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Monday, October 17, 2016

Top Search Terms in ClubRunner

As you may recall, we recently added a search function to all ClubRunner websites to give visitors the ability to search for what they were looking for. So we took a look across the board to see what the top search terms were, and found that irrespective of where your club is located in the world, people were looking for the same things. Here are the top 10 most popular keywords (from highest to lowest):

1) Scholarships
2) Speakers
3) Contact
4) Youth Exchange
5) Grants
6) RYLA
7) Interact
8) Meeting Address
9) Membership
10) Club Executives

What does this mean?

We've always said that your website is the hub where visitors come to learn more and gather information. If they have to search for topics of interest, that could indicate that these items are difficult to find. So, what actions can you take?

Learn what's popular


First, begin by analyzing your website traffic reports. If you have not yet linked your Google Analytics account to your ClubRunner site, you can learn how by clicking here. These reports will tell you exactly where your visitors are going and how long they're staying on a page. It will also give you a good sense of whether the information you want found on your site is actually being accessed.


Making use of the navigation menu

Content is king, so it's important that it's accessible. If we look at the most popular search terms, we can immediately group many of them into one category - 'Programs'. Consider adding this as a menu item on your navigation bar. Under it, you can link to custom or site pages and even documents about your scholarship programs and Grants, and more. If your club has one main flagship program, consider just making that its own menu item.


How easy is it to get in touch with your club? Is there a Contact Us link prevalent on the home page? Did you know that you can easily link to the built-in Contact Us page or create your own custom page, complete with the club's mailing address, meeting address, venue map and more?


The wonderful world of widgets

There are so many things you can accomplish with both the built-in and custom widgets. From displaying upcoming events to showcasing your club sponsors; from displaying upcoming speakers to displaying a list of all your club executives and directors, widgets let you share important information throughout your website. For a brief overview of all the built-in widgets available, click here.

For important public documents such as those related to scholarship programs, did you know you can showcase them on the Download Files widget?

Next, make these widgets stand out by customizing their properties. Color plays a huge role in how people react to a call to action. We are naturally attracted to design aesthetics that stand out from the page. Add some flavor to any widgets that you believe should stand out. Learn how


Everything related to membership

One of the most important things to share with your website visitors is how to get in touch with your club, where you meet, who your executives are and how they can join.

We took a look at a handful of websites and found that this type of information was actually quite difficult to find. Does your club have a page on exactly what it takes to join your club? What it means to be a member? How to join? The costs associated with membership?

Create a custom page to share all of this information. Then, showcase it front and center through the Club Information widget on your home page. Did you know that you can add custom links to this widget? That means you can direct visitors to any internal or even external page easily.


There are many ways to share information with your visitors without cluttering your homepage which in turn becomes overwhelming for the reader. With a little bit of creativity and analysis, it's easy to design the optimal structure to make your website a great source of information for both members and non-members alike.

2 comments:

  1. This is a great feature article with some very useful tips in it. I'm going to have to rethink some of our club's page design.

    Thanks and keep up the good work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hmmmm. ClubRunner Connect stated "So here they are, the top 10 search terms made by Rotarians" but the article above states "irrespective of where your club is located in the world, people were looking for the same things". So was the survey about the search habits of Rotarians or of people? And is there a difference?
    The answer to the latter question is YES, it does matter - your key website messages for members and for non-Rotarian visitors will be different, won't they?
    Then unless these different messages are on different pages, Google Analytics cannot distinguish the search habits of the two groups.
    Thus, even more rethinking about page design is desirable...

    ReplyDelete