Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of making specific tweaks to the words and structure of your website in order to help it rank higher in Google search results.  It’s a long and complex process, but it’s critical to getting your site found online.

Luckily, VNN has put together a handy dandy cheatsheet of some things you can do right now to make a big improvement to your SEO.

1. Titles:
Use your school name and the name of the sport in the title of your article.  

Example: “Forest Hills Northern football takes down Grand Rapids Christian” is a great, search-engine-friendly title to an article.  Search engines don’t know that you’re writing directly for your school, so you need to write your titles like you’re writing for a worldwide audience if you want Google to find your story.  (Exception: Don’t force it where it doesn’t fit.  If you write like a robot you risk losing your human audience.)

2. Tags:
Use tags religiously, but keep them short.

Example: “Volleyball” is a good tag.  ”East Kentwood Volleyball” is a bad tag.  Names are also great tags, so “Betsy Smith” works too.  Search engines look to the tags to properly index your article, so be sure that you’re using them (hint: they’re on the right side of the screen when you write an article).

3. Links:
Link your district website to your VNN site.

Example: When you click “Athletics” on your district website, it should go directly to your VNN website via what’s called a “301 Redirect” (ask your tech department).  Search engines transfer clout from one website to the next via links, so having multiple sites link to one another helps raise the search engine love for all sites.

Follow the three steps above, and watch as the traffic to your site increases.

About the Simple Sports Marketing series

Varsity News Network helps clients successfully market their athletic departments online.  There is a ton you can do, but there are only 24 hours in a day.  The Simple Sports Marketing series makes it easy to prioritize what you do with the time you do have, to help you get the most bang for your buck.

If you’re not proactively marketing your athletic program through VNN, what are you waiting for?  Learn more

When Saline High School (SHS) Athletic Director Rob White has important information to give to his community, he wants the exchange to be quick and easy. To White, a website filled with twists and turns that confuse parents and fans is simply unacceptable.

His original idea was bold. White wanted Saline’s athletic website to rival that of the University of Michigan’s. To get there, White reached out to Varsity News Network (VNN) to supercharge Salinehornets.com.

VNN, a Grand Rapids based-company founded in 2010, offers high schools an online athletic system that not only makes things like schedules and directions easily accessible, but also incorporates sports journalism, setting a foundation for students to report on their school’s athletic programs. VNN is like ESPN.com for high schools.

This added journalistic perspective was especially important to White, due to the diminishing coverage Saline’s non-football sports had received.

Increasing coverage for student athletes

Saline, a town with a population around 9,000 people, is twenty miles away from Ann Arbor. Saline High School used to rely on Annarbor.com as the only source of sports coverage. This worked until Annarbor.com began cutting back on their staff, and in turn, cutting back on their high school sports coverage.

White grew tired of seeing his athletes’ stories fall through the cracks.

“Our JV soccer team had played 12 games without giving up a single goal, and nobody knew about it,” White said. “AnnArbor.com didn’t give them recognition, so we needed to do this ourselves.”

With a goal of covering all sports, paired with the VNN software system, all White had to do was find his sports journalists.

Sports journalism independent study

Saline no longer had a high school newspaper due to low enrollment, so White collaborated with the English department to develop an independent study class in sports journalism. It took off immediately.

Four student athletes jumped on the opportunity to cover sports for credit, and have since been responsible for covering all sports at Saline. After dividing up the events according to a calendar, each student’s class involves covering 2-3 games per week. They post articles, photos, and videos to SalineHornets.com and are graded (pass/fail) on a weekly basis.

White runs the sports journalism class seamlessly through VNN. The result has been constant media coverage of all 32 sports teams and the 1300 athletes they represent. More coverage than any other school in the area.

Saving time with proactive communication

VNN has also made it easier for coaches and parents to find the information they need. All of Saline’s athletic forms are well organized on SalineHornets.com, as are the schedules, rosters, and the latest scores for every Saline team. Visitors can keep up to date with the latest Saline news on Facebook and Twitter, or stay connected with a daily email newsletter, outreach which happens automatically through VNN. Articles from the local paper automatically fed into the website, making SalineHornets.com the one stop hub for information about Saline sports.

White has found that proactive communication means far less phone calls from people asking the same old questions. Where is the game? How much money do tickets cost? What was the score of last night’s game? These phone calls have all but disappeared, leaving White more time to spend with student athletes.

I just think about what I would want to see if I were a parent or fan, and I make sure it’s on our site,” White explains. “With VNN, we have the best website around.”

See what goes on behind the scenes at Forest Hills Central when Maranda visits the Rangers’ journalism class.  She also talks to VNN Co-Founder Ryan Vaughn about the benefits of becoming part of the ‘Network’ and the positive exposure that it gives to all sports.

With a full sports calendar year under the belt of VNN now,  the Michigan based company that set up shop in West Michigan is now expanding it’s horizons and moving across other regions in the state.  The first east side school to join the network is Saline.  Just about 10 minutes south of Ann Arbor, Saline High School has exploded in growth over the past 15 years.  In 1996, the school had just over 900 students.  Today, the Hornets are double that size and their Athletics program has seen the same type of growth.

The Hornets previously had a website that was cutting edge but they wanted to take what they were doing well and take it to the next level.  Athletic Director Rob White recently did an interview with an online local newspaper, the Saline-Milan Patch and had this to say.  ”Technology continues to change and it provides us more opportunities.”

When AnnArbor.com cut back on its sports coverage, White saw a need that wasn’t being met.

“High school sports coverage isn’t where I’d like to see it—especially for some of the less mainstream sports like tennis, water polo or lacrosse. We wanted a site that would help bring our athletes the recognition they deserve,” White said.

White has big plans for the site this year which was quoted in the article as well, “Starting this fall, aspiring writers, journalists, videographers and photographers from Saline High School will be on the sidelines taking notes, asking questions and shooting pictures and video. White hopes the students will cover four or five athletic events each week. Students will do the work for extra credit.”

The Hornets also will be making a big push to promote and integrate their own spirit store, where parents can purchase Hornets clothing, gear and accessories in just a few clicks.

Saline is just one example of a school utilizing all of the efforts we have put forth to develop new features on a monthly basis.  The network is growing in coverage and in capabilities.  Saline will also be using the site as an informational tool for vital programs, such as Pay to Play and online handbooks for coaches and parents.

White finished the article with this quote that sums it up, “I think it will make things more convenient for parents, for the coaches, for the students and the parents.”

Thanks Rob, this gives great meaning to the old Field of Dreams mantra, “If you build it they will come.”  Yes and in the the case of Saline, they will not only come but when they get here, they will take full advantage of all the tools and pump out a winner that leads by example.

The Varsity News Network recently awarded the Scholar Athlete/Journalist Scholarship award to Ranger Senior Gabby Saldivia. The Varsity News Network established the scholarship in order to honor a Senior Athlete who also participated in writing articles for FHCRangers.com. When looking for a senior to honor the decision for teacher Ken George and Athletic Director Bill Kennedy was an easy one.

“I remember seeing Gabby at a number of events working late in to the night in frigid temps. I was really excited to see someone taking the job of getting articles done for the site so seriously.” said Kennedy.

Gabby also loved to see the change from a class run website to the now more formal FHCRangers site. “It is such a great looking site and we really felt like the student body got into it with the connection with Facebook.” She also noted “Even though we had assignments to get done, it never really felt like work.”

Gabby will use the $500 award towards her studies at Michigan State next fall were she plans on getting involved with writing.

For more information on the Varsity News Network, contact us today!

This post was originally written on VNN Co-Founder Ryan H. Vaughn’s blog.

The education system in Michigan is struggling right now, thanks to budget cuts of hundreds of dollars per student.  This puts the onus on educators to make some very tough decisions about what is important for a student to learn, and who should a “successful high school student” be upon graduation.

Priorities have long ago been established that a graduate should be able to read, write and perform mathematic calculations at a basic level.  Much lower on the perceived scale of importance, school sports are often among the first educational tools that schools discuss cutting.

As a former high school athlete, I look back at my brief career in jerseys and sneakers as the origin of much of who I am today.  My competitive drive, my discipline, and any leadership abilities that I can claim all stem directly from my time on the hardwood.  Anything important in today’s world can only be accomplished with a team, and you certainly don’t learn how to function as part of a team, much less build and manage a team, from a book.

One of the most important thinkers in today’s economy, Seth Godin, wrote a blog post recently on what he thought we ought to be teaching high school students.  All but three (reading critically, the scientific method, personal finance) are most directly learned through participating in a team sport:

• How to focus intently on a problem until it’s solved.
• The benefit of postponing short-term satisfaction in exchange for long-term success.
• How to read critically.
• The power of being able to lead groups of peers without receiving clear delegated authority.
• An understanding of the extraordinary power of the scientific method, in just about any situation or endeavor.
• How to persuasively present ideas in multiple forms, especially in writing and before a group.
• Project management. Self-management and the management of ideas, projects and people.
• Personal finance. Understanding the truth about money and debt and leverage.
• An insatiable desire (and the ability) to learn more. Forever.
• Most of all, the self-reliance that comes from understanding that relentless hard work can be applied to solve problems worth solving.

Sports can teach us so much, and for most of us without a 50″ vertical leap we have only four years to soak it all in before that opportunity is gone.

Or we can choose to eliminate school sports because of budget cuts.  And then we’ll need to learn how to lead a team in math class.

For more information on the Varsity News Network, contact us today!

EastGRsports.com generates 5400+ page views per month, $3,500 profit through one semester.

Fresh off their 115th state championship, East Grand Rapids Athletic Director Scott Robertson was approached by West Michigan based company Varsity News Network.  VNN was developing a new sports information system and wanted to offer EGR a test drive.

Sports information is the process through which an athletic department communicates with their community.  Considering the amount and the variety of different stakeholders in an athletic community, managing a successful sports information initiative at the high school level is a difficult task.

With the amount of pressure on Pioneer athletics to consistently be the best, VNN knew that if their system worked at EGR, it could work anywhere.

“Apart from some small sport-specific sites that came and went over the years, we didn’t do any real sports information.  We didn’t think we had the resources to do it, but working with VNN brought all the pieces together.”

It takes a team to run a successful sports information initiative, and like most high school athletic directors Robertson was a one-man show.  He knew he wouldn’t be able to run the site from within the athletic department.  Working with Varsity News Network, Robertson was able to successfully integrate three separate resources into one sports information system: the East Grand Rapids Athletic Boosters, coaches, and journalism program.

VNN’s system allowed for easy coordination of the athletic boosters writing stories about Pioneer athletics and posting them to East Grand Rapids’ new VNN website, EastGRsports.com. Interested parents were also able to easily manage individual teams’ roster, schedule and more, all from the same place.

“The VNN software was really simple to learn.  Once the first couple volunteers got on board, word spread and the recruiting process became much easier.  We have parents writing stories about a number of our sports now, all coordinated on the same platform.”

Coaches at East Grand Rapids, meanwhile, were already overworked, so Robertson was hesitant to ask them to do one more thing.  But VNN’s software made it easier and quicker for coaches to report their game results accurately to local newspapers and television stations, while simultaneously supplying EastGRsports.com with fresh stories.

The journalism class was also invited to cover Pioneer athletics. Students were able to independently access the VNN system to submit articles and videos seamlessly, which they were then able to add to their portfolio of published work.

“Working on EastGRsports.com has been a great opportunity for students.  They can develop their skills on the latest technology, and we get to showcase our students’ academic achievements too. We were also able to put controls in place so that students could write articles, but we could review them before they were published.”

With a large number of constituents involved, EastGRsports.com took off quickly.  In its first semester the site garnered over 5,000 page views per month (enrollment is about 1,000). The site quickly became the online athletic resource the community had been searching for.

“Our VNN site is kind of like the technological equivalent of a barber shop.  It’s a gathering place for the East athletic community. After only a semester, I’d bet that nearly everyone within the school and a large chunk of the community has visited EastGRsports.com.  Not only have we gotten great feedback from visitors, many are even contributing.”

With the immediate popularity of EastGRsports.com, it was easy for Robertson and VNN to engage community businesses to sponsor the site.  A portion of the revenue from sponsorships went directly to the athletic department.  In the site’s first semester Robertson was able to pay for the VNN program, while also generating over $3,500 in profit through sponsorships.

East Grand Rapids high school had no formal sports information process prior to working with VNN.  Through the VNN system, East Grand Rapids now keeps their community

informed and involved in athletics, in an environment that places all sports on equal footing.

“The perception is that football is somehow a bigger sport, thanks to the media attention it gets.  Our VNN site makes it easy to give that kind of recognition to every sport, and promote all of our athletes to the larger community.”

East Grand Rapids high school plans to use Varsity News Network for sports information in 2011 and beyond.

For more information on the Varsity News Network, contact us today!

FHC HS athletics works with journalism class to rally Ranger Nation around FHCRangers.com

Forest Hills Central (FHC) Athletic Director Bill Kennedy has one goal: to create the most positive athletic experience possible for his student athletes. He believes that in order to create that experience it takes widespread community involvement, organized around that common goal.

With 900 athletes and a student body of 1,300, accompanied a large community stretching over several cities, Bill knew FHC had their work cut out for them.

“Our athletic programs all had their own websites ran by their coaches,” said Kennedy. “Our first time putting our sports teams online, we used [separate] sites to post practice information, bus departures, pay to play, etc.” This separation between sport websites online reinforced a feeling of separation between sports offline. Committed to overcoming this separation, in his first year as Athletic Director Bill decided to work with the Varsity News Network (VNN) to build FHCRangers.com, the official website of FHC athletics.

VNN, a Grand Rapids-based company founded in 2010, develops online sports information systems through which high schools can celebrate athletes from every sport.

Using the simple VNN publishing technology, Bill and the FHC journalism class were able to easily publish stories and pictures about all of their sporting events, athletes and teams. The dynamic FHCRangers.com website was an immediate hit amongst the Forest Hills Central community, drawing at times 300 views per day during its first season of existence.

The Forest Edge

School newspaper advisor and varsity basketball coach Ken George saw VNN as a portal for his students to obtain a real-world media experience in their own classroom. As newspapers continue to transition online, VNN offered a way to mirror that transition in an academic setting, and George did so by assigning his students to cover all home matches for every sport.

For more information on the Varsity News Network, contact us today!