Club Websites ,

[bladeplayer]

Im starting to get soooo frustrated with my clubs website ,IMO its just not interesting or informative enough of happenings within the club or by its members outside the club , there are not enough updates of what is going on in the club on it ,
2 instances
Last year one of our Junior Girls played in a national comp & came 5th ,
One of out gents won a scratch cup in the Top Golfer series and qualified for the national play offs as a result

not a mention of either ,

i was looking today at the "latest news" and it covers the semi final draws of the winter league , they were played last Saturday today is Thursday no updates ..

Do you read your club web page ?
Is what goes on in the club & achievements of interest to you ?
Would you like to hear more & would you visit your webpage more if it was update more regularly ?

Im thinking of bringing this to the committees attention , do a survey in the club to see if people want to know or not , id even offer to be the contact person to collect the information & update it if necessary ..

Your thoughts would be appreciated

Thanks
Bill

 

[GB72]

Im starting to get soooo frustrated with my clubs website ,IMO its just not interesting or informative enough of happenings within the club or by its members outside the club , there are not enough updates of what is going on in the club on it ,
2 instances
Last year one of our Junior Girls played in a national comp & came 5th ,
One of out gents won a scratch cup in the Top Golfer series and qualified for the national play offs as a result

not a mention of either ,

i was looking today at the "latest news" and it covers the semi final draws of the winter league , they were played last Saturday today is Thursday no updates ..

Do you read your club web page ?
Is what goes on in the club & achievements of interest to you ?
Would you like to hear more & would you visit your webpage more if it was update more regularly ?

Im thinking of bringing this to the committees attention , do a survey in the club to see if people want to know or not , id even offer to be the contact person to collect the information & update it if necessary ..

Your thoughts would be appreciated

Thanks
Bill

I never look at our website, I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to up to date club information, the notice board is king. For some reason most clubs that I have been to cannot get past the attraction of attaching pieces of paper to squares of cork. Its as if smartphones, tablets, computers and the internet never happened.

 

[fundy]

ours has no real up to date information, i only really use ours to access the BRS which also has courses status updates on

 

[bladeplayer]

I never look at our website, I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to up to date club information, the notice board is king. For some reason most clubs that I have been to cannot get past the attraction of attaching pieces of paper to squares of cork. Its as if smartphones, tablets, computers and the internet never happened.

ours has no real up to date information, i only really use ours to access the BRS which also has courses status updates on

I hear that guys im getting the same way

BUT

would you use it more if there was an effort to be more update ?

 

[HawkeyeMS]

Ours is actually quite good in terms of updates and we also get regular e-mails telling us what is going on as well as a quarterly newsletter. What is frustrating is that quite often, the updates don't go far enough. Two examples being...

There is a notice saying that the competition rules have changed to bring parity between the men's and ladies' sections and are active as of the date they were posted. But to see what these changes are I have to go and look on the notice board at the club. It would make sens to me to post them on the website.

The second one is a change to the competition tee times. At the moment we have two hours of drawn tee times from 8 o'clock after which you can roll up. As of April 1st, we are having 2 1/2 hours of drawn tee times and you can't sign in to roll-up until 11:45 and can't start until midday. What is missing from this announcement, and it will upset quite a few people who like to roll-up, is why we have made this change.

 

[fundy]

I hear that guys im getting the same way

BUT

would you use it more if there was an effort to be more update ?

For sure

Personally think anything on the noticeboard should also be on a members page on the website, so comp results (incl ko draws), members contact details to arrange matches, course conditions/status, club announcements, greenkeeper updates etc etc

Sadly most golf cluib are way behind the curve in seeing what if any benefits there are to improving their online offering (and when they do it appears to be dated very very quickly)

 

[London mike 61]

Of late I have been looking at club sites that are around my area with the intention of joining one. Some are great and give a good overview of what's going on, but other sites , it's like a secret society where they don't advertise the members annual fees and there are only a few photos of some of the holes. The same can be said for many of the courses that our work golf society visit, the best ones give a video tour of the course with hole by hole advice on how to approach each hole. They have a Callander of what's going on and what has been achieved/ results of comps etc but the poorest web sites just have various phone numbers as contacts, it's like they can't be bothered to do any work on the site and expect you the customer to run around chasing them for info.
its a shame that someone who is tech minded cant offer the poor clubs a set up and maintain service.

 

[Fyldewhite]

I look after our clubs website and I like to keep it simple. It's an advert for the club, no more no less. Visitors can get information, prospective members can get a feel for what it's like etc. I put links to results website (why re-invent the wheel) and anything else useful. I see so many websites that are much too cluttered and busy with poor use of graphics and complete overkill.

The other aspect, and the main reason I subscribe to the above approach is that I do this in my spare time, I'm not a web developer by trade and do not want a massive maintenance overhead. There is nothing worse than visiting a website where the news is out of date so I ensure the content isn't volatile to avoid that. Some will say it's not as dynamic as others but it's functional, gets plenty of hits and most importantly is almost free.

 

[dufferman]

Possibly the issue is the website - not the club. I work as a web developer, and I see a lot of sites which were either built a long time ago or built 'cheaply'; so the club cannot easily edit them (although I don't work with golf clubs, but the premise is the same).

If a club could invest, say £500, in a website which would allow them to easily add items / pages to their site, I bet a lot of club's sites would improve.

However, we find a lot of 'small businesses' (in mentality, not turnover) like golf clubs have a website for the sake of a website, not for the sake of their customers / members actually using it. If it is easier to use, they will use it more!

Sales pitch over :whoo:

 

[dufferman]

I look after our clubs website and I like to keep it simple. It's an advert for the club, no more no less. Visitors can get information, prospective members can get a feel for what it's like etc. I put links to results website (why re-invent the wheel) and anything else useful. I see so many websites that are much too cluttered and busy with poor use of graphics and complete overkill.

The other aspect, and the main reason I subscribe to the above approach is that I do this in my spare time, I'm not a web developer by trade and do not want a massive maintenance overhead. There is nothing worse than visiting a website where the news is out of date so I ensure the content isn't volatile to avoid that. Some will say it's not as dynamic as others but it's functional, gets plenty of hits and most importantly is almost free.

This is exactly what I mean (no offence Flydewhite) - a badly built site with a bad design which makes it look cluttered & a 'webmaster' who hasn't the time to update / look after it is the issue. If the site was easy to look after & simple to update, you could spend less time making it look / work better!

 

[bladeplayer]

This is exactly what I mean (no offence Flydewhite) - a badly built site with a bad design which makes it look cluttered & a 'webmaster' who hasn't the time to update / look after it is the issue. If the site was easy to look after & simple to update, you could spend less time making it look / work better!

Its more current information re whats going on in the club and achievements of its members etc is what i mean mate , it should be investment free except for someone,s time

Say one of the club teams have a game , post the team , the results and maybe a couple of lines from the team or the captain , if a player as per my OP achieves something special , put a pic & a story on the web site ..

 

[Birchy]

In this day and age the website should be the flagship of the club designed professionally and have all information regarding the club on it.

Young people (you know the ones clubs are apparently trying to attract) will go straight to the website. If its crap it will be a massive turn off straight away.

Have I not played a club before after looking at their website and finding it was terrible? Yes.

 

[HawkeyeMS]

I will add at this point that we also now have an "app" with GPS, hole flyovers and other bits of information. Unfortunately, the interface itself is appalling (download it and see for yourself). The course flyover\GPS does look OK but I haven't yet used it to say if it is actually any good.

 

[dufferman]

Its more current information re whats going on in the club and achievements of its members etc is what i mean mate , it should be investment free except for someone,s time

Say one of the club teams have a game , post the team , the results and maybe a couple of lines from the team or the captain , if a player as per my OP achieves something special , put a pic & a story on the web site ..

But that's what I mean - if the site is a pain to update, it won't be done. If it's simple and easy to update, it will be done - so a small investment of the clubs money to get a good website (both from the point of view of how it looks & the point of view of how it works) encourages regular updating!

 

[FairwayDodger]

Possibly the issue is the website - not the club. I work as a web developer, and I see a lot of sites which were either built a long time ago or built 'cheaply'; so the club cannot easily edit them (although I don't work with golf clubs, but the premise is the same).

If a club could invest, say £500, in a website which would allow them to easily add items / pages to their site, I bet a lot of club's sites would improve.

However, we find a lot of 'small businesses' (in mentality, not turnover) like golf clubs have a website for the sake of a website, not for the sake of their customers / members actually using it. If it is easier to use, they will use it more!

Sales pitch over :whoo:

Exactly the situation at my club. We have an old site produced by one of the members, which I now maintain. It's dated, and completely static unless I go in and physically update the HTML.

I only have a limited amount of time to devote to it and, frankly, I don't have any news or anything to post on it unless someone at the club sends me something to put up. (Other than results of team matches I play in!)

 

[bladeplayer]

But that's what I mean - if the site is a pain to update, it won't be done. If it's simple and easy to update, it will be done - so a small investment of the clubs money to get a good website (both from the point of view of how it looks & the point of view of how it works) encourages regular updating!

Apologies mate i thought you meant graphics etc

 

[Birchy]

Its funny this has come up. My new clubs website was shocker but they are currently due to launch a new website in the next few days which is apparently going to be top notch.

They have got a coming soon page at the moment which is getting annoying

 

[FairwayDodger]

Its funny this has come up. My new clubs website was shocker but they are currently due to launch a new website in the next few days which is apparently going to be top notch.

They have got a coming soon page at the moment which is getting annoying

It's a very good "coming soon" page though!

 

[bladeplayer]

Exactly the situation at my club. We have an old site produced by one of the members, which I now maintain. It's dated, and completely static unless I go in and physically update the HTML.

I only have a limited amount of time to devote to it and, frankly, I don't have any news or anything to post on it unless someone at the club sends me something to put up. (Other than results of team matches I play in!)

This is one of the stumbling blocks i first thought of , may i ask

do you have your contact number up so people can contact you,?
Do many at the club know who you are or that you do this ?
do you contact , either Captains , secretary , committe etc to find out if anything happened ?
Had or Have you something on the website / notice board asking members to let you know ?

apologies for all the questions

 

[Birchy]

It's a very good "coming soon" page though!

That's what makes it frustrating! If it wasn't so inviting I wouldn't be so eager to see the website