This is part 2 of a series of 3 posts, all about your website for your tennis club or your tennis coaching business. In part 1 I wrote about my story with websites. But let’s get onto what you really want and need in your website.
I made a video about this subject watch it below………………………
Hopefully you’ve watched the video, but here again is a summary of what I talk about:
The 4 things your website must do
I think this subject can be quite a simple one and your website only needs to do 4 things. Those are:
1. For people who are not (yet) involved with your programme / club (new visitors), get them to ‘start a relationship with you’ – get them into the system.
People who are browsing websites looking for a service like yours have a very short attention span. They need to see what they want, then be told to do something very simple, all within a few seconds of visiting the page.
What you want them to do depends a bit on the level of commitment. It may be:
A) Sign up for a free trial – ideal for things which require more commitment, such as signing up for a term/semester of tennis lessons. So as little information as possible in order to get the visitor’s interest, some good pictures of the actual coaching and children having fun (not empty tennis courts or stock photos) and a simple and bold call to action like these examples……
Call 123456789 NOW to arrange a FREE trial
Once they are in your system, then there is lots you can do – obviously they’ll do the trial and love it, you’ll be able to follow up with email, your software or app or whatever system you use, and the website won’t be too relevant after that.
B) To actually book – for things which require less commitment, we may not want people to take a free trial. Tennis camps are a good example of this. People can book as little as a half day and we get a mix of existing customers and new. We wouldn’t want lots of people taking a free trial one day – this could impact the finances of the camp.
So this page has more information on it (but no more than is needed), some nice pictures, and again the bold call to action:
C) To make contact – again, for areas which are too big for people to commit, let’s just tell them to get in touch. Then we can tell them more, invite them to come along for a look etc. But they need to be told, include a call to action again.Â
Repeat - just get them into the system
So these kinds of pages don't have the history of your club, when it was built etc. That stuff can be somewhere else on your website. Just the basic info, make it look good and get them to click that button!
2. For people who are already involved with your programme or club (existing customers), make it easy for them to find what they want.
I don’t think this is as important as the first point, because existing customers / members / clients / parents / players don’t have much reason to be on your website. It’s not an entertainment website, they won’t be browsing it for fun (which makes your website different from Social Media).Â
If they are there, it’s because they’re looking for something – a phone number, a time, an address. Just make it really easy for them to find what they want. That’s it!
3. Direct existing customers to particular pages of your website in order to make your processes & systems easier.
You can make your life easier by using your website in this way. Anything that you get questions about or that you need to explain to people, you can create pages on your website. Here are some examples from our club website:
- How to book courts
- About your membership
- A news article about something at your club or programme
- A page where you direct people to book something
These are not pages for the new visitor. They may not even be visible in the menu of your website. They are there for you to send people specifically so that you don’t have to answer questions or explain things. These pages may be longer, have more information and don’t need calls to action.
4. Do all of the above in a way which looks good and represents your brand.
It doesn’t have to be the world’s best looking website, but obviously it shouldn’t be an eye-sore either. Here are a few do’s & dont’s………..
Do
- Have pictures of your actual tennis programme.
- Have pictures of people having fun, sunshine and blue skies.
- Use video (here & there).
- Understand what you want visitors to do, and make it obvious how to do it with clear 'calls to action'.
- Make it easy to navigate.
Don't
- Use stock photos.
- Have pictures of empty tennis courts.
- Use pictures with heads cut off.
- Have big blocks of text without anything to break it up.
- Make it too cluttered - use different pages or sections for different subjects.
- Use too many different colours or fonts.
To sum up..........
Hopefully that gave you some simple things to look at if you’re looking to either improve your own website or build a new one. Part 3, is about HOW to do it.
13 thoughts on “Your Tennis Website Part 2 – What makes a good & bad website”
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