Website DOs & DON’Ts

We spend a lot of time looking at youth sports websites here at Blue Sombrero, and we have designed hundreds of them over the years. Here are a few useful and easy to implement DOs and DON’Ts to help you keep your website clean, informative and easy to use.

Homepage

DO keep your homepage clean and concise.  Post only the most important information in a clear and easy to read format.  Your homepage is the starting-off point for your membership, it is NOT the ONLY page on your website!

DON’T add tons of content on your homepage that will push other content down on the page. When you overload your front page with content, users will have to scroll... and scroll... and scroll.  Let’s face it, nobody is scrolling down to read that stuff!  So de-clutter your homepage, provide better navigation and add links to only the most important content. If the information is important, your users will find it.

Navigation

DO think through the main navigation items carefully and ONLY put the most important topics on your navigation bar.  Navigation is a very important part of your website and can make or break the user’s experience.  Minimize how many navigation items you have and make them clear - one or two words max:  Home, Our Programs, Contact Us, Registration, etc.  Lastly, keep the navigation in one consistent place - we prefer a horizontal navigation going across the width of the site.

DON’T over do it with your navigation. Too many times we see soccer websites with upwards of 20-30 navigation items.  Even worse, they are often spread out over different parts of the website (across the side and across the top).  You don’t need a main navigation/menu item for every page of your website.  Keep a logical grouping and place content underneath its main heading.  Some of the most effective and informative websites out there have very sparse navigation.

Fonts, Sizes & Colors

DO stick to the default fonts and colors that your designer created for your site!  If you want to emphasize something then you should use the styles that your designer intentionally created for your site.  Just take a look at the website of any major company and you’ll see a very consistent presentation of content.

DON’T change fonts, colors, enlarge text, highlight, underline and use every color in the spectrum on your website. Resist that urge! First of all it’s hard on the eyes, and second of all it’s very confusing when there’s not a consistent feel and tone to your website.

- Erik Stadler

Erik is the CEO & Founder of Blue Sombrero and a former youth, collegiate and professional soccer player.

Comments

[Adam Abney]

These are great reminders and tips for all youth sport webmasters out there! We continue to remind our club administrators to pay attention to these kind of details mentioned above and to remember they have other pages to use than just the home page :)

In reference to these Do's and Don'ts, here's a link that takes one of the worst looking websites ever and highlights all the mistakes made. Hope it helps!

http://www.angelfire.com/super/badwebs/