new website

chuky_r_law

just finished working on a new website for bearna golf club in galway. pretty happy with it i must say.

www.bearnagolfclub.com

its not quite 100% yet but its about 90% of where i would like it to be.

at the moment we are not coming in on the first page of google when you type in some generic phrases like, galway golf, golf in galway, west of ireland golf, etc. has anyone who has any experience in these kind of things got any recommendations to me on how to achieve this? any ideas maybe on how i could market the site now that its (almost) finished?

k.p.h

The owner of the http://www.websitedoctor.com/contact/ site posts over on the development forum, can't remember the users name at the moment but if you do a bit of searching you might be able to track he/she down and get a little free advice.

It's the term "search engine optimization" you need to be looking into.

Nice site by the way.

chuky_r_law

thanks - we put a lot of hard work into it so its nice to see the results.

could you link me to that section on boards. so many sections its sometimes hard to find the right one!

Trampas

<meta name="keywords" content="galway golf, golf in galway, play golf in galway, galway, golf in galway, galway volvo ocean race, golf course galway, golf breaks galway, golf clubs in galway" />

maybe easy up in the galway as google can hammer you over it

chuky_r_law

Trampas wrote: »

maybe easy up in the galway as google can hammer you over it

what do you mean?

Trampas

you need to be smarter with your key words.

easy up on the golf and galway in everything.

chuky_r_law

any suggestions...was my first time trying a campaign like that

tricky D

Post in the Website Reviews forum for feedback like the following which should cover most of the issues.


All Pages
White background colour is not explicitly specified.
Email addresses in header and footer are not linked as a mailto.
Order of items in nav bar should reflect what your users want. You can omit Home as the logo links there. News is almost empty so relegate that. The news is also more of a special offer so would be better treated as such on the homepage.
As for Tramas' comment on the meta keywords tag, back in the old days this was correct but now the tag is ignored by search engines due to massive abuse of it.
You need to do some SEO work targetting keyphrases like 'golf in galway'.
Text paddings on the left should be bigger in a few spots, the breadcrumb nav, sitemap links content.
Seriously consider getting a professional photographer for the course shots. All shots actually. You should be able to have some great photos but the ones there are poor with no processing and some aren't even horizontal. Compare the following original to what I did with it in a few seconds in PhotoShop without even looking at what I was doing, just 4 preset processing actions: colour, contrast, levels and sharpen. Normally I would have removed the digger too:




(you can replace using that one for free if you like)


There's no map and directions to the club. Also no map of the course.

HOMEPAGE
http://www.bearnagolfclub.com/wp-content/uploads/nivoslider4wp_files/5_s.jpeg isn't sharp, and doesn't look great. At the very least it needs some post-processing to fix colours/contrast/levels. It also looks wrong as if the shot is towards boggy area. You would be better with a new photo with teeing down the fairway shot with great view behind. A green shot would also be good.
Try to move the photo up a bit by making them a bit smaller and moving the navigation bar up a bit.
Why? The area where it is now is the most valuable bit of real estate on the whole site. In this space should be 3/4 snappy paragraphs with content like 'Just 4 miles from Galway city centre the Bearna Golf & Country Club is the premier Golf course in Galway.' The 4 paragraphs after this are too long for a homepage. Put your biggest selling points there instead. You can be more verbose on later pages.
The Course Guide and Visitor Info graphics have text with poor contrast so are hard to read. Either change to a more suitable colour or get the present text stroked or an outer glow put on them.

The Course
Hole By Hole text background needs to be darker for better contrast. Contrast is your friend and is good for the quite large number of people with vision issues.

The Gallery
Can't scroll to a later photo I might want to view, having to wait instead. Have a look at lightroom or highslide gallery options for a better one. Use a gallery function for any image in a larger form as opposed to just the lone image.

Membership
You have prices which is great!
Put the forms as a PDF format and consider getting a PayPal type option for joining online.

The Clubhouse
Typical menu would be handy and don't put it in PDF form only, have it as regular page content too.

Golf Packages
FacBook is a misspelling, so check all your spelling grammar and punctuation. Get someone else to proofread all content too.

3rd party Booking process looks ok except 'If you do not wish to receive information about available tee times and offers then uncheck this box.' which is confusing. It should read 'I wish to sign up for further info and offers' and be unchecked letting the user opt-in.

hope that helps/good luck

Dr_Colossus

On the home page you have:
"Just 4 miles from Galway city centre the Bearna Golf & Country Club is the premier Golf course in Galway."
Premier is very subjective, who says it's the premier golf course in Galway? I've played many golf courses in Galway and while Bearna is unique and a tough test of golf I wouldn't call it the premier golf course in the county.

Under the Clubhouse section you have:
"It was officially opened in 1998 by the then Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern."
Given all the negative publicity regarding the then Taoiseach I'd recommend removing that section and just stating it was officially opening in 1998. The figure performing the ceremony has no bearing on the clubhouse/course and as such not worth mentioning unless it was a golfing celebrity.

Regarding the hole by hole course overview while a picture and brief history is nice and gives a sense of the hole in play you can't really beat a strokesaver type view of the hole. Have a look at the course guides on the websites of SlieveRussell, Headfort New, The Heritage, Palmerstown House etc. For a prospective new player to a course and especially for societies the online strokesaver type view gives a good idea of suitable tee colours and holes to have the likes of nearest the pin and long drive competitions on.

Best of luck with the new website and well done on the work to date.

chuky_r_law

thats is some really useful feedback. really appreciated. still quite a bit of work so!

i am planning to run a photo competition to get better pics for the course, and as a promotional opportunity. the ones that are up there at the moment were just to really show me what can be done there. but i deid realise that they are a bit crap and need better ones.

but thanks again for taking a good look at everything!

veetwin

Agree with tricky d. Photography could be alot better and would sell the course on it's own. Also when you go into "The Course" you should be able to click on Hole 1 which should then have a next option to go to Hole 2 rather than have to go back each time IYKWIM.