On what a sports organisation/club website needs…

A website for a business is quite often very different to that of a sports club or sports organisation. There are very different types of visitors and reasons for coming to a sport website than for a business site.

As a web services company that designs websites for business and for sports bodies, we think we have learned a thing or two about the differences and wanted to share them here.

1.Visitors are fans or members not customers or prospects.
The type of person that visits a website for a sports person, sports club, sports event or sporting body is very different to the visitor to a software company or shoe shop. For a start the visitor to your club website is probably a member or a fan of the club. More than likely they are visiting to learn more about the club about the athletes about the sport.

So when designing a sports website, you need to keep this in mind. You want to built a website that allows new information to be added easily. You want to have lots of information there for the visitor to browse.

For example, we are currently building the website for the Oceania Judo Union ( http://www.oceaniajudo.org ) and one of the things that site has is an archive of all the results of the continental championships from 1965 onwards. That information is historical and relevant to the visitors to the site. We would not however put contest records from 1965 onwards on  a club site necessarily. Why? Because at a club level the visitors are very different and looking for different things.

At club level we are going to focus more on the day to day activities of the club. We want to make sure that the training times are accurate, that venue information is current and silly things like directions and maps are available. We might spent more time developing online resources to put competition schedules, away dates etc online rather than archives of old information.

That said… ideally we would have the archive and the current info, we would however put more focus on current information for a club than for a continental union where the archive is more important to the visitor.

2.Sell something.
Business websites almost always are focussed on selling something, be it products direct to you or getting you to sign up for more information about the company and its services.
Sports websites, in our opinion, need to be selling too. And not just “more information” type sign ups, there is we feel great value in a sports site selling products online. For example a Rugby Club website should be selling rugby boots, shirts, mouth guards, t-shirts, ice packs, etc. Anything that your membership use you should be offering.

Now, this does not mean you need to become an online retailer and have a warehouse stacked full of tracksuits. There are great affiliate schemes that allow the club to offer products at discounts or make a small amount of revenue of each sale that do not require the actual handling of products, not even the transaction itself. Amazon affiliates is a good example.

But it is not about “making a buck” or “monetizing your website”, this is about providing your visitors with what they want. If you are a tennis club, your members (who will be visitors to your site) will need to buy shoes, rackets, balls, etc. If you sell these via your website then it means that they have one more reason to come to the site, they will appreciate that you are offering them what they need. You are catering to their requirements, just the way your pro shop does.

Of course you want to be selling the branded products with your club name all over it too. This helps promote the sport/club and also helps the members obtain products that make them feel like they belong and are helping the club.

3.Don’t be generic and don’t worry about being “shiny”
Sports sites are frequented mainly by people involved in the sport, these people know about the sport. Don’t bother putting a generic “this is what Judo is?” section in the site. The vast majority of your visitors will know all this already. Sure, have a small amount of stuff, but skip the stuff that is generic.

Focus instead on what is unique about your organisation. Share the news that relates only to you, or at least how general news relates to your organisation. For example, the problems with International Cricket might affect a cricket club as it affects the competition schedule of your small local team in some way.

An injury to a famous premier league footballer is generic, but a famous footballer having the same injury as your teams goalie is interesting to those who support your club as well as informing visitors about the more general story.

And your website does not have to be “shiny”, it does not need all the “bells and whistles”. Focus more on the content and the uniqueness of your site, rather than on aesthetics and the latest website tricks.

The above comments are based on many conversations we have had with sports people about their websites and is aimed at anyone tasked with looking after a sports website.

Obviously, the reason we are sharing it is so that you start  to think we know what we are talking about and come to use for web services. We think we are unique in our ability to support sport via a website, we really do.

So please do contact us and have a chat about your existing (or planned) website. You can drop us an email to sales@envirtua.com or phone us on 020 7193 8987