MITA Tennis Academy — SEO relaunch and online waivers for a Denver tennis academy

Project overview

MITA (Max Ivchenko Tennis Academy) trains kids, teens and adults across Metro Denver, from Red Ball beginners to USTA tournament players and college prospects. Its head coach, Max Ivchenko, has been in tennis for more than 30 years.

The academy had a young WordPress site that Google barely saw. My audit in March 2026 scored it 66%, with SEO at 73%, speed at 67% and security at 48%. None of the 11 pages had a meta description, only 2 had an H1 and not one image had ALT text. There was no address or service area anywhere, and the home page title was “Main – JUST TENNIS IT”. Internal links went through redirects, and the footer e-mail pointed to a template’s Facebook page. The academy also needed every player to sign a liability waiver before their first lesson.

My role in the project

I personally led the project from the audit to launch. The areas I owned and delivered directly:

• The SEO audit of all 11 pages and a one-month plan, with the effort split 60/40 between attracting students and recruiting coaches
• On-page SEO: titles, meta descriptions, headings and ALT text across the site
• Content: rewritten and expanded pages, a profile page for the head coach and three SEO articles
• Structured data for the academy, the head coach, the programs and the reviews
• Design fixes and mobile adaptation on every page
• WP Waiver Sign, a custom WordPress plugin for signing waivers online

What I built: SEO and content

• Every page got a title built around “tennis lessons in Denver” and the academy’s name, a written meta description and an H1. Images got descriptive ALT text, from 0% to 100%
• Pages rewritten and expanded. The home page got new blocks on why families choose MITA, the programs and the coaching team. Programs grew past 1,000 words: kids by ball colour, teens, adults by USTA level, sparring and footwork. About and Contacts were rewritten, Contacts now with the service area
• A profile page for Max Ivchenko: his path from Ukraine to Denver, his coaching philosophy and his results
• Reviews moved out of a JavaScript carousel into static HTML that Google can read, with review and rating markup. All 14 reviews also have their own page
• Structured data: the academy as a sports location serving the Denver metro and the head coach as a person with credentials. Every program sits in a service catalogue with its age group, racquet size and class ratio, plus reviews with a rating, the contact page and breadcrumbs
• Three SEO articles, matching the 60/40 split: tennis lessons for kids in Denver (for parents), adult lessons at any level, and coach jobs at MITA
• Design and mobile fixes across the site (broken blocks, spacing and fonts), plus WebP images and caching

What I built: WP Waiver Sign

• An online waiver and release of liability for the academy, also covering the cancellation policy. An adult signs for themselves, or a parent signs on behalf of a minor
• The full document sits in a scrolling box, and the form asks the participant to read it to the end before signing. Then come participant and emergency-contact details, three agreements and a signature drawn with a finger or a mouse
• Each signed waiver is stored in its own database table, turned into a PDF and e-mailed to the academy and to the signer
• In the admin: a list of signed waivers with revoke and delete, plus CSV export
• Shortcodes for the form, a button and a QR code, so a new player can sign from their phone right at the court

Stack

WordPress with Elementor Pro, plus WP Waiver Sign, my own PHP plugin with a signature pad, PDF generation and e-mail delivery. Schema.org structured data is in JSON-LD, Search Console handles indexing, and LiteSpeed Cache and WebP images handle speed.