A powerful new website Content Management System helps golf clubs to increase their revenue streams by changing the way they manage the content on their websites. CMS Golf (www.cms-golf.co.uk) allows golf clubs and other organisations to publish their own web page articles, polls, news flashes and news articles, or create news feeds for up-to-date weather reports or industry news updates, keeping their website visitors updated. The site also has a private user and member's portal that hosts diary events such as club competitions and social events and other private content. In addition to textual content, CMS Golf is fully integrated with Google Maps, giving stunning aerial views of golf courses and directions on how to reach the intended destinations. Users of the site will also be able to create multiple audio, image or video galleries, to give their visitors a truly multimedia experience. The site also has an online shopping component allowing golf clubs to sell their products online and display them on comparison sites such as Kelkoo. This increases clubs' internet visibility and, more importantly, creates new revenue streams. The site is said to be unique in the golfing world in offering online shopping and classified advertising. It was launched in June 2008 by AKR Solutions Ltd, a small web design agency based in Surrey. The company's director, Andy Rabbetts, who developed the site, is a keen golfer and got the idea for CMS Golf after hearing from his local golf pro about the difficulties faced by clubs in generating additional revenue when they don't have the budget for major investment in websites. He explained: "Seeing how little golf clubs make in revenue made me wonder why they don't offer more incentives on their websites to tempt people in. For instance, if they offer goods online they can sell them cheaper; if they capture golfers' email addresses when they play they can send out newsletters and offers; companies or individuals can advertise on the golf club site and generate revenue and so on. It's all about promoting golf more by making the clubs more attractive, especially to families, who will then spend money on lessons and food and drink. It's Catch 22 for most clubs because they don't have the budget to invest in attracting more people in; and until they attract people in, they won't generate more revenue." Using CMS Golf, he said, would promote and attract more visitors to golf organisations, while increasing visibility, membership and revenue streams. CMS Golf can be purchased by a one off payment or on a monthly subscription basis, making it affordable by most clubs. Further information and a demonstration of the system can be found at www.cms-golf.co.uk |
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The putting green is the best place to introduce kids to golf by putting. Once an "understanding" is developed, close to the green chipping should be introduced. As the junior golfers get farther away form the green pitching will be introduced and finally the full swing.
Sooner or later the junior golfers will want to play a round. Many parents, as well as other players, wince at the thought. They are afraid a bad golf course experience might turn their junior golfers off to the game of golf. Brad Myers, South Texas PGA 2005 Eastern Chapter Junior Golf Award winner, gives you some hints on how to keep the game of golf fun when you first go to the golf course.
1. Go out with your junior golfer in .non-peak. hours. At some courses this is easier to do than others.
2. Depending on their age allow them to .tee it up. from the 100 or 150 yard marker on all the par fours and par fives to begin the hole. This is not as daunting for them and will help keep the group moving around the golf course.
3. Before you start, agree with the junior on what the "max score" per hole will be. This can also make each golf hole fun by making it a game. It is very important not to make a big deal if the max is hit and making the junior feel inadequate. Both the adult and the junior needs to remember .it is just a game.
4. Before you start to play, determine what their .personal par. will be for every hole you will be playing. As the junior golfer improves obviously the "personal par" will go down.
5. Make the putting green the goal. This is a good way for the younger junior golfers to get started and as it reads only count the shots that it takes to get to the green to determine a score.
6. The hole does not need to be the end of the hole. What does this mean? Some smaller juniors find it more fun to hit it into a bunker than onto a green. This may seem counter-intuitive to many golf purists however, once you think about it, typically the bunkers are smaller than the putting greens. This can only make them better later. In addition, they LOVE to climb into the bunkers and this gives us a chance to teach bunker etiquette.
7. Keep the game fun at all costs!!! Keep a junior golf journal to continue the fun at home as well as build memories that can be looked upon forever. With so many activities available to our young people, their interest may come and go. However, by keeping it fun they will always come back to golf.
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Affiliate marketing has been an incredible opportunity for people around the globe. While some affiliate marketers earn a few extra thousand dollars each month, others consistently bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars each month. However, as more people have begun marketing affiliate products, the competition has soared. In 2007, there was a tidal wave of new marketers competing for a piece of the commission pie. In 2008, that competition is growing and becoming more savvy. This article describes what you need to do in 2008 to build your affiliate business and explode your sales.
Focus To Grow Your Affiliate Business More Quickly
One of the primary hurdles for those struggling to make significant money by promoting affiliate products is a lack of focus. Excited by opportunity and lured by the thought of huge commission checks, many affiliates spread themselves too thin. For example, affiliates who promote Clickbank products are greeted with tens of thousands of ebooks and software programs that promise huge commissions. Those who choose to promote tangible products such as golf clubs, treadmills and computers can find thousands of merchants and tens of thousands of products at Commission Junction.
As a result, most affiliates lose themselves in the opportunity. To truly grow your business, compete aggressively and dominate your market, you must learn to focus your efforts. Some high-volume affiliates promote only a few products to earn six-figure monthly commission checks. By focusing, you grow intimate with a market. You learn exactly what that market wants and needs. You learn how to communicate to that market to persuade them to buy. You learn how to promote effectively to that market. Focusing can grow your business more quickly than you can imagine.
Follow A Proven Leader To Leverage Affiliate Strategies
Try to identify a leading affiliate marketer that has proven to use strategies that drive significant revenue. Once you do, follow what that leader. Watch what that affiliate says. Read that leader's blog or newsletter. Watch for recommendations. If that leading affiliate recommends that you try a certain strategy to dramatically increase your commissions, implement that strategy.
By following a proven affiliate leader, you can learn effective techniques more quickly and leverage that leader's experience by implementing the same strategies. Most highly-successful affiliate marketers identified others who had achieved success. You should strive to do the same.
How It Pays Off In The End
The roads of the internet are filled with the remains of broken affiliates. Every day, affiliates spread themselves too thin and destroy their chances of learning how to effectively market products and services to a few markets. Other affiliates sit alone, happy to waste their time without guidance or direction. Small commission checks are the result.
Learn from their mistakes. If you can focus intimately on one or two markets, you will likely find it easy to dominate your competition. You can gain higher positions in the search engines. You can write ads that get more clicks than others. You can learn how to talk to your market so they buy exactly what you're promoting.
Find a leader who has shown an enormous level of savvy in affiliate marketing. Follow that leader's strategies and recommendations. By doing this, you can leverage their knowledge and skills to build and grow your affiliate marketing business more quickly than would otherwise be possible. In 2008, you may find yourself with huge commission checks and a group of people who want to follow your lead.
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Q: I recently launched a website for my sporting goods business. Do I need to do anything special to attract customers to my website? I know nothing about search engines and marketing as such. Please tell me where to begin.
A: That is a question that has been asked by every business person who has ever launched a website. If I build it, will they come? Of course they will -- if you've built a website that appeals to dead baseball players.
For those of you who didn't get the "Field of Dreams" reference, let me put it this way: No, Sean, if you build it they will not come, at least not without some effort on your part.
Assuming that a website will automatically attract customers is the single biggest mistake that many business owners make. It is this mistake that eventually leads them to dismiss their website as a failure and abandon their online sales efforts.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard a client say, "Well, I threw up a website, but nobody ever came to it and I didn't sell a single thing from it! Dang thing was a waste of time, if you ask me …"
Forgive me, but "threw up" is the operative term there. These short-sighted entrepreneurs (God love them) mistakenly think that all they have to do is throw up a website and that their business will automatically double overnight. And when nothing happens they blame it on the infallibility of the Internet, on El Nino, on the Bosa Nova, on their customers… everything but their own lack of marketing efforts.
If you build it, will they come? That, Sean, depends totally on you.
When it comes to attracting customers, opening an online business (or an online branch of an existing business) is no different from opening a traditional brick and mortar shop. Without a little fanfare and a well-devised marketing plan, chances are your website will become just another spot of roadkill on the Information Superhighway.
The first step in devising your marketing plan is to ask yourself this question: Who is my customer? Who is it that I want to attract to my website? Believe it or not, this is a question many entrepreneurs fail to ask. The identity of your customer is incredibly important because if you don't know who your customer is, how can you expect to market to them?
The next question concerns the locality of your customer. Do you want to attract a local or global clientele to your website? If the answer is local, then you will gear your marketing efforts toward customers in your own backyard, which means incorporating your website launch with your offline marketing efforts.
If the website is the online branch of a brick and mortar business, include the website URL in all your print materials and advertising campaigns. Consider running ads in the local paper, on radio or TV announcing the launch of your site. Use direct mail or in-store posters to announce the site launch to your existing customer base.
In short, keep doing what you're doing to attract customers to your physical store, just add your website address to the mix.
Just remember, it's important to consider your website a branch of your brick and mortar business because that's exactly what it is. A good business website will help you sell more products, widen your range of clientele, and increase your revenue without adding overhead. Don't sell your website short. Make it work for you.
If you are seeking a global audience, your marketing efforts will be quite different. Attracting customers from around the world is a more difficult task than attracting customers from around the block. Fortunately, the task is not impossible. The Internet has leveled the playing field in many ways. Now every business, no matter how large or small, has the ability to do business internationally.
In the most basic sense, an online marketing campaign to attract global customers should include the following efforts.
Register With Search Engines There's not enough room in this newspaper for a thorough discussion of search engines and their effectiveness (or lack thereof) in driving traffic to a website. Suffice it to say that 95% of search engine traffic comes from Google and Yahoo, so start there. It's also important to realize that just registering with search engines does not guarantee you traffic, but it certainly can't hurt.
Unfortunately, the free search engine lunch ran out a couple of years ago when search engines figured out that people would actually pay for listings and higher placement. Since that time the only way to guarantee a high (or at least higher than others) ranking is to pay for it. The two most popular pay-for-placement programs are Yahoo's "Yahoo Express" and Google's "Adwords." Visit their respective websites for details on these programs. Be prepared to spend several hundred dollars at a minimum to get your site listed.
Exchange Links With Similar Sites One free - and potentially effective - way to drive customers to your website is through link exchanges with sites of similar interest. Locate sites that make a good match to your own and contact the owner to ask if they will link to your site in exchange for you linking to theirs. If you sell golf balls on your website, set up a link exchange with another website that sells golf clubs. You post a link to them and they post a link to you. It's called digital back scratching, and if done properly, can work well to drive traffic your way.
Go To Where The Customers Are If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain. One little known way to attract customers to your website is to market your products on a mega-site like eBay. There are thousands and thousands of people on eBay at any given time and each one is potentially your customer, so it's a great place to drum up business.
Your goal is not to make a living selling on eBay, but to use eBay as a marketing tool to drive traffic back to your website. Go to where the customers are, then bring them back home with you.
Let's use our golf ball example. Post a few auctions on eBay selling your golf balls at a ridiculously low price so your auction attracts plenty of attention. When customers make a purchase, add them to your client list and send them an email inviting them to visit your website for more great products. eBay also lets you create your own "About Me" page that you can use to advertise your business.
We have just scratched the surface, but hopefully this is enough to get you started. I wish I could tell you that attracting customers to your website is easy, but the truth is, it's anything but. It takes hard work, creativity and above all, perseverance.
Here's to your success!
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Internet marketing covers a broad scope of online businesses. Below is a list of internet marketing business models:
* Pay per click advertising
* banner ads
* e-mail marketing
* affiliate marketing
* interactive advertising
* search engine marketing
* Blog marketing
* Article marketing
* forum marketing
* Niche marketing
Marketers would like to get the best ROI possible for their marketing investment. The fact is that marketing ROI is sometimes hard to track the penny.
Over 72% of the Internets search traffic is requested through Google. That being said, Internet marketing starts with Google and their search bots criteria for returning search engine results.
The popularity of your website is one major factor in how successful your marketing campaign will be. Whether you are marketing from other avenues such as Google Adwords or Adsense; when the individual pulls up your website, they will need to be interested in your content.
Pay per click can be tracked by conversion rate and other tracking tools provided by the advertising company.
Many companies specialize in implementing Internet marketing strategies and Search Engine Optimization services, which both are closely related. If you have a budget that will allow you to hire a marketing or SEO firm I suggest you do so because it will allow you to concentrate on your website content.
Since the first goal of marketing is to increase, the visibility of a product how you decide to do so is paramount.
I started with Google Adwords and made no money. Google Adwords for me was a pay per sale Internet marketing strategy in which I soon found I did not have all the information I needed to be successful.
I had an unfocused website with a theme but no valuable content. I researched how important website content was to marketing, and then a light went off. I began to not only focus my content but target my audience.
My Internet marketing research took me to several forums and expert SEO websites. To be a successful online marketer you have to learn how search engines evaluate website content. Search engine marketing plays a major role in website traffic generation.
Another important factor in marketing is generating backlinks to your website. Although backlinks or sometimes-called inlinks or inbound links are a form of Search Engine Optimization, it has a direct effect on marketing. Backlinks are the number of websites that have your URL listed within their content. Search Engines use this information to determine how popular your website is. The more popular your website is the better your chances of higher page rank. Create backlinks only to websites relevant to yours.
A popular high-ranking website will get more traffic, which will draw, in higher revenue from marketing campaigns.
I learned that Keyword and Keyword phrase search volume was not as important as quality themed content. Themed content includes but is not limited to keeping your entire site relevant to one topic. Straying away from your site theme can confuse search engine robots and visitors’ it could also effect how your website will be ranked with search engines’.
Search engine ranking plays an important role in Internet marketing but it is not the only factor to success. Google gives detailed instructions on their website on how to optimize for high page rank.
If your website is created from a broad keyword term or phrase, you will allow yourself the ability to create Niches out of subcategories of that term. The aforementioned will give you the ability to attract several segments of one broad market.
A website about Golf can set up a separate directory within the website that markets Golf clubs, Golf gloves, Golf shoes, etc.
Some people chose only to cover one segment or Niche (also known as Niche marketing).
Attempting to cover every segment of a keyword term or phrase can slowly allow a website authority status on a particular subject (as long as the content is of quality and the link structure is correct).
Email marketing explains is self-explanatory. Although it has been widely used for spam by those who obtain your email address without your consent email marketing is very effective when done properly.
Companies like Aweber communications inc. of Newton, PA allow its customers to set up email campaigns with verified opt-in. For instance; on our home page we offer you the opportunity to sign up to our newsletter, when you sign up you have opted in meaning you give us permission to send you email. Those on the email list have the opportunity to opt-out via a link that is attached to every email they receive. The cool thing about Aweber is that they make it easy for anyone with a website to setup an email campaign.
Through email marketing, you either are able to further your website marketing strategy by marketing products directly or by sending, them back to your website were you then market the product. I personally prefer the later…
Forum marketing is effective but does take some time as does most marketing strategies. With forum marketing you become a member to forums relevant to your website and participate with substantive posts as much as possible keeping your website link in your signature.
Forum marketing does two things; one, it can allow you to attract visitors to your website (if your posts lead them) and two, it creates backlinks when your URL is in your signature.
Viral marketing is exactly what it sounds like; a virus. It combines many types of marketing strategies such as video, banners ads, email, fax, pod cast, word of mouth, etc.
If you market anything long, enough you will become a viral marketer.
Article marketing does two things also, one creates an interest in your website and backlinks. On the other hand, if your articles are “garbage” then it will only create backlinks. Those that market via articles do so by writing about information relevant to their Internet business and submitting each article to as many article directories as possible. Many people search article directories for information of interest. Search engines also crawl article directories. It can take up to six months to see the results of article marketing campaigns.
Article marketing has been made easier with the numerous auto submission software on the market. Although there are many article databases that do not except articles from auto submitters there are still thousands that do.
It would be in every “webmasters’” best interest to ad article marketing to their marketing campaigns.
Although a combination of Internet marketing strategies are important to generate traffic to your website, once the search engines favor your website and your articles attract visitors, you will be able to market almost anything relevant to your website content.
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