We’ve already discussed how all-in-one websites can boost online transactions, improve user experience and help your club appear higher in search engine results. Today, we’re going to talk about the most important things your sports club website should do. Specifically, we’re going to focus on the keys to website creation and website management.
At Uplifter, our sports club management software is used by hundreds of thousands of users across the globe. The quality and dependability of our product has earned the trust of National and State/Provincial associations. As part of our software product, we proudly offer beautiful, customizable sports club websites.
These websites allow club members to complete registrations directly on your website, as part of one seamless experience. Best of all, our club website builder is extremely flexible so you can design your site exactly how you’d like.
Let’s dive into the 7 keys to success for your sports club website design and management.
1) Mobile friendly sports club website design
If you run a sports club, most parents today will visit your website using a mobile device. As we’ve discussed before, 89% of people say they are likely to recommend a brand after a positive experience on mobile. This means it’s essential for your site to look good on a smartphone.
Shopping Tip: If you’re shopping for all-in-one sports club software that includes a website, ask the provider for a few example websites. Ideally, get a web address for some of their current clients, then visit those sites using mobile, tablet and desktops devices.
Look for tell-tale mobile friendly design elements like a “hamburger button”, and click around each site to make sure it functions well on mobile.
The best sports club website builders will have mobile solutions thought-out in advance. Furthermore, they’ll be designing from a “mobile first” point of view. This means, they’ll think of how your website looks on mobile before considering how it looks on desktop.
As an added bonus, a sports club website builder like Uplifter’s will allow you to preview your site changes in a “mobile view” directly on your desktop computer. This feature enables you to quickly ensure that any site changes you make will look good on a mobile device.
2) Design themes built for customization
There are some sports club website builders out there that simply create the same site over and over again. These designs are inflexible and produce cookie cutter results.
But your club website needs to be unique and flexible. Of course, we don’t recommend reinventing the wheel (no auto-play music, please!), but it is important that your website isn’t just a duplicate of another club’s across town.
More importantly, if you feel like your website does look similar to another club’s site, you need to be able to easily change it.
A sports club website builder like Uplifter’s allows you to heavily customize your site. You can work from 5 different site templates and more than a dozen separate page templates to create the site structure you desire.
Plus, you can edit your colour palette with full RGB, RGBA or even HEX code colour editing. And you can dive deep on font editing including styles, size, and colour alterations for almost every element on your site. This includes all-important font and colour editing for buttons.
Why is this so important? Button text and button colour can vastly increase or decrease the likelihood someone will click your button. Button or font colours that blend in, or buttons with an unclear call-to-action can negatively impact registrations. So, don’t get locked into pre-made options with a cookie cutter solution.
Beyond website structure and surface athletics, there’s lots more to customize with Uplifter. You can also edit top navigation, main navigation, URL slugs, hover text, button shape, favicon images, or even add full background images to give your website a distinctly unique look. Most importantly, all of this can be done with a simple Wysiwyg editor that’s familiar to basic computer users.
3) Meta data editing for SEO benefits
Getting your website to rank highly in Google is a valuable endeavor. When your sports club website ranks above local competitors, you’ll get more potential customers visiting it.
This is an advanced website marketing tactic. However, Uplifter believes it’s important to empower organizations so that they can take advantage of advanced tools when they’re ready.
Uplifter’s sports club website designs allow you to easily edit your site’s meta data. This includes creating custom URL slugs, adding alt image descriptions, and adding meta keywords. Additionally, you can easily customize page descriptions and page titles that show up on a search results page.
Uplifter also allows you to create hidden pages that won’t appear on your sitemap or in search results.
Hidden pages are particularly useful when you’d like to create a page that no one can access without a direct link. These pages won’t show up in search, and they won’t show up in any menus, so they are ideal for private class registration.
4) Source code editing for empowering flexibility
If you have a very specific vision for your sports club website, you may want to roll up your sleeves and edit the HTML source code.
Editing the source code of an element is a great way to ensure you achieve the exact look you want. Most clubs won’t need to use this feature, but for those who feel comfortable, editing the source code adds an empowering layer of flexibility.
To edit the source code in Uplifter’s website builder, click on the code brackets “<>” to bring up the source code for a specific element. Then make your HTML code edits in the pop-up window and click “OK” to save your work and close the popup.
5) Revert to past revisions and duplicate for time savings
As our co-founder Jackie Kwan said in a recent webinar, this feature can really “save your bacon.”
At Uplifter, we’ve had many organizations accidentally delete their work – it happens to the best of us! That’s why we built a revision feature that automatically keeps tabs on all of your past revisions.
In Uplifter’s website builder, simply click “Edit Page Details” in the top right to reveal your revision and meta data options. Then click on the “Revisions” drop down menu and select a previous version to revert back to.
Each time you click save, the Uplifter system automatically creates and stores a revision for your convenience.
Another time-saving tip is to take advantage of Uplifter’s duplication function. Using duplication functions, you can easily save design time by quickly duplicating site sections. Once you duplicate a section, you can update the text and images to look exactly how you want.
6) Customization in email inboxes
We’ve written about the importance of sports club branding before. A strong brand creates a recognizable experience that elevates and echoes throughout your club. It’s not just about the look and feel of your club, it’s about the way your coaches and athletes carry themselves too!
This means your brand is a fully cohesive experience. So, you need your sports club website and all of your digital assets to reflect your brand.
That’s why Uplifter also empowers organizations with the ability to edit the little things, like email headers for your invoices. With customizable design elements like these, you can guarantee that your brand delivers the same recognizable experience directly to a club member’s email inbox.
7) Save on hosting and management fees for your club website
Paying hosting fees for your sports club website can cost upwards of $600 per year. However, if you build your sports clubs website using Uplifter’s content management tools, you don’t have to pay any hosting fees.
To take advantage of this, sports clubs simply need to register their domain to reserve it using a company like Godaddy. Then, point your domain to Uplifter and start building your website using Uplifter’s page building and content management tools.
If your current website is managed by the webmaster of a development company, you have to pay for your website changes. But, with Uplifter, your administrative staff can easily make the changes on their own. That’s more cost savings for your club!
Lastly, if your administrator has technical skills, they’ll thank you for having one unified website and registration system. Consolidating updates into one easy-to-use system can save heaps of time that can otherwise be used for growth oriented tasks.
Summary: A sports club website for the future
When thinking about your ideal sports club website design, you need a flexible solution that meets your needs for the future. This means your website needs to be designed with a “mobile first” mentality in order to guarantee a great look on the device that parents are using most.
Although you may not be a tech savvy administrator right now, advanced website tools can empower your club to learn and grow. These include advanced SEO editing features, aesthetic design features, and HTML source code editing capabilities. When your club has the ability to grow into more advanced features, you can trust that your not handcuffing administrators to an aged and difficult system.
You need a sports club website builder that unifies your brand with features like invoice branding, and features that save you time like simple element duplication and revision history.
Lastly, your sports club website shouldn’t inflate your bottom line. Instead, you need a website that saves you money. Uplifter’s website builder does just that. When you point your domain to Uplifter and leverage Uplifter’s site builder tools you save money on hosting and webmaster fees while empowering your administrators.
Of course, anytime you need it, Uplifter’s 5-star customer services is ready to help. Contact us today to find out more.
