How to Make a Website For Your Paintball Team

A lot of teams don't realize this, but having a team website is a crucial step towards creating a professional image for your team.

If you have a website, then congratulations your halfway there, now all your team needs to do is treat your team's website as an extension of the team, and freely share it with the entire paintball community. You'd be surprised at how many people visit paintball team websites, and how very few know how to make money with them. The more exposure, the more valuable your team is to sponsors.

If you want to check out some examples of paintball teams using the internet to help attract sponsors and make some extra cash then check out these two teams, Wolfpack and The Brotherhood. One team uses CafePress to sell merchandise with their logo on it, and the other created a content rich website complete with advertisements.

If you don't have a website yet and you have a paintball team, then I encourage you to seriously consider making one. They are low-cost, low-maintenance outlets for your team, and can provide some extra money for tournaments or sponsorship opportunities.

There are a couple of ways you can create a website for your team. A couple are free, and a couple cost. You'll want to decide which service you should go with based on the level of effort you want to put in creating it, or the amount of money you are willing to spend.

Free Services

The benefit of using a free service is its FREE, which is great for any team on a budget (which most teams are). The only drawback to using a free service such as those below is you get a subdomain URL instead of a professional looking "regular" domain. For example, you get "yourteamsname.blogspot.com" instead of "www.yourteamsname.com." It may not be the biggest deal, but if you are a professional team (or trying to be) you probably want to keep things as professional looking as possible and opt for a full domain name. You can register a domain at a hosting registrar like Godaddy for $9 a year. Just set your newly registered domain as your "preferred domain address" through your Godaddy and Blogger/Wordpress account and your set.

Blogger is a free blog hosting and creation service. Its freakishly easy to setup a site using blogger. Simply click the "Create a Blog" button to get started. If you already have an account with google (through gmail, orkut, or google groups) then click the "sign in first" link at the top. If not, then follow the instructions and create one.

When you get through with setting up the account, you'll then move on to naming your blog. This should be the name of your team. The shorter the easier it will be for others to remember. If the address is unavailable try your teams name with - (hyphens) in between.

Next is selecting the template. Pick the template you like the most (it doesn't have to be perfect). The great thing is you can find tons of free blogger templates for free online with instructions on adding them to your blog. Google free blogger templates to find free templates.

Examples - Team Websites on Blogger:

• Fraternity
• Blazerz

Wordpress is pretty much the same as Blogger - a blogging service with free hosting.  You pick your address and theme, and scour google for a wordpress theme to use with it (if you want).

Examples - Team Websites on Wordpress:

• The Paintball Kings
• Nova Paintball

Premium Services

Monkhouse Hosting offers three options: Create Site, Create Blog, or Create PhotoGallery.  If it is a site you plan on continuously updating then go with the "blog" option, if not then opt for "site."  I haven't looked too much into this service, but from the quick glimpse I got it looks to be fairly easy to use.

Squarspace is an $8 a month website hosting and creation service that has been making an impact on how websites are made online.  With loads of themes and features, squarspace is deffinetely a service you should consider.

Which Service Should You Use?

It all depends on the amount of time or money you are willing to spend.  Most of the premium services cost because they simplify the creation process.  However, from what I've seen many paintball teams do just fine using free services such as Blogger and Wordpress. I recommend you give them a try first, and if you don't like blogger or wordpress you can always transfer your site to Squarspace using their "Transfer a blog" feature.

Of course there are plenty of other options out there than than what is discussed above. It'd be interesting to hear what services some of you "established" teams are using.  What service does your team use? Let me know in a comment below!