End of Season Website Analysis for Golf Courses
As the winter arrives throughout all of Canada, most golf course staff are preparing for their winter getaway to a warmer climate. Before you make that run for the border, there are some key website items you will want to take care of.
Golf operators, with or without a dedicated marketing team, can play a significant role in future growth of their facility by providing Ownership or the Board of Directors with a comprehensive Google Analytics report. If you haven’t done so already, install Google Analytics on your Golf Course Website. Google Analytics is a free service that gives you insights into how users find and use your website. If needed, your current website provider will be able to assist you in installing Google Analytics, or just ask us.
What to Analyze
From our experience installing and analyzing Google Analytics for Golf Courses, here are the top website metrics you should be tracking;
- Audience: Who is visiting your golf course website? Being able to understand your audience is key to growing your golf operations. Key metrics to accurately track and learn about your audience / customers are; number of users, pages viewed per session and devices used to view your site (mobile, desktop, tablet). Currently in the Canadian Golf Industry, the top device used by golfers to view golf course websites is a Mobile Device, reinforcing the importance that golf courses need to have an attractive, functional mobile-friendly website.
- Acquisition: How are golfers arriving at your golf course website? Organic Search (website visitors who search a keyword and click on a search engine result) is one of the main avenues that golfers use to find your golf course website, along with Direct Searches, Social (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and Referrals. Understanding how your website visitors arrive on your site will help you with your marketing efforts, allowing you to effectively plan your future marketing initiatives.
- Behavior: How can you help improve your visitors’ experiences, meet their needs and guide them toward booking a tee time or purchasing a membership? Google Analytics will show you what specific pages have been viewed, by whom and for how long. Behavior Flow, or how visitors navigate through your web pages, is a great metric that helps to identify your main revenue generating pages and if they are effectively positioned throughout your site.
Now What?
Installing Google Analytics, and periodically monitoring the metrics, will help you accomplish many overall website objectives. One main benefit is tracking how to best convert new leads and customers.
If you’re interested in converting more leads into paying customers, contact us and we’ll do an analysis of your website and give you advice on how to best market your golf facility moving forward into 2022.
Submitted by Michael Yasieniuk and Scott Allan / YasGolf
