Does Your Region Have the Right Type of Facebook Page?

I spend a lot of time talking to RCs and Webmasters regarding social media best practices – especially about Facebook.

I get a lot of questions: How often should I post? What if someone posts something bad on my page? How can I keep up with a Region website AND a Facebook page?

But, before answering any of that, I always ask the person: What type of Facebook page do you have? Because if you don’t have the right type of page, you can be stopped before you even start.

All AYSO Regions, Areas and Sections should have a Facebook Business Page. If your Region has a personal profile, Group Page or Community Page, you do not have the correct type of Page.

Here’s why:

Custom Domain Names – They Look Great and are Easy to Remember!

It’s difficult for people to remember a long name or long site address with a bunch of weird words or formatting. Phone numbers are only seven characters because it is proven that seven characters are the maximum a human can remember at one time.

Knowing this, it’s a good idea to get your website a domain name (and a short one at that!) that people can easily remember. The long Clubspaces domain names are difficult to remember, let alone type into the browser! Here’s how to get yourself a nice short domain name and hook it up to your website.

Favicons are Fun!

Have you ever noticed the cool little icon in the browser bar when you visit a website? Those are called favicons and they show up when browsing a website or adding the site as a bookmark in your browser. They give a website a more legitimate and secure feeling, as well as adding a small branding element to the website.

Any website can have a favicon and they're pretty simple to create. You don't even need editing software to create one! There are bunches of websites out there that will generate the file for you. All you need to do is upload an image.

Favicons are images that are created with an .ico file extension. You place this file in the root of your website, add some small code and it will show up in the browser.

Comparing Web Hosting Options

We realize that choosing a web host can be a difficult decision to make. They all seem like they offer the same products for the same price. We've decided to break down our featured hosting providers so you can get a direct comparison on the features they offer.

Important Information about Online Safety

The safety of our children is a priority for all of us. AYSO takes online security and data privacy very seriously—both in terms of physical data and digital information. AYSO has a long-standing privacy policy and a policy on social media, designed to protect against the improper use of private information.

Parents may have seen a recent news article regarding the potential vulnerability of sports team sites (such as the AYSO Shutterfly Team Sites) to hackers.

It serves as a reminder to be vigilant and avoid inputting personal information through unsecured Wi-Fi networks to potentially unsecured websites. Under the right circumstances, a hacker with sophisticated expertise could inappropriately access a team website when a registered user accesses the page from a public, unsecured Wi-Fi network (for example, in a coffee shop or an airport).

eTeamz…an Easy Solution

eTeamz is partnered with Active, so it’s an easy solution for transferring your website. Active will do the site migration for you, so all you have to do is continue maintaining your site the way it is.

eTeamz is a sports website platform that is similar to Clubspaces. They have 75+ site design templates to choose from. All you need to do is drop in your logo. Their editor is simple and easy to use – no more difficult than using Microsoft Word. They offer a scheduler and a soccer statistics tracker module that lets you enter scores for Region games over multiple seasons. There is an integrated email communication module so that Regions can send out communications to parents, coaches, referees or whomever you need to get information to. The calendar feature lets you create a detailed game calendar with dates, times and locations so that parents can keep on top of their child’s schedule. They also have a product called MessageCast which allows the Region to send out text messages to anyone on the recipient list (Similar to Rained Out used at the National Games last year).

Is Your Region Website Info Up to Date?

As a Webmaster, you put a lot of work into your Region website. From making sure that all the information is up to date to figuring out the best keywords to use to improve SEO, it’s a big job.

Make sure that people can find the website! We’ve recently re-done the Region Locator page, and the National Office has started a push for parents to visit the Region Locator and use the tool. Once a parent plugs his/her zip code into the tool and sets the distance preference, all of the Regions in the area pop up.

In the results, along with the Region contact person and a phone number, the Region website link pops up. Make sure your website URL is up to date in eAYSO, or parents searching for your website and registration details, won’t be able to find you.