How successful is your gyms website?

[Incipient]

As you probably noticed by my signature; I work at Mancino, and admin the blog there. Julie, our Gymnastics Product Manager handles the majority of the blogging, and has been doing a super job. One particular article that I really enjoy can be located here The Benefits of Involving a Child in Gymnastics | Mancino MAT-ters it's about the benefits of beginning a child in gymnastics.

So I have a question for gym owners, ok actually I have many, never being involved in gymnastics myself, but this is one that I would like to pose to you:

How successful do you believe your gym's website to be, and how would you like to improve it?

Like I said; I know very little about gymnastics, and that is why I've joined up with this community. I do however know a good bit about design and development, so if I can answer any questions feel free to ask. In other words I'll swap a little knowledge from you for tech knowledge from me. If I get a good response I'll more than likely start adding articles to http://blog.mancinomats.com on tech topics for gym owners.

Hopefully I can help.

Shawn

 

[ryantroop]

From a design and coaches pov, a good gymnastics website would do the following:

1)Information portal - dates of meets, gym hours, numbers, coach profiles, successes, important updates or closures...

2)Meet information for regular meets, such as locations, costs (if any), dates, and levels.

3)Awards for the gym, and individuals, for recognition.

And, quite frankly, that's it. Most people want information about the gym and the people in it.

To make it excellent -

4) Provide a shopping portal for leos, warm-ups, grips, shirts, shorts, tiger paws, etc... So so many people hop on Chalkbucket to ask for the opinions of coaches for "what's the best" when in reality, their gym would most often give the same answer that we do. Letting the gym give its opinion not only builds a better relationship with the clients, but let's them have a little more control over what equipment is recommended in their gym. On top of that, its revenue for the gym.

5) A face-bookish, moderated, picture post where the gym and parents can post and comment on pics and video from meets or practices. This would have the be account driven and created when a child is signed up, and deleted when the child is withdrawn. Giving the opportunity to buy prints would be a nice touch.

6) Using the same account, if the gym has a closed circuit video system, allow parents to log in and watch practices remotely only when their children are present in the gym.

7) Common questions we also get are - what skills are needed for level 1-8, and bonus, etc...

I'm sure others will chime in, but those would certainly help any gym. First and foremost, as you probably know, a website provides information. Don't fluff it. Many parents are not tech savvy, and aren't into huge media productions. Simple and clean, and easy to use.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

Ryan

 

[JBS]

We have created a separate "team" website that is linked to all of our social networking sites (Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Flickr, Delicious). Our team website is built with Wordpress making it very easy to update. It is a work in progress, but it is definitely giving us a much larger web presence.

You can check it out at TWISTER NATION ? Midwest Twisters Team Website.