Club Highlight: Rotary Club of Poipu Beach

A good website is the result of a combination of things - from the page layout to the imagery, ease of use, and even fonts and colors. In an effort to bring you the very best, we recently released new Next-Gen website themes that give you a fresher and more modern canvas to work on. A number of clubs have already adopted these new themes and this month, we're featuring one such club: The Rotary Club of Poipu Beach, Hawaii.

Your website is a representation of your club and through it, you are able to illustrate what your club is about. Through the text, you share what you want the reader to learn; through images, you take the visitor on a visual journey, and through the color palette and overall design, you share the essence and attitude and nature that makes up your club. Colors elicit feelings and have a huge impact on your website visitors. A recent study found that 62-90% of the interaction the visitor has when on a website is determined by the colors and that is formed within the first 90 seconds itself.


Think Hawaii and you immediately begin to think of beaches and sun. The Rotary Club of Poipu Beach captures the essence of the island with the use of simple warm tones - yellow and blue. The colors themselves depict sand, water, sun - all things you relate Hawaii too. In turn the use of such colors elicit a sense of trust which entices the website visitor to read further.


The website also is a great example of one which has a good balance of being member focused and visitor focused. This club opted for a unique layout where the two column layout starts below the fold, which means, that the message they want to get across immediately does not get lost above the fold. The first block of text you see is a welcome message which encapsulates what the club is all about in a nutshell, and invites Rotarians to join them for a make-up session. The text is enticing enough for anyone that wishes to learn more to click on the links and find the information they're looking for. By opting for a wide band at the top, and having the two column layout start later, they ensure that visitors don't miss their mission statement, which is front and center.

As you begin to scroll further, one of things we really liked was the use of big buttons to draw attention to call to actions. The idea behind adding buttons is to get the reader to act on something you want them to do, in this case, it's either to purchase tickets for an upcoming event or learn more. This ensures that your "want" (purchase or learn more) is not lost in a sea of text. People tend to scan and these days, we often visit websites on our phones or tablets, which means, the brighter and more unique your call to action is, the higher the chances that the reader will see it and act on it.

Pictures can speak volumes and depict a message far more effectively than text. Another great element on this site is the use of the built-in photo carousel that was also released with the new ClubRunner themes. The Rotary Club of Poipu Beach is a very active club and it shows. They balance their stories detailing their activities with the use of pictures and slideshows. Real photos add a human touch and allow the visitor to relate to the club and grab their attention.

One of the most common website design mistakes is making pages difficult to reach. As an active Rotary club, we can tell that the Rotary Club of Poipu Beach has a lot of information to share with members and with the public. Clicking is expensive and having visitors click through a number of links is comparable to creating a digital obstacle course. If a visitor or even a member has to click through dozens of links, chances are that many will stop midway. Here, we see that the club combats this through their navigation menu. Important information is one click away, such as how to receive grants, what the club does, its history, and much more. Similarly, even for members, they've added a dropdown menu just for the secure internal pages which require members to log in. By exposing these built-in pages on the public website, they ensure that members have a captivating reason to login to the member area, while making these important resources just one click away.

Click the image below to visit the Rotary Club of Poipu Beach's website, and perhaps gain some inspiration for your own!

Golden Rule #5 & 6 of Website Design & Functionality

5) Website should work on multiple browsers.

Gone are the days where the only Internet browser that everybody used was Netscape. Today, there are various Internet browsers that people prefer to use. Thus, it becomes imperative that your website be able to load on any browser – whether that be Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome.

ClubRunner websites not only work on every browser out there, but because we support unicode, we are able to provide you with a website that you can maintain in another language! So, you never will have to worry about your visitor’s browser preference or any language barrier.

6) Content should be updated often.

The real factor that drives a website towards becoming successful is the content. If content is not updated often, visitors of the website have no reason to visit the site often. Updating content on a regular basis becomes quite difficult if one does not know HTML and has to rely on a webmaster.

With Website Manager, there is absolutely no need to know any computer programming language. Furthermore, you can eliminate the need for any sole webmaster with the simple interface that is provided to you to design the website as you see fit. You even have the opportunity to let other members of your club update the content on the site based on their access rights. You can easily update your eBulletin on a daily basis and share any news or information on your homepage with a click of a mouse. The best part is that you can do all this at your own pace and at your own time, so you can make sure that your website is content-centric at all times.

Want to know how to implement these golden rules for your ClubRunner site? Contact support@clubrunner.ca or visit ClubRunner's knowledgebase for more information!

**Read more about the Top 10 Golden Rules including Rules #1, 2, 3 & 4**

Week 46: Tip of the Week

#46: Did you know that you can have more information in your stories and news items

The capacity of characters within your stories and news articles has increased to the following:

• Brief (appear on the home page as an introduction to your subject) = 20,000 characters
• Content (appear within your bulletin and/or stories/news pages of your site) = 30,000 characters

Create dynamic content and let your current and prospective members know what's going on in your club!

If you haven't already switched your site to ClubRunner Version 2.0, watch the video to see how easy it is today!

Week 39: Tip of the Week

#39: Did you know that it only takes a few minutes to update and showcase new content on your website to the world?

ClubRunner’s Website Manager Module allows you to quickly update your content without any difficulty. The WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) editor allows you to either type or paste in content and format it just as you would using Microsoft Word. No longer is there a need to have a technical background in order to publish and maintain a website.

Find out for yourself how easy it is with a free trial today!