Just having a website isn’t always enough

My wife has fond memories of growing up in small rural town and going to the occasional fish fry at the local Knights of Columbus Hall. Since moving to Camdenton we have gone to several fish fry’s at the local Knights of Columbus in Camdenton on the 54. Usually we were alerted to the upcoming fish fry while driving by on the way to our land or to Bear Market.

KofC Fish Fry in Camdenton

Being the season of Lent we knew there would be more fish fry’s than the usual 2 a month. Since we hadn’t been down that way recently we wanted to make sure the fish fry was still on this Friday.  It was around 8pm so we decided to try an internet search using the words Knights of Columbus Camdenton. I figured would find a website with information about the Hall and their schedule of activities. I was dissapointed to find their website, http://lakeozarks-kofc.org/.  It was a design from 1999 it seemed with information only an active member of the Hall would even be able to make out.  I also found this website http://lakeozarks-kofc.org/councils/camdenton/6365.htm that hasn’t been updated since 2003. These sites could use some content strategy to improve readability and usability and in turn improve the search engine results.

For a hall that has weekly activities it was surely disappointing to find such a poorly utilized website, with an obvious neglect towards appearance. We ended up finding the phone number and having to call to confirm the fish fry was still going on.

While having to find the phone number for Knights of Columbus in Camdenton and make a phone call to confirm an event is not all that big of a deal it is slightly off putting when you are trying to use a search engine to find the answers when the business might be closed for the night.

Eventually I found what appears to be an announcement of the fish fry on the Lake News Online website, only it was for the previous weekend, http://www.lakenewsonline.com/communities/camdenton/x692835299/5-things-to-do-this-weekend. And then finally I found it on the KofC website, http://lakeozarks-kofc.org/kc10.html, after we already called. The fish fry is every Friday during Lent starting at 4:30p till 7p for a cost of $7. And of course all  you can eat.

Yes you have a website, but does it work for you or against you?

So yes the Lake of the Ozarks Knights of Columbus have a website but is it useful? Not that they are going to lose business but they aren’t serving their community better with having an out of date and poorly laid out content. Simple tools like WordPress or other freely available content management systems make publishing easy.  Take some time to consider a small improvement to your website to make it easier for you to manage and easier for your visitors to get the information they need.

Small business websites

While many small town businesses try to avoid spending extra money on what may appear frivolous websites can be implemented rather quickly and for less than you might expect.  Hosting can cost around $3-10/month and web design or seo marketing can range from several hundred to thousands. But for the most basic sites a good template can be used to lessen the cost of a new website.  Check out themeforest for an amazing resource of affordable templates that an experience web developer can implement quickly keeping the overall costs to a minimum.

For any small business needing to improve the performance of their website through attracting more visitors search engine marketing and simple website design can be a big help. Hiring a firm that specializes in search marketing or web design such as Tonka Park can help your current and future customers enjoy their experience with your company’s internet image.

If you found this article searching for the local Knights of Columbus you already have an example of proper content can help in search engine results.  If you just need the phone number, at the time of this article the phone number for Knights of Columbus Hall in Camdenton Missouri is 573-346-0010.  Again consider contacting Matt over at Tonkapark.com about your website needs.