Spring Season! It is Time to Conquer These Tennis Website Updates

Here in New York, it is about time to start preparing the tennis courts to open up for the outdoor season. While the jackets are coming off, new coats of paint go down on the hard courts, businesses should not forget that their tennis website updates are needed too.

Since the summer season is quickly approaching, it is time to prepare all your tennis camp marketing efforts. In this blog post we will provide a to-do list that will help you get organized as fast as possible.  

Regularly updated website leaves a good impression! 

Your tennis club website is a very large component of your business’ digital image. It is the main source of information for your students, parents, and community. Today’s tech savvy tennis clients often feel frustrated when they cannot immediately get the information they need. 

Oftentimes, your website is the first source of information your potential clients visit, making it a very large factor into their impression of your tennis program and business. If someone is to visit a website that has not been updated in months and contains inaccurate information, they might get a negative impression due to a seeming lack of concern for keeping it current. 

With that being said, it is crucial for any tennis business to consistently update its web content throughout the year. Having a list of upcoming events and classes leaves people with the impression that clients are very involved with your program. Therefore, those that have never visited your place of business will be more inclined to sign up and attend.  

Whose job is that anyway to do tennis website updates?

If you are a part of a large organization, it is likely that there is a web developer or web designer on staff, in which case the process is as easy as providing all the below information to that person in a timely manner.

However, if you are a small business owner or a tennis coach who also runs the entire business, then the responsibility of organizing content and updating your tennis website clearly falls on you. If updating web content is not on your favorite list of activities, please contact us, Resourcely Marketing, as this is one of the services we offer.

School website spring checklist 

1. Update calendar and important dates 

Many students and parents use website calendars to check on important dates, breaks, holidays, weather closures, or recurring events. Make sure those are up-to-date if you would like to avoid getting flooded with emails, students and teachers getting confused or missing tennis lessons. 

2. Include all summer class offerings 

Have you looked at your tennis class offerings lately? Is your summer camp even listed? If the answer is no, try to get that summer programs’ information up on your website as soon as possible. 

Winter/spring is when people start making plans for the Summer, so make sure that summer tennis camp description is in place as well as any signup forms and waivers needed. 

If you have any high-quality images or videos from previous camps showing all the fun activities, make sure to include those. 

Add call-to-action to your pages (e.g. “Register Now” or “Sign Up”). 

If possible, enable an online registration and payment option, so people can easily sign up on the spot.  

3. Remove outdated content 

Is your website clogged with outdated information from the last tennis session? If you are still talking about back-to-school on your Home page and it is December, you have shown the wrong message to every single person that came to your website in the last several months. 

Take a critical look at all your existing pages, tennis class offerings, written content, and pictures. If anything is no longer relevant, remove it right away to avoid confusion. 

4. Update staff info

Parents normally like to know who their child’s coaches are and how to contact them. If your tennis website lists the staff involved in your programs, it is a good idea to take a look and make sure the information is updated. Add any new tennis pros that are joining the program, along with their bio, and remove anyone that is no longer working at your tennis club or tennis academy. 

5. New employment opportunities 

If you are looking for new staff members, such as tennis camp counselors or administrative help, be sure to include those on your tennis website along with instructions on how to apply.   

6. Latest news, announcements, blog

If your website has a blog, be sure to write a couple blog posts highlighting interesting parts of your camp offerings. 

If you have many satisfied customers, be sure to include some of their testimonials. Having some staff Q&As blog posts can help people get to know your staff. 

Include some new images or videos. But keep it legal! Avoid copyright infringement by taking random photos you found on the internet and putting them on your website. It is always best to take your own photos or have them taken for you while keeping the copyright ownership. 

If that is not possible, you can also purchase photos from a royalty free source. Below are a few places to look into. 

• Companies that offer free or low cost stock images: Pixabay, Unsplash, PicJumbo, Little Visuals, Dreamstime.
• Companies that offer royalty free images for a fee: Shutterstock, iStockphoto, BigStockPhoto, 123RF.  

7. Include helpful links and resources  

Do you have favorite sports stores or equipment suppliers you are affiliated with? When giving parents a list of sports equipment and supplies needed for summer camp, you can also provide links to your preferred vendors where they can shop for those items. Many people that are new to the area would appreciate the referral, while you will also benefit from any business agreements you have with those vendors. 

8. Check and update links 

Check your tennis website frequently for broken links and fix them as this may affect your search engine rankings. 

9. Location 

You might be surprised by how many businesses do not provide reference to their location anywhere on their website. The location(s) should be listed both on the “Contact Us” page as well as in the footer of your website. Are you running a summer camp at several locations? If the answer is yes, make sure all of them are listed in the appropriate places on your tennis program website. 

10. Setup reminders 

Lastly, schedule your next round of website reviews if you wish to keep your tennis website current and also avoid all the issues we talked about. So, go ahead and place some reminders on your calendar now! 

Prepare summer marketing materials 

When marketing your business, you must constantly look ahead. With the winter coming to an end and the spring arriving, the summer will be here in what feels like 5 min. So, you must gear up and look for opportunities to promote your summer programs.

1. Get prints 

Prepare your summer camp brochures, business cards, and flyers or have someone design those for you. Check out this blog post tutorial on how to do those yourself. 

 2. Go local  

Spring is a great opportunity to get outside and promote your tennis business at outdoor events - street fairs, festivals, concerts, sporting events, and parades. If your target audience and clients are outside, you should be there too. 

This could also be a good opportunity for your business to show your support for the community by volunteering or by sponsoring an event or a sports team (which is also a great way to bring exposure to your tennis brand and show what the type of organizations and causes you care about).

3. Snap some pics

High-quality photos always draw the eye. As spring arrives, the grass gets greener, the sky gets blue, people get happy, and therefore, pictures look better. Snap some pictures from your place of business, community events, volunteering opportunities, and share them with your customers via email or social media. Ask your own students, staff, and volunteers for help whenever possible.

4. Share on social media 

As with everything, do not forget to announce your summer programs and events on social media. One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is creating social media profiles, but not updating them regularly. So, place that on your weekly to-do list.

5. Share via email  

If you have an email list already, be sure to create a newsletter and send out camp information to your list of contacts. 

Summer will be here sooner than you think. Get prepared now with these few summer camp marketing tips!