Engage Sports Blog Youth Sports Matters

If you are tasked with cleaning up a sports website, there are 6 key areas that will give your sports website a fresh new look with the minimum effort and time involved.  We have compiled these sports website design resources into a 1-page Sports Website Cleanup Checklist which you can download here.  Your website is the front door to your organization and should be warm, friendly and welcoming. It's often not necessary to make a complete service provider change in order to get the new look you want. Download our Sports Website Cleanup Checklist and start making your changes today! 

If you manage a youth sports website, one question you may have is how to make your youth sports website rank higher in Google.  You are not alone! The process of improving a sports website ranking is called SEO, or search engine optimization.  SEO is most commonly associated with business and eCommerce websites, however youth sports organization can benefit from improved website ranking by following the following SEO tips for youth sports webmasters.  

Is your sports website optimized for mobile?

Better yet, is it responsive? Given the growth of the mobile web, responsive web design is a best practice that helps you provide users with an optimal experience, regardless of whether they are browsing your site on a smartphone, tablet, or desktop.

Improving the check acceptance process is a goal for many athletic associations and leagues. Here at Engage Sports, we find that “pay-by-check” is still a significant part of the registration process; in some cases it is the only method of payment used, while in others, mixed payments (credit cards and checks) are accepted for either the entire registration process or parts (work duty deposit). While checks have been accepted for years, they require special care and attention.  Recently we spoke with our friends at Fuse Financial Partners to learn more about preventing fraud and abuse when accepting checks.  Let's get started...

Are you a stressed out, busy volunteer running a sports association? Help is on the way! You can improve your management process and save your sanity by following these 8 Time-Saving Ways that will keep you better organized, reduce your stress level, and get more input and involvement from others. Let's get started...

As a youth sports leaders, whether coach or association director, social media your best aid communication and promotional aid. Social media is how busy people now stay connected and up-to-date.  Social media can help manage your team, recruiting players, keep parents up-to-date, share your success, and keep player and parents alike, motivated and engaged.  Each social media tool has its unique position and should be used like layers of a cake when baking up your overall communications plan. Here are tips to make your use of social media in coaching more productive.

If your youth sports athletic association or league is looking for help on how to convert from paper to an online registration system, you are not alone.  Many associations are still running on paper, yet in today's online world there is little reason for leagues and associations to rely on paper based registrations.  Given that most associations and leagues are staffed by volunteers whose time is precious, anything that can be done to minimize their work load is a huge plus.  The annual team and player registration cycle is one of the most demanding workloads on association staff and therefore an ideal target for optimization.  

Improving sports association website design can boil down to focusing on just a few critical design elements.  To help sports association and league administrators improve their website design, here are 5 critical mistakes in sport association website design that should be avoided at all cost.