While the majority of not-for-profit sports clubs are generally not run as businesses, they still can adopt Internet marketing to ensure a regular flow of new members. Aside from providing information about the club, a club website can do a lot to promote general interest in the art/sport across the wider community.
Like any modern small business website, a "mobile first" approach is a critical requirement for the UI design and layout. The primary target audience is busy parents (children's classes) and adults who will access the Internet predominately using a mobile device.
Secondly, but by no means less important, is to create an impressive desktop experience so that prospective members within the working environment or at home searching for evening classes could be wowed on bigger screens and easily discover additional content and browse in more comfort.
A careful marketing strategy was discussed and deployed to highlight the child friendly environment of the club and carefully curated imagery was used to reinforce this message to create the required marketing impact. Dynamic Facebook integration was implemented to provide a path for visitors interact socially with the Club and it's wider community and facebook is used as a conduit of additional traffic back to the website.
The final requirement was to incorporate an easy to use CMS to allow the club officers and administrators make updates quickly and easily and add new content over time.
Additionally DTA engaged us to put in place a low-level SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and SEP (Search Engine Promotion) campaign for them to get the Dublin Tomiki Aikido website established in Google's Search index and on the road to having an "organic" listing on Page 1 for a list of initial key search phrases:-
All new websites take a bit of time to get noticed and listed in Google for searches relating to their key activity(ies). It's all the more difficult to get a good listing position when competing against legacy websites for popular search terms. However, with a bit of professional SEO and regular Search Engine Promotion even small new websites can begin to see progress up the listings in as little as six months.
LISTING POSITION UPDATE: 18th Dec 2017
(using Google.ie from Kinsealy, Co.Dublin)
click on a link below to run the search for yourself and check on current position
Tomiki Aikido ( Position 2&3, Page 1)
Tomiki Aikido Ireland ( Position 1& 2, Page 1)
Shodokan Aikido Ireland ( Position 1, Page 1)
Childrens Aikido Classes (Position 1, Page 1)
Adult Aikido Classes (Position 1, Page 1)
Aikido for kids (Position 1, Page 1)
Aikido Dublin ( Position 5 , Page 1,)
Aikido Ireland ( Position 6 Page 1 )
Aikido Classes Dublin (Position 5, Page 1 )
Aikido Classes (Positions 7,8 & 9 Page 1 )
Aikikai Aikido (Positions 7 Page 1)
With a tight budget in hand I went to look for a professional web agency to help me to promote Tomiki Aikido in Ireland as well as our Aikido Club in Dublin. From the start I felt that Jer and his team were a good fit as they took the time to understood clearly my objectives and proposed a complete solution, including providing me with the tools to take ownership of content management and search engine promotion after launch. . We now have a branded website that looks great on small and big screens, is clearly focussed on our immediate marketing objectives and has an integrated back-office system that allows us to manage our online message. With the guidance received from WDI, I believe we are now masters of our own online destiny and already new members are discovering us online.
Use Case Analysis
Rapid Prototyping
Responsive, mobile-friendly design
Back-Office CP & CMS
HTML & CSS
Content Database
Content Production
Imagery Production
Facebook Integration
Project Management
Dedicated project manager
Build Assistance & Deployment