Building a Lean, Mean, Quick, Web Machine!

Building a website can be a time consuming process. If you use the wrong kind of assets in building your site, it will become a exercise in patience and anger management. Here is a few simple tips to keep that site light on its feet, easy to build, troubleshoot, and maintain.


Small pages = Fast pages

The art of building a site that loads quickly and is quick to transition is a tricky one. no matter a persons connection speed there is always content to download. How frustrating is it when you go to a page you want to view only to have to wait sometimes, what seems like forever, for content to load. We have all been there. (modem era anyone?) Do your viewers a favor, keep those pages small no more than a couple hundred kb. (yes you can still have images and content and keep it that small)

Catch common usability problems before user testing.

There is a saying I always liked: "Don't try to say again what has already been said better," With that on my mind, I present to you the following link. http://userium.com/ This a excellent checklist/tool in your web development arsenal that allows you to catch common usability problems before user testing. Enjoy, and happy coding.

Click Me!

CSS Button Generator

Building a website can be a time consuming and stressful task. one of the hardest aspects of design for many people is assets. Something as simple as a button can be a hassle when you don't know where to get the assets to design and eventually code your own. This being the internet some industrious individual has come along and given us a simple CSS Button Generator.

CSS Button Generator will create beautiful  simple CSS buttons for you to use on your web pages without the need for any images. These time saving tricks and tools can turn what was once an arduous task into a painless procedure. remember; work hard, but work smart.

Happy coding.

Make the Most of Registration Email Campaigns

Email campaigns are a great way to get information out to your membership. As as webmaster, these duties may cross over onto your task list. We have some tools available to help make it easier to send out registration emails.

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.

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).

Why Choose the Active Youth Network For Hosting

The Active Youth Network offers website and ad hosting for youth sports organizations. The thing that’s emphasized most with their product is their integrated advertising.

Their advertising is completely handled by the company. They choose family-friendly companies to advertise on their websites. By accepting their free website, you agree to have their advertising on your pages. Regions can receive a share (70 percent) of the revenue from these advertisements, which is a great revenue generator for your Region.

They also offer a “QuickAds” solution where your Region can sell ads to local advertisers. These ads can be managed through the Active Youth Network website. By getting local ads, Regions can earn an extra 70 percent commission on top of the 70 percent received from Active Youth Network.

What Blue Sombrero Has to Offer

Blue Sombrero is a web platform that is specially designed for sporting groups. They are owned by Dick’s Sporting Goods, so they already have a foothold in the sports industry.

Their websites come with a content management system (CMS) that allows you to choose a layout and easily edit the content for that layout. They have a wide variety of themes to choose from, which makes each page consistent across the board. All of their templates are designed to work on all browsers, so you don’t need to worry about cross-browser functionality. Their free-flowing design adapts to screen sizes so it works well on mobile platforms also.

If you decide you want something more customized than what they offer, you can ask for a custom design (for a price, of course) and still utilize their site functionality.

Their websites offer some modules that could be useful to a Region, including scheduling and reporting. To utilize the scheduling module, all you need to do is upload your schedule from an excel file. With a few steps, your schedule is available on your website. As for reporting, they have a bunch of stock reports available for whatever kind of data you need, including player stats!

No More Clubspaces. Now What?

We understand that many of your Region websites are on the Clubspaces platform, and now that is going away. What to do? We have suggestions of alternate FREE website options for our Regions to switch to. We’ve had some questions come up already, so I wanted to address some of them here in the blog (since they’re common and I’m sure others of you are having the same issues).

Setting Up a New Website
There are a few site platforms that have been suggested.

eTeamz is one option and possibly the easiest. It is free (with a coupon code – email sheam@ayso.org for the coupon) and they will migrate the site for you directly from Clubspaces, so there is little work involved on your end.

Blue Sombrero is another that has been suggested. It is also free and has some of the scheduling modules that were available on Clubspaces. With this site, you will have to migrate your own content. This can be as simple as copy and paste from the old site to the new site. Region 68 in Camarillo, Calif., has been working with Blue Sombrero to migrate their website and they are impressed with their services.

Active Youth Network is another youth sports site provider. This one offers advertising support but is another one where you will have to migrate your content. This provider is free as well.

Google Sites has been recommended as a site provider also. This platform is free and can be set up with a Google account. Sites can be set to private or public, depending on which settings you choose. For a simple layout, this can be an easy choice to move to. You will have to migrate your content to this platform, but again, it’s as easy as copy and paste.