Running Club Website of the Week

 I am going to start including a review of running club websites.

What makes a good website? Well in my view it is many things but anyone who maintains a blog or who runs will know that you only get out what you put in a cliche I know but one that is true. A good web site should have the following

1. Evidence that it is regularly updated. Websites live and die if there is no evidence of the site being regularly updated. Who is going to regularly return to a site that is only updated once every few weeks.
2. Ease of Use. Some websites can trip over themselves in a bid to include every known technical gadget or feature on the planet. The viewer can get lost in a myraid of links so you end up down a  "blind alley". Or your viewers are just confused as to how to get around the website.
3. Functionality. Having said above at 2  don't confuse your customer/viewer of your site this may sound contradictory but at the other extreme a running site must have functionality. If your viewer is going to return to your website then a range of functionality is important. Unique functionality will always score highly. Hurrah for the creativity webmaster who can create some unique feature.
4. Attractiveness. This can be quite subjective after all beauty is in the eye of the beholder. An attractive website to some might be twenty different colours or very dark coloured fonts on a dark background making it difficult to read. A consistent pallete of colours for background and font will score highly.
5. Beginners Are Welcome. A running club web site surely must always be looking to attract new runners in its area to join the club. So just how good is your running club website at doing this. Is there a big welcome flag saying come on in?
6. Photos. A  picture can paint a 1000 words. Does your running club website have a good range of photos or is it wall to wall text. A good use of photos to break up text will score highly.
7. Community/Social Feel. Does your running club have a social side or is it run , run , run and no fun. If it does a running club website that indicates whats on will score more highly in my book.

There are probably other attributes that could should  be added but that is what I am going to use to review other running club websites.

Why am I doing this? My blog is a running blog if you haven't noticed!. To bring attention to the many great running clubs around the UK. Also just for the fun of it. All running websites  are a labour of love and require a lot of unpaid effort to maintain. So hopefully no reacts badly to a lower score than they would have liked I realise my own site isn't that good. It is after all my own  personal view.

To start with I will do a review of regions in the UK and depending on feedback will continue or drop. Look out for this shortly so drop back in to see