How Should a Club Launch, on Internet?

NEW YORK - Dec. 4, 2014 - PRLog -- A “club” is a group of people who join together to share an interest they have in common: there are sport clubs, wine clubs, brand clubs, computer clubs, fan clubs etc… Creating an online space for Club members offers an opportunity to gather, share and communicate, when it is not possible to meet face to face.

What does a “club” need, to exist on Internet?

Many clubs are well organized and as large as they may be, they neither have - all - a website or need one. If a Club does not necessarily need a presence online, considering this option today can add to its notoriety; its visibility can be increased too, thanks to new domain name extensions (also called “new gTLDs”).

The first thing they need to have is … a name

In the past, few possibilities were offered and most of the clubs registered “.com” domain names; French clubs, for instance, used “.fr” domain names.

The option to be identified as a “club” in the domain name itself was already possible, but within the name; not as an identifier of the Club community. Websites such as mywonderfulcityfootballclub.com or clubdepétanquemarseille.fr and used long domain names. Many clubs avoided their common “club” identifier and the French “Aquarioclub du pays fertois” went for aquafertois.com. In this last case it is difficult to ensure that such a name is a club for aquarists.

Today, things are different and Clubs now have their group identifier. New domain names ending in “.club” (instead of “.com”) allow members to remember more easily the name of their website:

- it is shorter
- it is more accurate
- Google allows to read the URL ending in .CLUB in the result of a search
- and...a club is a club.

These “.club” domain names are available at any Accredited Registrar: http://nic.club/register/.

The second thing to have is a CMS

A CMS is a Content Management System (we also use “WCMS” for a direct reference to the Web). It is the a tool to manage and organize the content of a website. It is then where Club members go to, using a .club domain name, to meet together and share online. The CMS is necessary for many reasons but the most important ones that I have in mind are:

1) It comes “all included” and, most of the time, the hardest thing to do is to have the domain name to “find” the CMS. Today this action is simplified since many accredited Registrars offer both: the .club domain name and the CMS. Once the .club domain name is registered, the owner is often asked for what he wants to do with it.
2) The CMS offers to log-in, using a password. It is like going to a club in person; you get there and you open a door to meet other members of the club. Doing this online is the same approach: you can share in private, and / or have the option to open your content onto the Internet.

The attractive thing about a CMS is that there is no HTML development, database management or difficult things to do. I personally use “Sites” from Google which offers templates for clubs: https://sites.google.com/site/clubtemplate_en/ (but Wordpress does that too).