Advertising your miniature golf course on the internet
Where do you start?
If you haven't got a website then get one! Make sure the website name you choose includes what you do.
Anything with adventure, miniature, mini or crazy golf in it is good. The site should reflect the quality of your course.
I always like to see the following on a website:
Lots of pictures
Location address - you must include the post/zip code for sat nav purposes. And a decent map.
Contact details on a contact us page - email and form contact sheet, business address if different to above. Make sure you reply!
Feedback through a Guest book or the like, email collection - good for notifying punters of latest news/special offers
Infrastructure details - nearest parking, bus stop, rail station, major road etc
Prices
Opening times
Special offers
Packages for events, groups, corporate or children's parties
Other amenities, if an FEC or major attraction a detailed map of the park.
Other services nearby
News
A little bit of history - who built the course, why did you build it?
Available Merchandise - car stickers, tokens, certificates, medallions, trophies etc, novelty items related to your theme and of course Nutters with Putters!
Course records
Links - to press coverage, Twitter, Facebook, reviews etc.
Something about the sport of crazy golf
A webcam feed.
And do you have a version of your website suitable for mobile phone access?
And it has to be kept up to date! Particularly contact details. And it should be easy to navigate!!
On the technical side to ensure good search positioning, you should have plenty of content. Content is King! And you should be constantly updating it.
File names should reflect the content. Pictures should be labelled. Good for Google's picture search. Be aware if there are any recognisable persons in your pictures you need their permission to publish them. Meta tags should be accurate. Title, description and keywords. And if you're always beaten to the top ten slot by a competitor check out the code behind their web pages.
By getting a link from this site you'll automatically get spidered quickly by all the major search engines. Alternatively you could always do a pay per click campaign. Talking of which, make sure your business is listed on Google Maps (remember what I said about the post/zip code) and if you have any special offers why not put them on there. Like this coupon for a course in Margate.
If your business is in the UK you should consider affiliating to the British Minigolf Association especially if you haven't got a website. More details here.
Miniature Golfer
You could advertise with us. You don't get any more targeted than this site! Remember just by sending pictures to us you get a free web page to advertise your course and most importantly a link to your website. Here's an example, Planet Hastings. Send us ephemera and we'll put that on the site too with a link. Please send information and pictures to the web address above - just add @aol before the full stop.
Miniature Golf Blogs & Reviews
There are a number of bloggers out there. Some may well feature your course.
The best is run by Emily 'Coach' and Richard 'Squire' Gottfried - the ham and eggers blog and you the course owner can comment.
Aside from this wonderful site there are a host of reviewers too. This is the best for the US - The Putting Penguin.
Leisure & Recreation sites
There are an abundance of sites out there. Search for your town on your favourite search engine and see what comes up. If you're not featured, ask to be! You should be on the local tourist information and regional sites. I've visited our local TIC a number of times enquiring about the course I run. We are now on their site, FINALLY!!
Are you on Qype? Flickr ,Twitter, Facebook, MySpace & YouTube are all good promotional opportunities.
How about Day out with the kids?
Setting up a club
Why not? Plenty more places you can get your site listed then! Such as clubbz. And here are a host more reasons why you should do it.
Once you are up and running and listed on other sites, check regularly that the details held by these sites are up to date. A simple search on your attraction may throw up other surprises. Make sure you do this regularly too!
Got any ideas, please let me know what has worked for you.
