Having a website is so important for a society. A website is the best way to have all the information about your club in one central place.
If you don’t already have a society website, there are some incredible user-friendly platforms out there – you don’t have to code or anything! Wordpress is one of the most popular platforms that many clubs use. You can check out a detailed guide on how to make a Wordpress website here.
The great thing about websites is you can be as creative as you like and include as little or as much as you think suits your club. Even when you have a website, it’s important that the content on your website is accurate and that your website includes all necessary information. We’ve compiled some of the most common sections found on society websites and what to include in each section.
About Us
When students or businesses come to your website, they want to know who you are and what you do. Having a short paragraph in this section that summarises these things will help visitors understand what your society is about. This can include when your club was founded, how many members you have, what kind of events you run and what the overall goals of your club are. You can also consider including images of your team all together. For a lot of societies, this section also acts as their homepage.
Membership
Collecting memberships is an all year-round goal of your club, so having somewhere that students can go to get information about your membership is critical to boosting membership numbers. This section can include what a membership to your club includes, how much it costs, and how to purchase it. Get in contact with us if you need a hand with collecting memberships online!
Events
Events are central to a society’s success, so your website can act as a mode of marketing for your events. Having an ‘Events’ tab on your website which has all the essential info about the event not only helps inform your members of what you have coming up, but acts as an archive of all your previous events so people who are thinking of joining can see what kind of events you’ve run in the past. This section can also include photos of people at these events in previous years to add hype and show that people had fun.
Your Executive
Your society is run by people, and visitors want to know who they are! Including a section on your executive, including their names, their society email address (if they have one) and a photo of them helps your members and sponsors feel connected to your club. It also acts as a directory for your club, so if anyone has any enquiries about sponsorship or events, they know who to contact. If you want to get creative, you can even have profiles on each of your members where they talk about what motivated them to join the executive team and why they love your club.
Sponsors
If your club has sponsors in any form, you know that their support is vital to the success of your club. Having a section dedicated to your sponsors is important for not only your sponsors receiving recognition, but also for your members. If you have sponsors who provide deals and discounts for your members in exchange for promotion, this is a great way to list all these deals including any specifics or exclusions of the deal. If there are organisations who sponsor you through direct cash investments in return for promotion, this is also a great way to promote that sponsor and highlight what they do. This section can also include some information for businesses who are wanting to become a sponsor to your club. For more about the world of sponsorships, check out our blog post on Cracking the Code to Securing Sponsorships and Partnerships.
Useful Links
While this section isn’t critical, it can be useful for your members. This tab can include things like links to your social media pages, university blackboard, your school’s website and contact page… the list goes on. For absolute transparency, you can even include a link to download a copy of your club’s Constitution and Code of Conduct.
Contact Us
This section should include information about who to contact if anyone has any questions. This can be in the form of directing enquiries to your Facebook page, an email address or even directing people to fill out a form on your website. Most websites have the option of including a built-in function of having a ‘Contact Us’ form, where they fill out their enquiry on the website.
