Why a website still matters
Social media is rented land; your website is the home base you own. Sponsors, judges, prospective members, and other teams all check it. A current, professional site signals a serious, sustainable program.
Choosing a platform
- Wix / Squarespace - drag-and-drop builders, fastest path for non-coders, paid plans, easy custom domain. Best if no one wants to maintain code.
- WordPress - flexible, common, large plugin ecosystem.
- GitHub Pages (often with Jekyll) - free static hosting, version-controlled, and easy to hand off as members graduate (transfer the GitHub org). Popular with code-savvy teams — a common pattern is a static site generator (e.g., Jekyll) hosted on GitHub Pages under the team's GitHub organization, which keeps the site version-controlled and easy to hand off as members graduate. Best if you have programmers who want full control.
Whatever you pick, get a real custom domain (e.g., team1234.org) - it looks far more credible than a free subdomain and reinforces your brand.
Site structure (the pages that matter)
Design for your three key audiences - sponsors, recruits, and judges:
- Home - who you are in one screen: number, name, logo, a strong photo, and a one-line mission.
- About / The Team - story, mission, subteams, mentors, and your team photo.
- Robots / Seasons - a page per year with the robot, results, and reveal video. This doubles as a record for award submissions.
- Outreach / Impact - your community work, demos, and STEM events; this is gold for the Impact Award and for sponsors.
- Sponsors - logos (linked), tiers, and a clear "Sponsor Us" call to action with your packet.
- Join / Contact - how students join and how to reach you.
- Blog / News (optional) - build updates and event recaps that also help SEO.
Design and accessibility
- Apply your brand: colors, fonts, logo, and consistent imagery.
- Mobile-first: most visitors are on phones - test on a phone.
- Accessibility: add alt text to images, ensure sufficient color contrast (WCAG AA, 4.5:1 for body text), and use real headings so screen readers and search engines understand your pages. This widens your reach and is simply the right thing to do.
- Keep it fast: compress images before uploading.
Keeping it alive
The hardest part of a website is maintenance. To survive graduation:
- Document how to edit the site in your team wiki.
- Assign a web lead each year and a backup.
- For GitHub Pages, keep the repo in a team organization (not a personal account) so access transfers cleanly.
- Do a preseason audit: update the year, robot page, roster, and sponsor logos.
A stale website with last year's robot tells sponsors and judges you don't follow through. A current one tells them you do.
Key takeaways
- Your website is owned media for sponsors, recruits, and judges; a current, on-brand site signals a sustainable program
- Pick a platform matched to your skills (Wix/Squarespace for non-coders, GitHub Pages for programmers) and use a custom domain
- Plan for handoff: keep a GitHub org, document editing, assign a web lead, and audit the site every preseason
Keep going
Take the quiz · +10 XP with an accountMore in Digital Presence: Social Media & Website
Sources & corrections
This lesson is AI-assisted: drafted from primary sources, then reviewed and edited by hand. Errors still get through. When one is reported we fix it and write down what changed — publicly, in the corrections log.
Sources and further reading
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Lesson quiz
RequiredAll 3 right completes the lesson. Miss one and only that question comes back — anything you already answered correctly stays banked.
0 of 3 answered
01.A strong, well-documented online presence most directly supports a team's case for which FRC award?
02.Which audiences should an FRC team's website be designed to serve?
03.For a GitHub Pages site, what keeps access transferable as members graduate?
Answer every question to submit.
All 29 lessons in Media, Branding & Outreach
- Not started:Mini-Project 1: A Repeatable Match-Day Photo Workflow
- Not started:Mini-Project 2: A 60-Second Highlight Reel in DaVinci Resolve (Free)
- Not started:Mini-Project 3: A CAD-to-Render Robot Reveal
- Not started:Mini-Project 4: A One-Page Press Release for Your Local Paper
- Not started:Mini-Project 5: Auto-Pull Match Results from The Blue Alliance API