Action sports brands have an endless opportunity to create, optimize and promote new content. The reason I say "endless opportunity" is because most action sports are bombarded with changing elements like seasonality, weather, fashion, technology and athletic advancement. These changes help create great new stories that can be told with pictures and video that harness the emotions, lifestyle and environment that words alone can't always describe. The brands using a content marketing strategy use planned campaigns that can be measured throughout the process for success and improvement.

My last post of this wakeboard industry series examined the social media presence of 5 wakeboard brands, focusing on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. I highlighted which brands are leading the pack and why.  Liquid Force was the clear winner of Social Media Marketing, but how will they do in the race for Best Overall Internet Marketing?  Read on to find out who has the best website stats in Part 3 below!

Last month I started my 1st internet marketing competitive analysis series that focused on the high-end slalom ski industry. I wanted to start with a small niche sport for my first review, and competitive slalom brands worked, plus I already had much of the data prepared.  But with further research I found that this sports segment as a whole can do much better to market their brands online.

Website design, site architecture, new content and SEO all play an important role to any website's success. Unless you are relying on all your traffic from paid ads, your website depends on these four factors to generate the best possible targeted organic traffic from search. Search engines are using a combination of these four factors to rank your website and the less compliant you are, the lower your results.  Bottom line is that consistantly integrating these four components on every web page you create will return targeted visitors who are searching for your products and services.

My previous post of this slalom ski industry series broke down the social media marketing efforts of each waterski company, focusing on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. I highlighted which brands are leading the pack and why, plus made some suggestions for the brands that are not keeping up with their industry competitors.  Radar Skis was the clear winner of Social Media Marketing, but how will they do in the race for Best Overall Internet Marketing?  Read on to find out who has the best website stats in Part 3 below!

Internet Marketing Analysis: Action Sports Industry

In the spirit of the upcoming Summer Olympics, I'm introducing a new blog series titled "The Marketing Olympics" which will feature summer action sports industry categories such as wakeboarding, surfing, skateboarding, waterskiing and motocross. These sports have little to do with traditional Olympic sports, but they are sports I have personal and professional experience with, so a good place to start.

 26 Good Reasons for a Website Redesign

In Part 1 of this series I reviewed reasons to protect your current website assets and listed bad reasons to pursue a website redesign.

If you’ve had a website for a few years, you may now be wondering if it is time for a website redesign.  If you have been successful creating website traffic, a cautious and well planned approach with solid goals are necessary for your next website redesign project. If your website is not generating traffic, you have even more good reasons for a redesign.

The overall importance of search engine rankings has been known for years by website developers and managers. If you want more targeted traffic on your website, you need to achieve higher search engine rankings. To achieve higher search engine rankings, your website pages need to contain unique interesting content that is optimized for search engines.  This article explains basic SEO service strategy tips that will increase your search engine rankings.


Why should website owners be concerned about SEO?  Some businesses are not concerned about SEO since they are willing to pay to have their website advertised. Others are confused by the website coding and believe that people should rank websites, eliminating the need for SEO. This solution is not only impractical, but would only create another type of SEO criteria based on visual rather than functional website features.  In reality, computers are responsible for website rankings. Search engine optimization allows you some human influence on your website's search engine rank in an attempt to draw more traffic.



A variety of factors influence your search engine rankings. Keywords influence where your site will show up in a search. Active traffic volume on your site is another factor, as is the number of links that lead to your website.

ON-PAGE SEO: High search ranks do not come quickly. That means you need to fine-tune your site design to get this long process in motion and achieve results. Using keywords efficiently in headers, titles and content will also boost website traffic.  These "on-page" seo techniques are important, but are only 25% of what the search engines use to rank your website.

OFF-PAGE SEO: When it comes to site optimization, you are not limited to only using strategically placed keywords and error free code. Linking is another SEO method in which other sites link to yours, your site links to others, and pages on your own site link to each other. Increasing your inbound links tell the search engines that your website contains content that others view as important. It demonstrates that your website is an authority on topics that other websites want to link to. Additionally, authority websites that link to yours are way more valuable (increase rankings) than links from websites without authority. Search engines consider "off-page" SEO much more important, up to 75% of a website's overall ranking.

PAID SEARCH: At the top of most search engine result pages, you will find featured or sponsored entries, which are paid advertisements by businesses willing to pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars to display their message above all others. Many small business websites do not have the financial resources to pay for these placements. Utilizing proven organic SEO techniques can help your website description appear just under those top paid advertisements, but without the high cost associated with paid search advertising.

If your website is new, paid search advertising will draw traffic faster than your organic SEO service efforts since it takes time for search engines to discover or rank you highly.  If you go this route, you should advertise on sites where your target customer is likely to surf.  It is important to find the right people to direct back to your website if you expect to gain new customers. Be certain to show your paid visitors arriving at your site that you have taken the time to find out about their interests by sending them to a relevent page on your website, or better yet a new landing page prepared specifically for your paid visitors.

A well-done website is needed to succeed in business these days. If your business is sustained through sales, a well designed website is not just a nice thing to have, it's a requirement! The site optimization tips in this article will point you in the right direction for increased traffic and higher search engine rankings.  Good Luck!!