A letter in the August 2015 Radcom highlighted a serious problem with the way amateur radio clubs present themselves online – Outdated, broken, poorly-designed and invisible websites do no favours for clubs, and more importantly, the hobby.
To help give clubs a greater understanding of some of the common problems with online promotion, we’ve added a guide containing some suggestions and food-for-thought. You can find a PDF version on our UK Amateur Radio Resources page.
| Download How to Improve Your Club’s Website (PDF) |
About our guide:
In our guide, we outline why your club’s site could benefit from a refresh, and why it might be losing out. We feel that clubs should strive to make sure their website:
- Encourages new entrants into the hobby
- Makes your club one that people want to join and be a part of
- Highlights the best of what your club does
- Shows amateur radio as an interesting, dynamic and relevant hobby
If you feel your site could be doing better – Here’s a summary of some things to consider:
Sections include:
- Who are you talking to? Identifying your audience…
- Do you welcome newcomers?
- Understanding your web stats
- Keeping things up-to-date
- Site design and why it’s important to move on
- Moving from a static to a dynamic site
- Practical ways to improve your site content and make people come back
If you care about your club’s website and how the hobby is promoted, we hope you’ll take the time to download our guide, and perhaps discuss some of the ideas within your club.
| Download How to Improve Your Club’s Website (PDF) |
More reading
Amateur radio club websites has been the subject of much discussion of late. The following links are worth a read:
- Google Shakeup and Amateur Radio Clubs – Why do so many club websites fail Google’s Mobile friendliness test?
- Better Essex Club Websites – Some ideas on how local clubs could improve their online ranking
We’d appreciate your comments and suggestions on how clubs can make the online world a better place…
Can you check out our Ham Club’s site please? W7SKY.ORG. I am the webmaster and do want people’s feedback. I think it’s made friendly enough. I go on many ham sites for ideas and they all have millions of links. Same old boring links.
Hi Kathy,
I’ve had a quick look. Seems to be up-to-date, and accessible. I’m not seeing any glaring problems. Easy-to-find in Google, and navigation to the main sections is easy.
Only observation is that it may not be friendly for a non-amateur. If someone were to visit the site looking for information about amateur radio, or how to get a licence, where do they go? I suspect the awareness of ham radio is higher in the US than over here in the UK, so it may not be a problem, but a concern for the UK is that clubs don;t tend to “sell” the hobby on their sites, so if a newcomer visits, they may be turned off, go lost, or feel that the club is exclusive. May not be relevant for your group, but thought I’d mention it!
Best regards,
Pete
Kathy, If all could go WRONG, thats what I’m having now.! Computers shot, Radio on order, Broke my ankle
the other day, can’t put up antenna on house, landlord won’r allow it, so when I do get the radio, its going
in the car. Talk about BAD luck.!! Hopefully I’ll have a new note-book computer next month. Thanks!
Can you check out our Ham Club’s site please? W7SKY.ORG. I am the webmaster and do want people’s feedback. I think it’s made friendly enough. I go on many ham sites for ideas and they all have millions of links. Same old boring links.
Hi Kathy,
I’ve had a quick look. Seems to be up-to-date, and accessible. I’m not seeing any glaring problems. Easy-to-find in Google, and navigation to the main sections is easy.
Only observation is that it may not be friendly for a non-amateur. If someone were to visit the site looking for information about amateur radio, or how to get a licence, where do they go? I suspect the awareness of ham radio is higher in the US than over here in the UK, so it may not be a problem, but a concern for the UK is that clubs don;t tend to “sell” the hobby on their sites, so if a newcomer visits, they may be turned off, go lost, or feel that the club is exclusive. May not be relevant for your group, but thought I’d mention it!
Best regards,
Pete
Kathy, If all could go WRONG, thats what I’m having now.! Computers shot, Radio on order, Broke my ankle
the other day, can’t put up antenna on house, landlord won’r allow it, so when I do get the radio, its going
in the car. Talk about BAD luck.!! Hopefully I’ll have a new note-book computer next month. Thanks!
I thank you so much for your comments on my site. I will absolutely correct that issue of being more user friendly to the non-amateur. We have a much older group, but then I guess that’s probably 3/4 of the Ham Licenses out there. I was trying to make it clear enough to find their way around. I do have several things mentioned on the site for new operators. It’s listed on my “other links” page. I did have it on the front page but it must have got pushed off. Thanks so much Pete for taking the time to let me know your thoughts.
Kathy
K7THY
73’s
I thank you so much for your comments on my site. I will absolutely correct that issue of being more user friendly to the non-amateur. We have a much older group, but then I guess that’s probably 3/4 of the Ham Licenses out there. I was trying to make it clear enough to find their way around. I do have several things mentioned on the site for new operators. It’s listed on my “other links” page. I did have it on the front page but it must have got pushed off. Thanks so much Pete for taking the time to let me know your thoughts.
Kathy
K7THY
73’s
Hi
Just downloaded the PDF about Web site contents and improvement of Web site.
Great, what if your club as no one capable of producing such a Web site or to maintain it if you had one. We have put ours in the hands of a “professional Web designer” 6 months on and it’s worse than my attempts that was criticised on training forum.
Some small clubs just don’t have the skill set to make this work.
I appreciate that not every club has a web expert on their committee, but there are options, such as asking the membership for help, getting some help from a local freelancer, or getting a site that’s easy for someone to manage and update with the core information. Getting someone to set you up with a basic website shouldn’t be very expensive, and if you want your club to grow, persuade the committee to make the investment – if you don’t promote yourself and can’t be found on search engines, you may tontinue to find it a struggle.
The comments on the Tutor forum were following up from your comments about lack of new members, students and newcomers, but if your site has no info for newcomers, no info about your courses, and nothing encouraging people to join, that could explain why you’re not drawing people in. At a minimum, I’d suggest making mention of your Tuesday meetings, so that people can find you – and even a paragraph about training or help for local newcomers could make a massive difference. If you have a web developer, send him/her the text you want added, and it should be a 2 minute job for them to paste it in.
If you really can’t get some more text added, there are other ways to promote yourself – suggestions include: updating your Club Finder entry (free), adding a course finder entry (free), setting your Facebook page from Private to Public so that newcomers can find you, and getting a free listing on Hamhub.uk and on HamTrain.
Hope that gives you some more ideas.
Hi
Just downloaded the PDF about Web site contents and improvement of Web site.
Great, what if your club as no one capable of producing such a Web site or to maintain it if you had one. We have put ours in the hands of a “professional Web designer” 6 months on and it’s worse than my attempts that was criticised on training forum.
Some small clubs just don’t have the skill set to make this work.
I appreciate that not every club has a web expert on their committee, but there are options, such as asking the membership for help, getting some help from a local freelancer, or getting a site that’s easy for someone to manage and update with the core information. Getting someone to set you up with a basic website shouldn’t be very expensive, and if you want your club to grow, persuade the committee to make the investment – if you don’t promote yourself and can’t be found on search engines, you may tontinue to find it a struggle.
The comments on the Tutor forum were following up from your comments about lack of new members, students and newcomers, but if your site has no info for newcomers, no info about your courses, and nothing encouraging people to join, that could explain why you’re not drawing people in. At a minimum, I’d suggest making mention of your Tuesday meetings, so that people can find you – and even a paragraph about training or help for local newcomers could make a massive difference. If you have a web developer, send him/her the text you want added, and it should be a 2 minute job for them to paste it in.
If you really can’t get some more text added, there are other ways to promote yourself – suggestions include: updating your Club Finder entry (free), adding a course finder entry (free), setting your Facebook page from Private to Public so that newcomers can find you, and getting a free listing on Hamhub.uk and on HamTrain.
Hope that gives you some more ideas.