Know-How Exchange : Strategy

I would not close a site as a portal in this day and age. You can offer a membership but you always need a free account available to attract people to your site. I think you other ideas are very good. Aligning yourself with partners is key!

I'd say your site needs a refresh and rethink if I'm honest. It's really lacking in pictures and images on the front page and informational content - sport is about excitement and thrill and being outdoors. The directory needs to reflect this in some way. At the moment it just looks like a collection of lists.

I see you've done the link and blog building and are top ranked on "Golf portal" (who searches on this?), you only rank around 40 on "Golf directory", nowhere on "Golf tournament" or "Golf shop" or "Golf information" which I would have expected to be major keywords you would be targeting in an attempt to be the definitive directory.

Most people will find good directories looking for something else (eg Golf shop in ...) and so start to get known as the place to go for information. Unfortunately, the site itself seems lack informational content and to be poorly indexed internally by Google - partly due to the AJAX which is preventing this from happening but also the fact that most of content are just a couple of words on an external link. You simply route people away from your site too quickly.

For instance I tried to look up rules, but instead of information about rules and articles, I just get links to other places. You don't even provide helpful ratings or information about the links. If you are reviewing the items you add, then add the review to your site and you'd immediately have more value. Even DMOZ allows a little summary to be written for each item in its directory.

I'd check out your competitors and for each write down 10 things you like about their site and check you are doing it too. Then write down 5 things they are not doing that you would like as a visitor. These then become the site you should become.

As a golfer I have yet to find a site that provides me any real value, including this one.

Strategywise - why do people get on the web and look for something related to golf? Travel, deals, scoring, equipment, and rules.

I would setup my sight for these users. Front page is some current info on the various tourney's and standings...not simply links. Add some button's for the different user needs (those mentioned above).

Basically, I would suggest you become the hotels.com for golf. How about a site where I can enter my zipcode and then see all the golf courses within 25mi? Then drop in links to a mapping site.

For travel the key is around destinations. There are two groups for this - people who know they are going to Seattle and looking to put a golf weekend around it and then those who are open to some different places and looking for a good filter to help them drill down. They are looking for the full package.

I almost started my own site to do this as I have been so disappointed with the current options.

More than happy to help you more if you would like. Have a great one and hope you are enjoying the Masters!

First, since you have Google Analytics installed, how and what is your existing traffic? Are you not getting visitors? Are they not sticking around? What keywords did they search on?

If your traffic is low, then before you attempt to bump it up, get clear on your demographic. Who are you targeting? Where do they live? How much do they make? Men or women? Age? Where else do they go online? What are they looking for?

Then, why should they care about your website? "The Ultimate Golf Portal" screams the wrong message - it's ultimate because people say so, not because you do. Are your listings to be trusted? Are the deals guaranteed? Are they exclusive?

Don't forget to focus on what problem you're trying to solve: what's a pressing problem for golfers: finding better equipment, finding equipment that's ideal for their game, finding better courses, better instructors, or ?

Hi Doug-

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Eddie