Here are some simple SEO (search engine optimization) tips you can implement on your website.

1. Find out what your current guests are searching for when they look for entertainment such as yours on the Internet. You can do this in a survey, either online or offline. Poll Daddy or Survey Monkey are online survey services that have a free account level that should be able to cover what your surveying needs are. They also have good resources to help you build a simple survey and email a link to your email database.

A way to survey your guests offline is to make up simple questionnaire cards and hand them out in person (with a pencil) to your guests over a few days. Make sure you have a box near the door for collection. You want to ask them what did they/would they search for online in order to find information about your fun center.

2. Enter the phrases your survey respondents supplied in a spreadsheet and go to Google.com. Search for “keyword tool”. You should end up here: https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__u=1000000000&__c=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS#search.none

3. Enter the phrases one at a time in the top box of “Find keywords”, enter the captcha information and select the “Search” button.

4. Scroll through the list that appears below the search button and see what kind of search volume the phrase and related phrases are getting. You want to use highly searched terms in your website wherever possible—especially in page titles and the first paragraph of text on the same page.

For example, if you have a page called “Birthday Party Packages” you could a rename it to “Birthday Party Ideas” and write two short paragraphs, one called “Birthday Party Ideas for Girls” (90,500 searches) and another called “Boys Birthday Party Ideas” (74,000 searches.) Obviously mix the article content on simple ideas and ideas that include your fun center. Make sure the article titles are coded as H3 or H2 (your developer will know what you mean.)

5. If you have images on that page, make sure they have names that use those search phrases, like “birthday-party-ideas-1.jpg” and so on. Also make sure that alt tags (these tell the browser to display something to the user until the image actually loads) also includes “birthday-party-ideas-at-ABC-Fun-Center”

6. Add a blog to your website. Many businesses don’t refresh the content on their websites on a regular basis, and Google (and other search engines) favor websites that have fresh content. You can keep the blog current by simply posting a couple paragraphs once at a week at the same day and time about the happenings at your fun center. Key here is to ALWAYS include one or more of the search terms your guest survey supplied (assuming they get decent searches each month) in your blog article title and first paragraph.

There is a LOT more to SEO, but this is one key element you can look at. What have you found to be helpful driving more traffic to your website?

The Superbowl isn’t just for football fans. Many people watch for the half-time show (or at least watch that portion of the game) and others are interested in watching it to see epic TV commercials. Many people use the Superbowl as an excuse to throw a party, and even though the game is playing on the TV, aren’t even watching it.

But one thing we know for sure is people will be tweeting constantly during it—and many of those people are your guests! And if you have any interest at all in it, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to tweet as well.

Getting in on the Twitter conversation

On Sunday morning, go to www.twitter.com and sign in. On the right sidebar scroll down until you see “Trends.” People that want their comments to show up in a particular stream will use a hashtag (# symbol.) Click on “change” beside the title “Trends” and choose “United States.” This will change the #trending topics to those originating in the U.S. Drill down one more by selecting your state.

You’re sure to see something like #Superbowl or #Superbowl46 or #GoPats. Choose one and see what kind of tweets are being made. Keep scouting out the different hashtag phrases until you find one that feels right to you (i.e. the comments make you laugh, or you find a group of hard core fans like yourself, etc.) Choose “Save Stream” from the top.

On your smartphone

It’s possible, but I’m going to make a broad, unsubstantiated statement that the majority of people tweet from their phones. It will probably be easier for you to do this too. I use an iPhone, but I’m sure the others phones also have Twitter apps.

• Open the Twitter app
• On the bottom select the “#” button
• Scroll down until you get to “trends”
• Select relevant topics and peruse to find a # conversation you like
• When you’re ready to comment (“Looking forward to #Superbowl46″ would be a good idea) select the icon for new tweet
• On the bar that appears above the keyboard, select the “#” symbol and either scroll to find the topic, or type it in, along with your message

Many news shows now feature tickers with various twitter comments—you may even see yourself on TV!

By the way, we’re shaking our digital finger at you if you haven’t created and uploaded a video of your fun center to your center’s YouTube channel.

The Analytics section has a very slick look, with the easy-to-navigate menu on the left, and easy-to-understand information.

There was one thing that caught my attention, though, and had me checking out some videos a little deeper—audience retention. So, log in to your YouTube account and go to Video Manager. You’ll see the listing of all your fun center’s videos. Underneath the information for each video you’ll see three buttons—Edit Info, Edit Video and Analytics. Choose Analytics. On the Analytics page, on the left, choose Audience Retention.

What is audience retention

This is a measurement of how viewers are watching your videos, and there are two parameters that are measured—absolute audience retention and relative audience retention.

YouTube describes absolute audience retention like this:

Absolute audience retention is defined as Absolute audience retention shows the views of every moment of the video as a percentage of the number of views of the beginning of the video. Rewinding and re-watching a particular moment will push the graph upwards (perhaps even above 100%), while fast-forwarding or abandoning the video will push the graph downwards.

Absolute audience retention—people who re-watched the first 10 seconds cause the data to spike to 180%

This kind of feedback lets you analyze where in the video the viewer had the most interest. You can go back and analyze what content was at 10 seconds, for example, and plan your next video accordingly. Was it a classic YouTube “kick in the groin” moment, or was it when you talked about the passion that drove you to open a fun center in your community? You may be surprised at what drew some replays.

YouTube describes relative audience retention in this way:

Relative audience retention shows your video’s ability to retain viewers during playback relative to all YouTube videos of similar length. The higher the graph at any given moment, the proportionately more viewers kept watching your video over the preceding seconds of playback versus other videos at that same moment in their playbacks. Rewinding and re-watching a particular moment will push the graph upwards, while fast-forwarding or abandoning the video will push the graph downwards.

Relative audience retention—this graph charts your viewers and gets lower as they drop off.

This chart is comparing your particular video against all YouTube videos of a similar length, as far as when viewers fell off or fast-forwarded (shown as a dip down) or where they started watching again (as a dip up.) Unfortunately you need at least 300 views (if your video was uploaded after March, 2011) for the stats to show.

What does this mean for your fun center?

If you’re making and posting videos of your fun center on YouTube, there are some terrific tools to measure how watchable they are…not to mention who’s watching and how they’re watching. Poke around in the Analytics for a while—you’ll see lots of amazing measurement tools that will tell you about audience gender, and whether they’re watching from their smartphones or desktop computers. It could be the incentive to get you to put your camera to work and raise more online awareness of your family entertainment center!

What has been your biggest success with your YouTube channel?

It may hurt your brain to think about planning a regular email communication (or e-newsletter) to send to your list, but you should. The more targeted you can make it, the better. Also, the more targeted, the easier it will be to put together the content.

Collecting email addresses

There are many ways to collect email addresses from your guests (likely late teens and older):

1. Till tape—Ask for their feedback by sending them to a page on your website that asks the guest to rate their recent experience and supply their email. In return for their feedback, email them a voucher for tokens or another small giveaway. Also tell them you’ll email them about upcoming specials or discounts.
2. Comment cards—Again, gather some feedback about your services via comment cards left on tables and near the till. Note that they’ll receive a small thank you coupon by email for taking the time to complete and hand in the comment card.
3. Online—The most likely place is wit a “subscribe” button throughout your website that directs them to a e-newsletter sign-up form, or on the page where they book a party room. The key with collecting email addresses is to let them know they’ll be receiving future notices about specials, discounts or other information and to make that first contact as soon as possible after receiving their address. This way, they’ll recall giving it to you, and won’t unsubscribe or mark your email as junk (which will give you a high complaint rate if you’re using a third-party email service such as MailChimp or Aweber.)

Relevant and regular content

How or why did your guests share their email address with you, and what did you promise? Creating content is just fulfilling the promises you made, or keeping in mind what they were doing when they gave you their email address. For example, if you have their address due to booking a birthday party, let them know they’ll be receiving a monthly email highlighting birthday services, special offers or news about recent parties.

Third-party email service providers make it incredibly easy for you to plan your e-newsletters ahead of time and automatically send them out. They also give your instant feedback on how many recipients opened them, how many clicked through, and how well the email performed compared to ones you sent in the past and what is common for your industry. Pretty cool!

The profit part

Most third-party email services will let you trigger emails based on dates. Sending a birthday greeting to a child’s mom a month before his or her next birthday will encourage repeat party bookings. If your guests signed up and were promised ongoing news, specials or discounts, focus on one e-newsletter a month that talks about one of those topics. It’s helpful to create a year-long schedule of your promotions and special activities, and prepare your e-newsletters in advance.

Delivering information to guests who have provided their email is the best way to build loyalty. Forging strong relationships with this group will results in more visits. You could even create an email focus group and solicit feedback on new menu items, hours, or other operational changes you want to make. This will make that group of people much more likely to recommend your center to friends—especially if a “thank you” for their feedback includes a discount for their friends. If you’re wondering about third-party email services, IAAO uses MailChimp. It allows you 2,000 email addresses and 6 email per month for free. For most fun centers, sending a monthly email is sufficient. But you may have niche groups that would benefit from more frequent mailings, such as a game or attraction that lends itself to league play on a weekly basis.

Click to see the whole infographic.

What have been your email list challenges?

Not ideal, but easy-to-navigate. It looks better on an iPad!

1. Website links—Broken links, or links that go to dead pages should be weened off your site. Especially check links to your Facebook and Twitter links—many I tried today were not linked. By the way, don’t invite visitors to tweet your page or info if you don’t have a Twitter account yourself. It’s an etiquette thing.
2. Homepage—Unless you’re very strategic—Twitter, Facebook and offline efforts are pushing people to various landing or squeeze pages on your website so you can measure those platforms and messaging—your homepage is your main portal. Everything about this page needs to be fresh and focused on getting people to what they want to know about. I don’t want to see information in December about your Summer 2011 Rave Party (really.) Also, do the same for your Facebook Page.
3. Contact info—You should have a contact page in your navigation because people are used to this. But you’re missing the boat if you don’t also have Twitter, Facebook and an email link on EVERY page, above the fold (above the fold means visible on the monitor without scrolling down or going “below the fold”)
4. Mobile browsing—Visit your site on a few different phones (an iPhone and an Android phone.) What is the experience like? Do a spot survey—head to your fun center floor today and ask about 10 different people (adults & teens) if they access your FEC’s website on their phones. You may not need to do this in 2012, but eventually you should make the mobile experience on your website palatable. Mobile phones and tablets are only going to increase in sales and not staying on top of your online experience could hurt you in the long run.

If revamping your online experience is on your list for 2012 or soon after, please promise you’ll get at least three quotes on the changes you want to make. I’ve spoken to a few fun centers about online updating they want to do and prices they’ve been quoted and they are SO HIGH it almost seems like robbery! There are many third-party web solutions that shouldn’t bankrupt you…so many, that we often wonder if we should be offering these kinds of services ourselves (iaaoblog.com and amusementoperators.org are all built and managed by ourselves.)

What’s your most important online to-do item?

Log your responses in the poll in the right sidebar.

You can consider this a low-cost solution, but only if you don’t value your time at all. Creating a relationship with a mommy blogger takes time and evaluation. Your goal here is to reach a new audience—not just the blogger but her network of other moms who follow her.

Jennifer James wrote an excellent article called “How Brands Can Effectively Approach and Work With Bloggers” earlier this year at www.momblogmagazine.com. You can read her full article here.

Moms with blogs reach a wide audience of engaged moms

Here are some steps you can follow, some from Jennifer some from us:

1) Find some blogs—You can simply go to Google and enter “mom blogs in” and enter your town or city. You can also go to mombloggersclub.com or momblogmagazine.com and check out the bloggers. Also, go to alltop.com and search for “mom blogs in (your area).” That will get you started.

2) Read some blogs—Visit each blog and read through recent posts. Which blog made you laugh or smile? Which blog made you want to read more? Get to know the blogger through her writing and the things that are important to her.

3) Assess the blog—How many members does the blog have? How many people are leaving comments? Does the blogger engage with her readers in the comments? Ideally you’re looking for someone who has a solid relationship with her readers, and shares the values you have.

4a) Reach out—Contact the blogger by email and let her know what you like about her blog. What are the things you have in common, other than children and running a business? Jennifer James advises to “address bloggers by name, because it really makes the difference between them reading your pitch or chucking it in the trash.”

4b) Share your idea (a.k.a. the pitch, and this part of your reach out email)—Odds are your goal is to spread awareness of your center to moms in your town, especially if it will increase your daytime mid-week traffic. So share this idea directly and honestly, and pitch her on your need for feedback from her network of moms. What do moms in your community want to do with their pre-schoolers during the day? Is day care an issue? Or do they just want a safe, clean place for directed play? Or maybe they want something more structured like a mom and me program? At this point, you should be looking for feedback-ask the blogger if she can help with this and what her ideas are.

4c) Put skin in the game—Research companies charge a lot for research, which is essentially what you’re asking for. It would be very nice for you to offer some passes or game play redemption cards for the blogger to offer her network in exchange for providing some feedback. $5 certificates are a very nice “thank you” and a terrific way to introduce some moms and kids to your center.

5) Follow through—Don’t do any of this if you have no intention of taking the feedback and putting it to use. You’d be crazy not to! This is the exact crowd you want as customers, so they will have the most valid feedback on improving your business or services. Secondly, if you put some changes or new programs in place, you’ll have a group of customers open to trying them out! Lastly, you’ll have an honest, responsive group who will give you useful feedback on those changes.

What are your questions about reaching out to bloggers? Let us know in the comments.

Click the image to read the full eMarketer article

Our takeaway on this graph is that even though social media specialists will push using networks to be social and interactive, many consumers are expecting sales and promos from a business or brand page that they “like,” and why wouldn’t they? Your personality and “socialness” will come through when you reply to your fans’ comments, but your posts can be informational about fun center operations (hours, new staff, etc.) and offers (2 for 1 Tuesdays, or double-ticket Wednesdays).

The challenge for fun centers is to find a comfortable communication schedule. Don’t be shocked, but you should consider a schedule of 3-5 posts PER DAY. The reason is, the average Facebook user has 140 friends, not to mention at least 5 pages they like. That’s 145 bits of content filling their news feed constantly. How does your fun center get “seen”?

Making it easy

• Pick 3-5 times a day you’ll be able to post, and stick to this time schedule for at least a week
• Pick 3 topics to post about—for example an event that day, an upcoming special or promo, recognizing a guest
• Post a photo along with one of your posts
• Include a link to your website—for example, if you post a happy birthday message to a party you host that day, let your fans connect back to your birthday party register page
• Monitor the impressions for each of your posts—which times get the most impressions, which topics seem to get comments or shared with others. This will help you continuously improve your Facebook Page activity and future ROI

What has been your best success on Facebook?

Click to read full article

It will be interesting to see how teen adoption of Twitter increases by 2013—if we’ll see the same growth rate from 2009.

Do teens at your fun centers use Twitter?