What do you like best about Web Teams?

Currently Web Teams site administrators are feeding back to us through the end of year survey.

As always, we're amazed at some of the positive comments that come in - many thanks!

When asked "What do you like best about Web Teams?" you replied (selection of 25 of the comments below)...

• Its so easy to update everything from scores to player stats.
• Reliable service which is easy to use and fast to update.
• The range of statistics that are produced
• It's easy to use and looks good
• The lay out and the way its updated automatically
• The fact that the site automatically updates and you don't need to update player stats and league tables.
• I like all of the site that main reason ive used it for last 5 season even if weve changed our name due to sponsorship ive always continued to use it in new name.
• Just about everything, its a quality website. The stats obviously stand out and the ease of use
• Quickness of how everything is uploaded.
• GOOD FOR FOOTBALL
• The amount of information with all stats etc, makes for great viewing when looking at all the little details and stats. Fantasy points are also a very good feature, which we run an award for at our presentation evenings!
• The overall layout is easy to input information for me and for visitors to the site to read. this encourages repeat visits and recommendations to others.
• The clarity and array of information available to the user
• Defo the stats tracking for the goals and assissts.
• Those unforgettable last minute winners are now genuinely unforgettable.
• The immediate updating of stats once the input has been done.The website looks very professional and we have had many good comments.
• Very user friendly interface
• The support from Webteams with any problems. Great value for money and no advertisements flashing all over the place.
• its very easy to use and it is linked to Facebook which helps get the info across to the team and fans.
• Simplicity of the website but the detail behind that.
• It gives you everything you need for a football teams website!
• professional layout of the site. makes us look better than we are!
• Simplicity to use and quickness of navigation
• Prompt response when contacting about an issue.
• Easy to input information. The site always looks neat and clean and uncluttered
• Simplicity of use which can generate so many useful stats.

Many thanks for all of the positive comments, we'll also look at doing some enhancements based around the handful of frustrations. But please keep on spreading the word about Web Teams and help us to continue to build the community!

Web Teams a Top 10 UK site

Web Teams won a top 10 Experian Hitwise Award last week.

Great to see Web Teams name in the list for the Computers and Internet - Hosting and Domain Registration industry. Especially alongside such well respected names such as fasthosts.co.uk and uk2.net.

http://www.hitwise.com/uk/2010-annual-awards

A Picture Says A Thousand Words

Small tweak to the homepage now so that your large team picture is now shown. Over the years people's screens have became bigger and Internet connections have become faster. So now your Web Teams site looks even better, more crisp, more professional and 100% yours without any horrible adverts.

Upcoming fixtures

Occasionally we get email suggestions that are nice little ideas from users of the service. Ian Brown from Pannal Sports emailed in suggestion that if there is a not a "next match report" then we should encourage the visitor to go to the fixtures page. So it's been done.

Before

After

Takes you to the fixtures page

See Who Subscribes To Your News Stories

Just made a small change to the site on request of Stephen from Real Athletic. Webmasters can now go to their "Edit Your Club's Details" page and see who subscribes to news stories from their site.

The screenshot below demonstrates this:

Web Teams and Twitter and Facebook

Browsing through the fantastic Web Teams sites that you set up, the trend of using Twitter.com or Facebook.com to complement Web Teams is growing. A couple of examples of this are given below:

1. Twitter

Tipton Town FC have a twitter feed giving teaser information for every Web Teams story. So they enter a story or match report in Web Teams, then they "tweet" this news. Their 100+ followers are informed that the news is live and then can go and read the story and look at the latest league table and statistics.

Web Teams is used for the official site with the best statistics and charts - but Twitter is used as an essential media promoting the latest news.

2. Facebook

If you want loads of photos and loads of informal banter back and forward between the players, then the place to do this a Facebook page for your site. Within Facebook, making this private to those in your club is just a setting to apply to the site.

Web Teams works in parallel with this as the official face of your club. Your Facebook club site is there for all of the daft stuff. Web Teams is there for the formal news items, the official league table and goal scorers stats etc...

This is demonstrated really well with the Morley Town Sunday club Facebook site:

The Front Page News Ticker

In our end of season survey you said you wanted a News Ticker on your front page.

• "Bring back the scrolling news ticker!"
• "Have a rolling banner on home page with news"

You'll notice now there is one on your home page...

Fig 1 - The news ticker is now displayed on your home page

Fig 2. Click on a story or a match report for further information

Archive your site ready for next season

Now that the 2009/10 season is coming to an end you can now archive your site and get ready to start the 2010/11 season.

Details on how to do this are outlined at the blog post below:
http://webteams.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-archive-your-site.html

This is a chance to freshen up your site, put up news about summer events and permanently remove any players who may not be with your team anymore.

Thanks for the great comments!

Looking through the results of our user survey, when asked what you like best about Web Teams you gave some great replies. A selection of them are below:

What do you like best about Web Teams?

• "The fact you can archive the site and look back on stats from previous seasons is very handy. Keeps the memories online and alive."


• "The ease of using and updating the website and the way the statistics are displayed make it very enjoyable to use. Also the fantasy stats give players an added incentive and provide great banter in the changing room."


• "The instant generation of stats that would take ages for me to work out myself. They are priceless for my match previews on my website."


• "So easy to use, and it creates a professional detailed site with mimimum web knowledge needed on my part."


• "Easy to use and maintain, no adverts, no clutter which is great."


• "How factual it is and how flexible it is to use. The lads love keeping tabs on my updates."


• "The professionalism, its run very well, plus the price is good value. plus the appearance, plus the fact that thier are no adverts plus the fact all the tables etc are automatically updated"


• "The way with minimum effort I can create a professional looking website that also serves as an essential tool for the Manager in terms of statistics."


• "Fantastic service that the players all look forward to reading every week. Fantasy Statistics and match reports are the favourites."


• "Don't have a favorite part as think the whole site is excellent."


• "It's easy to use and does exactly what you want which is information for the lads and stats plus i can do stupid write ups for them to read too."


• "The whole service has added an extra edge to the club as a whole. its not just about a sunday anymore, bagot can be 'looked at' within a click of a button 24/7"


• "A fantastic service, which we have never used before until now, very informative and easy to use. We will be renewing our subscription every year!"

And when we asked, how likely would you be to recommend WebTeams to a friend, where 1 is not very likely and 10 was very likely - the average mark was 9.4!!!

So thanks once again for the great feedback.

We did of course ask what we need to better and what you two things you disliked most. The answers to these questions will form the basis of the enhancements we will make to the site over the next few months.

I'll post on the blog about this "hit list of improvements" in a week or two.

Please complete our Customer Survey 2010

Every April we ask those with Web Teams sites for their feedback.

This feedback shapes how we enhance the Web Teams service and is extremely valuable.

To take part in the 2010 survey please logon into your site admin area and click on the main news item at the top of the page.

In the 2009 survey you told us you wanted:

• More space for your reports and match reports
  
• A simpler format for the league table
  
• An "opt out" of the fantasty stats
  
• The ability to hide players who leave your club through the season
  
• The ability to add pictures of the manager, tea lady, programme seller
  
• To be able to change the order of the site links

So we did all of the items above.

We wait now to see what your feedback will be this year. Stay tuned to this blog to find out.

Web Teams into its Third Decade!

Happy New Year to everyone.

We are very proud to now take Web Teams into its third decade.

We started in the "90's", grew through the "noughties" and are now happy to look forward to the "tens" (or "teenies"?).


Web Teams trial site in 1999.

Web Teams looking great on your Mobile

I've been playing about on my Ipod Touch looking at Web Teams and have made a few adjustments to the low graphics page.

The font size is now bigger so it is more readable in both portrait and landscape mode...





Of course, the normal site is fine when you zoom in and out in normal mode on an Iphone/Ipod too...

Stand Out Fixture

Dan from Tipton Town emailed in suggesting that the list of fixtures should have their own page.

We had a think about this and agreed.

So...

There is a new menu option on the left hand side of the page:

The latest fixture is displayed in your main news area of your homepage:

Clicking on either of the links will take you to the fixtures page:

Get the most out of Web Teams

The Web Teams blog has been going for a little while now and we have posted more than 50 articles.

This is our main method of communicating to all of you that run Web Teams sites.

For those of you that aren't that familiar with blogs, you may wish to read the tips below. They will help you get the most of Web Teams.

1. Searching
To find blog posts of interest to you simply type in a search term and click to search.

For example, try "mobile" for stories on how to get Web Teams on your mobile phone:



2. Labels
Two the right of the blog you can click on a topic that interests you. You will see all posts about that topic.

For example, click "new development" to read all of the posts on recent developments to Web Teams:


3. Posts you may have missed
Here are a pick of 4 or 5 of our many blog posts...

• Improvements to your Home Page - read about little changes we make to the site to keep on improving the service.
  
  
• Google Map on your Site - embed the fabulous Google Maps tool within your site.
  
  
• Customer Survey 08/09 - Results - read about what our thousands of users think of us.
  
  
• Another Fund Raising Case Study - find out how you can easily make your website make money for your team.
  
  
• Go Go Web Teams Gadget! - you like Windows Vista or Google gadgets? - download the Web Teams Gadget for your site.

4. Get the blog content elsewhere
You can add the Google Web Teams Blog gadget to your Google home page:

You can get the Web Teams Blog content within your RSS reader of choice:

5. Comment on the blog posts

If you have an opinion on any blog post - let us have your feedback - it only takes 10 seconds to add a comment and you can share your thoughts with the rest of the Web Teams community.

Web Teams Continues NonLeagueZone.com Support

Web Teams have continued their support to the popular non-league football forum NonLeagueZone.com.

A team of six or seven dedicated non league football fans run this super community with almost 10,000 members!

Stephen from Web Teams used to be a bit of a contributor to the Northern League section of this site back in the late 1990s when involved with teams such as North Shields, Prudhoe Town and Dunston Fed.

Over the last year or two Web Teams helps with the running costs of this site and are delighted to continue to do so for the 2009/10 football season. In return, Web teams gets a banner advert at the top.

If your team or league is involved in the UK non-league pyramid and you want a discussion forum that is part of a wider community - please go to NonLeagueZone.com and get in touch with one of the moderators.

Web Teams Goes Video Crazy!

Just over a year ago we allowed YouTube videos to be added to your Web Teams match reports and news items.

http://webteams.blogspot.com/2008/06/post-your-videos-on-web-teams.html

Flicking through many Web Teams team sites over the weekend, I noticed that loads of sites now do this.

All digital cameras have video functionality these days and it seems many of you take video clips on the side lines, upload them to YouTube and then embed them in your Web Teams sites. Some of you even make nicely edited movies with background sound tracks and titles (presumably using Windows Movie Maker).

Flicking through the first 15 or 16 sites I came across I found the following 4 videos...

St. James AFC

http://www.webteams.co.uk/NewsItems.aspx?team=stjamesafc#id10

Centre AFC

http://www.webteams.co.uk/NewsItems.aspx?team=centreafc#id19

Hafod Ranger AFC

http://www.webteams.co.uk/MatchReport.aspx?team=hafodrangersafc&mid=match33.xml

Norton Sports

http://www.webteams.co.uk/NewsItems.aspx?team=nortonsportsfc#id51

10 years of Web Teams

It's now 10 years since Web Teams was formed. For a bit of a history about Web Teams see the blog post below:
- http://webteams.blogspot.com/2008/05/brief-history-of-web-teams.html

But to celebrate 10 years, here are some early designs...

1. Early teaser holding page
The imagery below is from September 1999. The rest of the web world had horrible "under construction" animated gifs. We were inspired more from the Starship Troopers trailer at the cinema in the late 90s.

2. First team home page design
Again from 1999, this was the design for the homepage. Nice and simple with the main core features that Web Teams was all about: News, Results, League Table, Squad details and Stats. The Newcastle College side was the team that Pat from Web Teams used to play for in the North East Sunday League.



3. Team home page design Mk II
It was quickly decided that something more impressive was needed for the homepage and the main feature links were moved to the left hand side. An overview of the content and a team photo where quickly drafted into the main area of the page. The Wallsend Comrades side was the team that Stephen from Web Teams used to play for in the North East Sunday League. Wallsend Comrades used to regularly thrash Newcastle College :)



4. First real site
The first "real" site filled with proper data was the Durham Ladies football site for 2000/2001 season. This acted as a test site along with a number of others as the Web Teams user base slowly started to grow.



10 years has gone by very quickly. But on behalf of Pat and myself we'd like to thank all of those who use the service and make it what it is. Throughout each year we appreciate all of your suggestions for improvement and kind messages and we very much look forward to the next 10 years!

Give your Club Staff a home on Web Teams

One of the most requested enhancements from you in the end of season customer survey was to be able to put pictures of your staff up and associate them with news items. You wanted to put the chairman up, the physio and the tea lady!

This is now possible by adding people to your squad and marking them as "Staff" in the drop down box.

These entries will have their one little area at the bottom of the squad page:


Visitors can click on staff members and they have their own page:


And you can associate news items with the staff members:


They will not appear in the player statistic pages. So if you do have a player-manager - please put him/her down as player and just write in the notes that they manage as well.

And yes, I support Newcastle United. The team without a manager, a chairman and an owner. All comments taking the mick will not be published!

Indicate Players who have left your Club

Mid-way through a season a player may leave your club.

Now it possible to indicate this on your site so that these players are not as prominently displayed on your squad page. Also, these players will have asterisks next to their names in the stats and fantasy points pages.

To mark a player has having left your club simply tick the "Has Left Club" checkbox next to the players name in the site admin page as shown below:



Please note that you should still take the opportunity to remove players permanently from your site when you go through the archive process at the end of each season.

Generating Reports from your Site

We've had a few questions from users wanting to generate end of season reports for their sites. Others have emailed in asking about taking copies of their data before they archive as a record of the season.

Well, since the start of Web Teams in 1999, we've always had the concept of generating printer friendly reports. These are simple views of your data that are fine for either printing or copying and pasting straight into Microsoft Word to format as you wish.

Just follow the steps below...

1. Click on the "printed report" link


2. Select the data you want


3. Either send to the printer or copy and paste to a word processor