It’s not uncommon for a house or website project to quickly convert into a money pit and there are 50 wrong answers for every 10 right answers to variables in the project. We put together 5 common pitfalls to avoid as you tackle your website project this winter.

1. Shoestring Budget

Plan a realistic budget for your website’s development and management. Be sure you budget for content writing, photography, adwords campaigns, facebook campaigns, and other crucial programs to give your website as successful launch after the design and development is complete.

2. Who does what?

In many cases, golf facility operators know they have to get their website performing better, but they don’t have the human resources allocated to ensure a speedy and efficient project launch.

3. No Content Writers

Lack of content is the 100 lb gorilla in the room. It’s easy to say, “We want to have 25 pages and update our news section every day including our facebook page..”. The challenge is getting someone to write those 25 pages or news sections and email campaigns. Does your golf course have a writer?

 4. Failure to Funnel

A great website encourages users to take action. When a site simply talks at users, telling them in excruciating detail how great you are, they leave unimpressed and unengaged. Although it’s obvious that a site should encourage users into booking a tee time, subscribing to a newsletter, asking for membership information, or inquiring about holding an event – for the most part, these calls to action are conspicuously absent.

5. Horrific Hosting

It’s so sad it’s almost funny that after spending valuable resources on a site and brilliantly avoiding traps #1-#4, a facility chooses the wrong site-hosting option to save a few pennies and sees all its work destroyed by painfully slow page loading, excessive downtime, and inability to make updates efficiently.