A Splash of Color

Choosing the colors for your Region website is a very important part of creating an impressive site presence. There is no 100 percent right way to chose your colors, but there are some helpful things to keep in mind that will give your website pop and clarity, without creating the wrong impression.

Your Customer

Your customer is the first and most important thing to consider for all of your Region’s projects, and your color scheme is no exception. Your Region website must be recognizable and memorable, while getting your message across. Try to think like your visitors. What would they like to see? What might they find unattractive? You might need to do some research to find out who your audience is (keep an eye out for a Google Analytics post that will cover that), or even do some testing with potential color combinations. But always keep in mind who you are designing your Region website for.

Your Identity

Your logo is the first thing your visitors see and the most memorable marketing tool in your box. Take advantage of your memorable logo by expanding it to your pages and other designs. Carry your Region’s colors, shapes, and fonts into your projects and layouts whenever possible to quickly associate your Region’s identity with your project’s message.

How to Make Sure Parents Find Your Region

When parents are searching for their local AYSO Region, they typically visit AYSO.org and click on the Region Locator tool. 

Parents then plug in their zip code and the Regions nearest to them pop up in the search results, along with those Regions' websites, the name of the Regional Commissioner, and a phone and email contact. 

The information from the Region Locator is pulled directly from eAYSO, so it's important that your Region's web address, RC info and contact details are all up to date.

Sans-Serif vs Serif Fonts

Choosing the right font for your website is so important when you’re trying to deliver your message in a clear and effective way.

Did you know that all fonts are broken down into two different categories? Those categories are Serif and Sans-Serif. The difference between the two is very simple: A Serif is a small line attached to the end of a stroke in a letter or symbol. For fonts without a small line attached to the end are called Sans-Serif. The word “Sans” originates from the French language, which means without.  

Fonts for Digital Media

Sans-Serif fonts are considered to be one of the most legible fonts on computer screens. Because of the constraints of screen resolution, the Serifs in some fonts can make text difficult to read on screen. For example, the San-Serif font used in this blog is Arial.

Sans-Serif examples: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma

Best used on: Websites, emails and smart devices

How to get more people to like your page

In a “like” driven world, getting more people to give their stamp of “like” approval on your page is hard. Below are just five things that I recommend trying when you’re looking to get more likes on your Region’s Facebook page.

1.    Be consistent
Try to post on your Region’s Facebook page at least once a week, so your page is always fresh with new information. Don’t leave a stale page, it’s the worst advertisement for a Region!

2.    Use pictures and lots of them
There is a reason why platforms like Instagram and Pinterest do so well in the social media realm. They use photos! On Facebook, pictures tend to be the most shared of all posts and you can really say 1000 words with the tap of an upload. Plus, people love to see their kids, so if you have pictures from the games, use them! 

SEO and User-Friendly Content

As an AYSO webmaster , you have your work cut out for you. Even to many seasoned webmasters, the dos and don’ts sometimes seem to be written by aliens in another language. You probably wear many hats and have many other tasks to perform as well, so making sure that your website is search engine friendly can sometimes fall by the wayside. Today we’re going to briefly discuss SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and how you can perform a few easy tasks in your day-to-day website upkeep to make sure your website stays code-modern and content-focused.

1. Get in the niche

We’re all about soccer! What does that mean for your website? Try to think about terms that folks will search for, and incorporate them into your content whenever possible. Phrases like “Local Game”, “Youth Soccer”, “Pick-Up Games”, these can be valuable for improving your search engine results. If there are ways to make your tour or activity even more specialized, then you might want to consider them. Perhaps you could mention your town, city, state, local fields where games are typically played? Providing a specialized offering means that the content you create for your website content in general will be more relevant to you, and therefore, your target audience.

TIP: As a specialized webmaster, you are the expert! Share your knowledge with good key words and phrases!

Important Tip: Share the Password

More and more AYSO Regions and Areas are taking advantage of useful social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. These sites can be great advertising for Regions, and help you reach potential families and volunteers you otherwise would not have access to.

If your Region utilizes social media, make sure that more than one person has access to the social media login information. While it's a good idea to have one person take ownership of the social media responsibilities, it's also smart to make sure that at least one other person has the administrative login privileges.

Facebook to Debut New News Feed

According to AllFacebook.com, Facebook will debut a new News Feed (say that five times fast!) pretty soon. The News Feed redesign (pictured above) will bring the mobile Facebook experience and the desktop Facebook experience closer together, by focusing on imagery and changing the font.

How will this affect your Region's page?