where does your golf center rank

How much time have you spent thinking about how potential customers might find you on the internet?  Have you thought about the services you offer and what words folks looking for those services might use to search.  Indoor golf, golf practice and golf simulator are all pretty clear and you should appear near the top of local searches for those.  But how do you rank for "things to do in (city xzy)", or "entertainment in (town name)".  Go ahead, search those for your town and see where you rank I'll wait.

Unless you have been pretty thoughtful about your SEO, I'd bet you are not even on the first page for those items.  Most golf centers aren't, but it is a big potential loss of customers as your indoor golf center is about more than golf, it is a place to have fun.  Take some time, think of other ways people might look for something to do and work on linking and content strategies to rank better for those words.

Beyond SEO, local search can be a powerful tool to help your business.  According to a study by Google, 50% of consumers who conducted a local search on their smartphone visited a store within a day, and 34% who searched on computer/tablet did the same.  So what does this mean for you:

• You should make sure your product availability, address and directions appear in your ads across smartphone and computer/tablet
• You should ensure your indoor golf center location is in Google Places
• You should make an effort to get links from local "things to do" websites to help with overall local ranking
• If you are advertising online, you should use location extensions and you can use location bid adjustments to fine-tune bids for specific areas, like cities or zip codes

These are just a few ideas you can work on to improve your visibility to potential customers.  Good luck!