6 August 2021 | Tennis Australia

Developing a stand-out website can be hard. This feature will give you the confidence to make some simple changes to your website to make it stand out.

The four things to help improve your website are:

1. Usability
2. Content
3. Social Media
4. Linking back to your website

Making sure your website stands out is all about building brand authority. But what is brand authority? Brand Authority is all about building a reputation of trust and expertise within the online community. When search engines like Google categorise the millions of websites on the internet, they prioritise brands with strong brand authority.

If you have strong brand authority, that means you are more visible on Google and other search engines. And with over 94% of consumers using Google Search as the first port of call in Australia, businesses should be doing what they can to feature as highly as possible on the search engine.

USABILITY

Usability refers to how straightforward your website is to use. How easy it is for consumers to find what they are looking for. And finally, how easy it is to enquire or book themselves in for whatever you are offering.

If you can structure your website in such a way whereby it is easy for customers to find what they are looking for, you will already be on your way to building strong brand authority.

Here are some quick tips to ensure the usability of your site is up to scratch.

Clear menu buttons the link through to up-to-date pages

• This seems like a simple one but just sure there are no broken links on your site. If the button says court hire, it should click through to a relevant court hire page.
• And on the same token, the information on that page should be updated and correct. If this means regularly logging on to your website to ensure consumer data is correct then so be it.

Concise information on each page that informs customers and encourages them to take action.

• We are going to talk more about this in content – but your ANZ Tennis Hot Shots pages should detail exactly what a customer needs to know about each Hot Shots stage, when lessons take place and how much each lesson costs.

Ensure you have a mobile-friendly website

• Globally, 68.1% of all website visits in 2020 came from mobile devices (Perficient, 2021) – open your website on your mobile phone. If you are struggling to find what you are looking for, imagine how hard it will be for a customer who doesn’t know your website

Keep Bounce Rate down

• Bounce Rate refers to users who click away from your website. If someone ends up on your adult coaching page but have nowhere to go, they will ‘bounce’ to a different site. Have a button on your page that gives customers a chance to “Book Now” or “Call Now”, secure that enquiry and reduce your Bounce Rate.

CONTENT

Content on your website is crucial to building brand authority. Imagine your website like a news channel all about tennis coaching. Readers will want to find out new information, current events, and learn about different opportunities to play tennis. That means regularly updating your website with accurate and updated information as well as new content that will appeal to readers.

By doing this, Google will identify your site as a leading authority on a subject (in this case, tennis coaching) and prioritise it on a search.

Accurate and updated information

• When was the last time your updated your ANZ Tennis Hot Shots page? If any information on your site is no longer relevant, remove it and replace it with information that is. This will not only help with usability but also brand authority.

Create shareable content that your customers will be interested in

• Consider your website as a blog. A source for information for people who are interested in your subject matter. Commit to writing a blog regularly; maybe one or two a month. Write about topics like upcoming events or benefits to receiving coaching lessons. And don’t forget to share it on your social media. Search engines pick up when websites are linked from other sites and will bump them up on search. Encourage customers and staff to share also.

Use keywords in your content and blog posts

• A couple of things to remember when creating your blog posts. Use one or two maximum keywords in your header. For example “Learn to Play Tennisin Lyneham” with a subheading of “Beginner tennis classes is making fitness fun”. The underlined words could be examples of keywords. Google will search headings and subheadings in the first instance to establish content relevance.
• Search “Google Keyword Planner” and open the Google Ads URL. This tool will allow you to search the most powerful keywords while make suggestions on other keywords to use.

SOCIAL MEDIA

When it comes to social media, there is just one main rule to follow. Be active! That means posting regularly, linking back to your website, engaging with your followers and following others back.

Link back to your website

• This is crucial for building brand authority on your website. If search engines detect a website is being linked to regularly from third party sites, it will assume it has important information to share and therefore prioritises it on their search pages.

Engage and interact with others

• Run competitions, write back to messages and stay on top of all customer interactions. This will keep your content close to the top of their feed and as a result, more eyes will be on your posts when you share something important.

LINKING BACK TO YOUR WEBSITE

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, to build strong brand authority you must develop a reputation of trust and expertise within the online community. Google detects this by other sites linking back to your site. You can explore other avenues aside from social media.

Feature on local council websites

• Some examples: Manningham, Sutherland Shire, SAcommunity. You can also aim to secure a spot on their local news or blog site as a guest feature. Use one of the content pieces you’ve written or your blog and feature this on a different website to link back to yours.

Feature on Service Providers sites

• Back in the day it was Yellow Pages. Nowadays it is sites like tennis, Localsearch, TennisVenuesand many others.

Utilise any opportunity to feature on another website

• If one of your students needs to write an article for school, encourage them to do it about their tennis lessons, if you have some spare money, consider having a blogger or influencer visit your business and write a review or film a video for their YouTube channel.

GOOGLE MY BUSINESS

The final piece of advice we discuss is Google My Business. Have you ever Googled something and the businesses appear on the right-hand side column or above the rest of the searches on the Maps? That is Google My Business – a free and powerful way to alert customers to your presence and your website. Check out this video on how to set up a Google My Business account.

It’s time to make your website stand out! These tips will give you all the right tools to start building strong brand authority. You’ll be at the top of a Google Search in no time!