website review

[Shinsengumi77]

So I made a simple website for our club to hopefully attract new members (probably a futile effort) or at least provide a little information to the new members we actually get at the beginning of the semester. I'm not tech savvy and don't know a thing about making websites or writing code and what not, so I apologize if it's a bit lackluster, but I thought it'd be nice to have one.

I would like to have some input on what I can do to make it better. Are there any problems you can see? Is there anything that should be added/ taken away?

Also, does anyone know where I might find some royalty free images of a keikogi and hakama?

Thanks.

(P.S. If there is anyone here who does not want to be mentioned in the site *cough cough* Fox Sensei *cough* -please say so now so I can make the necessary changes).

[Ashura]

I can't find your website.

[b8amack]

You might want to post a link to your website...

[Shinsengumi77]

Wow, I can't believe I forgot to post the link. Sorry 'bout that. It's www.freewebs.com/cmukendo00

[Bokushingu]

three days a week practice--nice.


btw I see the name Shinsengumi all the time in various places...what does it means?

[Shinsengumi77]

The Shinsengumi was a group of samurai fighting in the Meiji restoration on the side of the Tokugawa.

[Shinsengumi77]

If you wanted an actual meaning to the name, it means something like "newly selected corps".

Sorry for the double post.

[Bokushingu]

IC, Thanks ^_^ everytime I meant to ask, i was always distracted.

[Ashura]

A small piece of trivia regarding Shinsengumi:

Shinsengumi can be written as either
新選組
or
新撰組

選 and 撰 can both be read as "era-bu" which means "to choose" as mentioned by Shinsengumi77. I'm not sure about the difference in nuance between the two characters. Members of the Shinsengumi couldn't even decide on which was correct. Isami Kondo himself used them interchangeably.

[b8amack]

Your club is free? (No dues) You should put that in bold, large type! And were it me, I would try some offsetting remarks when mentioning the price of bogu, such as a comparison between the price of bogu and say a couple of quality tennis rackets and a pair of court shoes (or football/hockey equipment, a set of golf clubs... whatever; my other game's tennis, so I tend to think of that first). 600 bucks to a grand seems like a lot of cash when it's just a number without context.

Apart from that, it looks like a fine enough website.

[Ashura]

I thought the website was very comprehensive.

[Shinsengumi77]

Thanks Ashura, that makes me feel a bit relieved.

B8amack, thank you for the advice on making a comparison between prices of other types of sports equipment. On that note, do you know some rough estimates on the prices of golf/ hockey/ tennis equipment? Or a good site to look at for such a comparison? I've heard that in hockey for instance, just the skates can run over $500, but I'm not really sure about average prices. What is average for tennis equipment, usually?

[Abramo]

Your website is very good, clean and information is easy to find. I would just make a couple of suggestions:

Add the "address" and precise location of dojo, along with practice times, in the first page below the black link box. That's what most people will want to know, and it's good to have it displayed right off the bat.

Add, somewhere, a link to your local, regional and national federations and a link to a list of other dojo. People from other areas will stumble upon your website and will find it useful, and it will help spread Kendo info around the internet. Mentioning that your yuudansha were graded/registered by these organizations is also a good idea, in this McDojo age of ours.

The most common "concern" of people wanting to join, price aside, is "I'm too old/young" and "I'm a female." Add to your FAQ Kendo's no-age, no-gender restrictions. If you do have age restricitions, add that info too.

In the "equipment" section, the tip of the bokuto is spelled "kissaki".

[Shinsengumi77]

Thank you very much for the suggestions. For now the club is geared more towards CMU students, because we just reserve a room in the school's athletic complex, so I was wondering if the address would be a good idea, since most of the people here know where the building is. I also wanted to keep a separate page for practice times because they change every semester (sometimes our room does too). Would I have to email people for permission to add the Federation links to the site; do you think that's an issue?

I'll add the age/ gender restrictions thing to the FAQ's, too. I didn't even think about that.

And thanks for the spelling correction. And again, does anyone have any idea where I might find the royalty free images for the keikogi and hakama?

[dwez]

I may have missed it, in which case it should be clearer if I have but if you are an AUSKF dojo then you should be on this AUSKF Kendo & Iaido Dojo Google Map. Now sosb [the originator] is a very trusting guy, he's made it open collaboration and you can put your own marker on this map and then put the map on your site. Just because you're targetting people at CMU doesn't mean you couldn't benefit from the odd visiting experienced kendoka who might want to get directions and drop in.

Additionally if you have alternating times of practice then you should definitely look into either an RSS news feed or something like Google Calendar [that also has RSS capability] this way you can inform people really easily what's going on, so long as they sign up for the feed.

By no means do I think our website is the best but I looked at a whole slew of kendo websites here to see what was good and although I really love well designed sites, functionality and ease of updating is key. I employed a few gadgets, widgets, doodads and thingumyjigs into a bog-standard template and made it work. Our site could be prettier but the most important thing is to give it value.

That said you've done a bang-up job and anyone putting up a site deserves respect, which I offer to you. Anyone who then asks for a critique and is prepared to act on that advice deserves double respect, so kudo's X 2. Well done and keep it going.