get into the bad habit of redesigning a website and then doing nothing with the content that is there. You should be continuously updating the information on your website, whether that’s adding a new coach bio or program offering, blogging about a recent student success story or sharing a video tip about how to pick up 10 to 15 more yards with the driver.

The average consumer watches several hours of digital video per day, so it’s no surprise that videos are more likely to get ranked higher by a search engine than a landing page featuring the same topic. Golf is a very visual medium, so the more videos and images you have, the more likely people are to respond to your content, driving up your SEO value.

2) Tag You’re It!

There are a lot of things that happen behind the screen that also help to improve one’s SEO ranking. One of the most often-looked of these is metadata tagging.  A meta tag is a snippet of information hidden in the page’s source code that helps tell search engines what your website is all about. There are three different parts to a mega tag, including the title tag, a description tag (i.e., a summary of the site and what you’re offering) and a keywords tag. There are only a few keywords, but they should tell the user everything they need to know about your site.

Alt text and H1, H2 tags are also very important SEO driving forces. Alt tags are simply short text snippets or captions, describing what it is you’re seeing in each image or video. The original purpose of alt text was to help make images accessible to the blind, but they’re also another form of content that the web search engines are crawling through your site looking for. Same with the H1 and H2 tags, or the words you put in for your headlines and subheads. Google finds them.

“From a homepage standpoint, your first tag or headline better say what you do,” said Robinson. “It can’t be flowery. It should say, ‘Connecting Individuals with Disabilities to Jobs,’ or whatever it is you do.”

3) Upgrade Your Website

You can have a terrific content strategy but if you don’t have a website with vibrant text and images and the correct tags, you’re not going to attract users and, more importantly, you’re not going to climb very far up those all-important SEO rankings. Remember: You want a website that’s constantly evolving and adding new information, so you need a website developer that can accommodate those changes. Or, if you’re unable to make those changes yourself, you’re going to need someone to do that for you. A website developer can also add vital analytics to your site, so that you can see which pages are being viewed the most.

Finally, you’re going to want a website that’s optimized for mobile usage. More than half of all internet usage in the U.S. is mobile, and that number is expected to increase extensively in the years ahead. By 2025 it’s estimated that three-quarters of the world’s population will be using smartphones to access the internet. Our Ability’s websites use WordPress’s mobile-friendly design platform, meaning all of their sites are mobile-enabled.

For more information about Golf Content Solutions’ website development and SEO services, or to schedule a call with our website team, please contact Dave Allen at dave@golfcontentsolutions.com. For additional website services including video production (we can now do hole-by-hole and course flyovers), copywriting and blogging, please visit our website at GolfContentSolutions.com.