According to Google Analytics, non-admin Sportdata web page views passed 100,000 this month with 11,000 unique visitors. The site is becoming ever more popular at a rapid rate. More than a third of these visitors are using mobile phones and tablets to see their league games, results and ladders.

The ratio of return visitors compared to new visitors is 76%. That’s a great metric and one Sydney city web shop told me they had never seen a number that high. Thanks to all our loyal Sportdata fans.

Of course, these aren’t really Sportdata fans at all, they are fans of your indoor sports centre. Players like to check the ladders each week after the games and see what time they are playing next week.

Most of the Sportdata visitors are referred by links on your site. The indoor sports industry is getting more and more competitive lately and you need to be doing as much as you can to raise the popularity of your sports centre’s web site. The holy grail here is to get your site to the number one spot in a Google search using common keywords which describe your sports centre such as “indoor sports” and “netball” and your town or city. Try typing  the search phrase “sports software” into a Google search and see which sports competition management site comes up first!

There are some things you can do on your web site to maximise your profile in searches and visitor popularity. The web jargon for this is SEO optimisation. Here’s a few general tips.

1. Actually have a web site. Make it clean and modern but above all, keep it simple and uncluttered.

2. Make the page titles count. Use key words in the title like Woop Woop Indoor Sports Centre plays Netball and FUTSAL. Make sure each page on your web site has a different title which describes the content. Don’t just repeat your sports centre name. Don’t use “home page”.

3. Put the name of your sports centre in an H1 tag early in your page. This should contain at least part of your page title.

4. Repeat the title key words within the first 150 characters of text on your home page.

5. Make your site html5 compatible. Generate a site map online and place your sitemap.xml file in the home directory as your index page. Get a Google account and place a Google Analytics script on each web page. This will help to monitor traffic to your site and help you tailor your web site content to improve popularity.

6. Set up Facebook, Twitter and other social networking accounts for your indoor sports centre. Include Facebook Like and Twitter buttons on your home page.

7. Change your web site regularly. A good way to do this without having to edit web pages is to have a blog. Sportdata can create and host a blog site for you free of charge. You only need to have a sub domain and a link to the blog on your web site. Use the blog to announce or remind about events, finals and other changes in your organisation. Don’t know what a blog is? You’re reading one right now!

8. Put a link to your Sportdata games and ladders on your home page. Don’t force your players to drill down for the link. Use an image to highlight the link and make it easier to see at a glance.

Sportdata has some features which automatically help to raise your sports centre popularity and search profile for you.

1. Each sports league you create has its own Facebook comments forum. Use this forum to make league specific announcements such as finals and player qualification reminders.

2. Comment about the games each week. Comments from the sports centre admins invite replies and further comments and participation from players and fans.

3. Click the Tweet button and post the same comments to Twitter.

4. Click the Facebook Like button for each league.

5. Each league has a separate photo gallery where you can post photos of the games and players and add comments. Take photos of the best players each week and post them. People love to see photos.

All these actions help raise interest and participation in your sports centre and help create a feeling of community and familiarity with your staff.

Sportdata can host your web site or a blog for your indoor sports centre free. Check the Hosting page for more details and a demo page showing how to use jQuery ajax to seamlessly load the Sportdata game data into your own web page. Unlike a normal html link, visitors remain on your web site using this technique.

Sportdata – simply better than our competitors at any price.

Mark