Skip to content
Media, Branding & Outreach·Lesson 11 of 29

Building & Maintaining a Team Website

Choose a platform, structure your site for the audiences that matter (sponsors, recruits, judges), and keep it alive year over year.

Sign in to track progress, earn XP, and save lessons.

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; for example, Team 1418 (Vae Victis, Falls Church, VA) runs 1418.team on GitHub Pages with Jekyll, built from the frc1418 GitHub organization. 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

Go deeper

Lesson quiz

Required

Answer all 3 questions correctly to complete this lesson.

1.Which audiences should an FRC team's website be designed to serve?

2.A strong, well-documented online presence most directly supports a team's case for which FRC award?

3.What practical contact element makes a team website more useful to sponsors and supporters?

Answer every question to submit.