Post your videos on Web Teams!

At Web Teams our thinking has always been to concentrate on providing great football related functionality. Where another company does something really well for example Google with their graphs, or Facebook with their posted links, we look to utilise their technology.

The clear leader on the web for videos is obviously YouTube.com. And YouTube.com allow you to embed their videos on any site.

At Web Teams we have now allowed you to embed YouTube.com videos on your site.

To add a video to your site you must first post it on YouTube.com.

A simple way of doing this is to video a bit of your match on your digital camera. Then use Windows Media Maker to make it into a WMV file. Then logon to YouTube.com and upload it to the web.

Once your video is live, you need to get the unique id from the YouTube URL. The screenshot below shows this. Note that the characters before the id are v=



Add this unique Id to your Web Teams news item. Click preview to check it is OK.



Your video is displayed on your Web Teams site!



Why not upload some of your videos from your games and then post a comment on this blog post so others can view them?

How many visitors?

Now that it is pretty much the end of the 2007/08 football season, it is with interest we look at our visitor statistics...



The team that attracted the most visitors to their home page was Boreham Wood from the Ryman Premier League. Their home page alone received over 48,000 unique visitors!

To put this into perspective. Only four Premiership stadiums could sit this many people (Old Trafford, The Emirate Stadium, St James, Stadium of Light). If this many people tried to fit into the City of Manchester Stadium there would be over 200 left over standing in the car park.



Boreham Wood also had the most hits for a match report (Boreham Wood 1 AFC Wimbledon 0 - 800 unique) and for a player (their top scorer Simon Thomas - 1,200 unique).

But other sites were most popular in other areas.

Redhill FC from the Sussex County League posted nearly 360 news items! This attracted over 15,000 unique visitors who read their news.

Over 2,000 unique visitors browsed the excellent photographs displayed on Romulus FC's website.



The fun fantasy stats where most popular on lower league team sites. 2,000 unique visitors flocked to see who had the most fantasy points on Shadforth Plough's website from the Durham Sunday League (4th division).

Across all of our team sites a combined total of nearly one million unique visitors visited Web Teams. Our web community continues to grow every year - please continue to tell others about us and we look forward to the 2008/09 season!

Most frequently asked Frequently Asked Questions

At Web Teams we pride ourselves on having a pretty good frequently asked questions help area. This saves time in people emailing us a question and waiting for an answer on something that's been asked many times before.

This help area can be found at:
http://www.webteams.co.uk/Help.aspx

...and what are our most frequently asked Frequently Asked Questions? Our visitor stats show the following interesting results:



1. What do I get for my £15.00?
This help page was viewed over 1,600 last season! In short the answers include (1) The best football stats for your team presented in the most professional way, (2) Absolutely NO adverts anywhere on your site, (3) End of season archive and the use of stats from previous season... [read full article]

2. What format must my pictures be in?
This is becoming a more common question now that digital cameras produce such large images. The image quality you need for a website is MUCH lower than if you wanted to print out a 10x8" quality photo. So before you upload a picture to the web it is best to resize it down a little... [read full article]

3. Can I add a discussion board to my site?
Web Teams has always had a strategy of concentrating on doing football related things perfectly (league tables, goal stats, team progress, player stats etc...) and leaving more generic things (lots of photos, discussion boards, visitor polls, online videos) to the multi-billion dollar sites that are huge. Our recommendation here is to set up a Facebook Group for your team in parallel to your Web Teams site. This is perfect for banter and daft photos and things and compliments your professional looking Web Teams football site. A more full blog post on this subject will be posted in the near future... [read full article]

4. I have just signed up, how can I edit my site?
Simple getting started question that most reading this blog already know the answer to... [read full article]

5. What happens to my site at the end of the season?
Web Teams offers the much valued archive feature, where a snapshot of your old site is stored at a new URL and the stats from these previous sites are used on your site for the new football season. [read full article]

We do have one or two emails this time of year about people wanting to change URLS we answered this question in the blog post below:
http://webteams.blogspot.com/2008/06/get-proper-domain-name.html

6. How do I get a proper domain name?
Related to the point above. [read full article/ read blog post]

7. A player has left my team, can I delete him from my site?
Yes, at the end of the season. During the season, you should mark against them that they have left the club. In their player details area you should say why they have left the club. This way all of the player statistics stay intact. [read full article]


Please email in any suggestions for future blog posts.

stephen@webteams.co.uk

Web Teams - Out of Office

From 8th June to 16th June there will be minimal email support from Web Teams. Coincidently both lads who run the service will be on holiday, and although I'll check in to make sure things are running fine on occasions, I'll not be doing much on email.

The most common enquiry currently is from those archiving who have teams whose names have changed. For example from webteams.co.uk/thequeenshead to webteams.co.uk/theblackbull - our advice here is to either:

1. Archive as normal, change your team name but buy a proper domain name:
http://webteams.blogspot.com/2008/06/get-proper-domain-name.html
or
2. Sign up for a new site and forget the old one

All other queries are pretty much always answered in our frequently asked questions area:
http://www.webteams.co.uk/Help.aspx

Thanks very much - enjoy Euro 2008 even though it's not the same without any of the home nations in it. Top 10 Euro Championship goals below. Add a comment to say which goal you think is the best (although it has to be Gazza or Van Basten really).

Get a Top Level Domain Name

Have you ever wanted a nice short and snappy domain name for your Web Teams site?

If your club is called Fulchester Town FC - then you could have the URL www.fulchestertownfc.co.uk and receive emails to manager@fulchestertownfc.co.uk

Three or four years ago, Web Teams used to offer this service. But we stopped doing it as you can get it so cheap elsewhere.

Two of the biggest hosting companies in the UK are www.fasthosts.co.uk and uk2.net.

With either of these companies you can get your proper domain name and access to a control panel for less than £10 a year.

A screenshot from each is below.

UK2


Fast Hosts


Note: This option is particularly useful if you originally signed up for your Web Teams site as webteams.co.uk/fulchesteru7s as an under 7s teams and are now an under 11s team - you could get the domain www.fulchesteryouth.co.uk and mask the Web Teams URL beneath this.

Disclaimer: Web Teams is not affiliated in any way with either www.fasthosts.co.uk or uk2.net, all support on web forwarding and domain names can be found on the site of the web hosting company you choose.

Web Teams International

Most Web Teams sites are for teams based in the UK. But we do now have a growing number of international sites.

A selection of one or two sites showing football teams around the world using the Web Teams service are below.


Lobster Pot FC - Bermuda



http://www.webteams.co.uk/lobsterpotfc


TuS Germania Schnelsen III - Germany



http://www.webteams.co.uk/tusgermaniaschnelsen3


UPS Allstars FC - United Arab Emirates



http://www.webteams.co.uk/timeoutfc


Mission Valley United - USA



http://www.webteams.co.uk/mvunited

A brief history of Web Teams

Web Teams was all started in 1999 after two lads who had both been doing websites for football teams they had played for ended up working together. Both were football mad. Both loved the idea of posting stats and news items up on the Internet.

The idea of an easy to use online service that was available to all followed shortly with the purchase of the domain name web-teams.co.uk.

The oldest record of any site we have is with the Durham City Ladies FC team from 2000. See picture below:



Note the changes between the 2000 site design and the site from the 2008 season in the picture below:



We estimate that easily more than 10,000 teams have used Web Teams for their website since 1999. Please browse through some of our archived sites below and see how the Web Teams service has steadily developed based on your feedback.

Northern League 1st Division 02/03 - Brandon United FC
http://www.webteams.co.uk/_2003/brandonunitedfc

Sussex County League 2nd Division 03/04 - Wick FC
http://www.webteams.co.uk/_2004/wickfc

Ryman League 1st Division 04/05 - AFC Wimbledon
http://www.webteams.co.uk/_2005/afcwimbledon

Midland Football Alliance 05/06 - Tipton Town FC
http://www.webteams.co.uk/_2006/tiptontownfc

Western League Premier Division 06/07 - Hallen AFC
http://www.webteams.co.uk/_2007/hallenafc

Ryman League Premier Division 07/08 - Boreham Wood FC
http://www.webteams.co.uk/_2008/borehamwoodfc

Top 10 Tips for Web Teams Webmasters

1. Include a team photo on your site

Upload a team photo to your site. This will be displayed on your homepage and also on your squad page. Clicking on the picture on the squad page will give a larger view of the image.



Additional tip: Before uploading your team picture use a graphics package like Irfan View to crop the image so your team fills the available space. If you resize the picture to 600 pixels wide then it will upload faster and there will be no reduction in quality.


2. Add a news item each week

Visitors will continue to come back to your site if you regularly update it. If you have a match on a Saturday then try and pop a news item up mid-week. If your chairman or manager normally writes a few notes for a programme, then maybe add some quotes from this in the weekly news item.

Additional tip: The news items page will load more slowly the more news items you have. If you add more than one news item a week then it may be an idea to delete selected news items when they no longer become relevant.


3. Write a match report for each result

Add a match report when you fill in the results details after one of your team's matches. Leave a double return between paragraphs to make the match report more readable.

Additional tip: To save time you may wish to write the match report in Word or in an email to yourself and spellcheck it first. Remember that your login session will time-out after around 30 minutes in the site admin area. So if you're a slow typer, prepare the match report and then copy and paste it into the text area.


4. Add individual player photographs

Each player has their own page within a Web Teams site. This page lists their details added by you and also those generated automatically from the match report data. Adding a player picture really does make these pages look fantastic. It is recommended that these photo's should be in portrait form (not landscape). Adding a detailed or humourous few lines of text for the player's details also helps finish off this page.



Additional tip: Maybe the easiest way to do this is to take a team picture and then crop the player's heads down to individual pictures. Resize these photos down to 80 pixels wide before uploading to save time and retain the quality.


5. Associate news items with a player

If you have uploaded individual player photo's then you will be given the option to associate news items with a player. As with the individual player pages, this really enhances the news items page. Player photos already get automatically added to match reports and to your home page.

Additional tip: Try to mix the players up that get mentioned in the news items, this keeps the pictures fresh and will stop the news items page looking repetitive.


6. Edit your goal descriptions

Click the little pencil icon next to the automatically generated goal description to give a better report on how the goal was scored.

Additional tip: If you simply want to toggle through the automatically created Web Teams goal descriptions then click the toggle icon next to the pencil icon.


7. Fill in the rest of the results in your league

All leagues should have a secretary, if you can't find any results from the Internet or the press, get in touch with your league secretary and get them to send you the other results.

Additional tip: The league results are not just used on the league and league results page. The league results grid page is also a great resource, especially in the run in at the end of the season.


8. Tell others about your site

The more visitors, the more people reading about your team. The more links to your site on the Internet, the higher ranking it will get on search engines such as Google!



Additional tip: Start with getting other teams in your league to link to your site, then try and get your league site/discussion board/local paper to do a link. Finally, if you really feel like you have a good site, see if you can get a link on a site that attracts nationwide/international visitors.


9. Add a link to directions to your ground

You can enter your address and postcode in your site admin area and this automatically adds a link to Google Maps.


10. And finally, to give your site an even more professional feel, get a domain name

www.northshieldsfc.co.uk (for example) looks more professional and is more memorable than www.webteams.co.uk/northshieldsfc - Once you owned a domain you would then also be able to receive emails for an address such as secretary@northshieldsfc.co.uk. These details could then be used in match programmes and in press releases.

- Web Teams recommends www.fasthosts.co.uk for domain names

Additional tip: Try and choose a domain name that describes your club but is still short and memorable. Somebody else may already own the name you would want as a first choice, so have a few ideas ready.

2007/08 Customer Survey – Summary of results

Last month almost 20% of you were good enough to take part in our customer survey. This is an amazing response rate and we'd like to think that the findings are a strong indication of what you think of our service. The top five things we learned from you are below. We have tried to improve on each of these aspects.


1. You really value the statistics Web Teams provides

Our question on how much you value the statistics got an average value of 9.6 out of 10.

This tells us that what you most love about Web Teams are the way we automatically generate your league table, your goal stats, your league stats, your player stats, your team progress etc. A number of you told us the goal stats pie charts looked fantastic. A few of you asked where the team progress line chart from last year had disappeared to.

In response to this we have brought back a new improved team progress chart to your site. You can see this on your Team Progress page.




2. You want to be able to display your club sponsors

Our open question of "if we could only do two things next year to improve the site, what should we do" came up with two clear responses. The first was that you wanted to be able to display your club sponsors.

We fully appreciate that clubs may want to thank and credit their sponsors. However, we think a website should be about your club and you shouldn't distract your visitor asking them to go elsewhere. We also have a problem with sponsors as we see this advertising and this is something we have tried very hard to stay clear of.

As a compromise we have decided that you can list your club sponsors, rather than show their logos, with links to their websites and with a brief description of what they offer. This information is subtly placed to the left of each page below your site links. If you really do want to show your sponsors' logos you can do this on your site pictures page or PhotoShop your team photo.




3. You want more pictures

The second suggested improvement was to be able to include more site pictures. We have now doubled your allocation from four pictures to eight.
Our advice remains that if you want to put a huge amount of pictures or video online then you should set up a website such as a Facebook Group to work in parallel with your Web Teams site and link to it.


4. You like having lots of space for your information

When we asked the open question what you liked best about the service, one of the common responses was that we allow lots of space for your information. Many of you have tried other services for your football sites and you strongly dislike your space being taken up by adverts.

We analysed our web logs and over 96% of all visitors have a screen resolution of over 1000px in width.

In response to this, we have made your website wider, the font size slightly bigger and tweaked the overall spacing to give your website a little more space to breathe. This change is also very much in line with big world leader websites such as http://news.bbc.co.uk/ and http://www.guardian.co.uk/ have recently done with their sites.




5. You like us and would recommend us

When we asked whether you'd recommend us to a friend or colleague, over 95% gave this a likelihood of 8, 9 or 10.
This is fantastic news to us and explains why we continue to grow every year. We have decided to freeze our prices at £15 again for the third year running as we would like to see the Web Teams community grow even further. We do not run the Web Teams service to try and push it to make money.
We know a lot of the teams are youth and student teams, so we are again keeping this price for a whole season well below the price most of you would pay for a referee for a single game. Please help us to continue to grow and indeed recommend us to other teams you know that would like a website. Any recommendations by word of mouth, email or on Internet discussion forums are massively appreciated.

Harry Enfield - Mr Cholmondley-Warner (Association Football)

Classic comedy from Harry Enfield about football in the old days: