Creating a Scout website
A website can be a great, cost effective way to promote your Group or District. Its worth considering before starting, the scope of the website, who it will be aimed at and who will be responsible for keeping it updated.
The Scout Association have a guide for helping to setup your own website.
We've provided some additional hints and tips below.
Domain names - your website address
Your domain name is your address on the internet. Its normally worth choosing a simple, short, easily memorable name. For example 'hextablescouts.org.uk', '1stdartford.org.uk'. The extension is the part after the domain name e.g. .com, .co.uk. For Scouting websites this should normally be .org.uk which indicates a Group in the UK.
You can check your domains availability and find providers at https://theukdomain.uk. A UK domain name will normally cost approximately £12 per year.
When registering your domain name it is important to register it to the 'Group' or 'District' and not an individual. This can be important in recovering your domain name down the line if people move on and access to the domain name is lost.
Website hosting - where your website is stored
To accompany your domain name, you will normally require a hosting account. This is where your website is stored and may also be used for bespoke email addresses - e.g. info@xyzscouts.org.uk. Your domain name is the pointed to your hosting account to connect things up.
Many domain name providers will also offer a hosting package where you can then load your website files. Alternatively you may use a website builder and point your domain using the details they give you.
The amount of hosting space you need will depend on how much content you hold on your website and if you are hosting email addresses - you can normally start small and increase the space over time as required. 1gb of space is normally plenty for a Scouting website.
Kent Scouts use hosting from Spectulise Ltd (run by a Kent leader) and Digital Ocean. Some providers will offer charity discounts - so its worth checking!
Building your website
There are lots of different ways to build a site depending on the technical ability of those maintaining the website.
WordPress is a popular content management system which can be installed on most hosting accounts and once setup will allow multiple people to edit the website.
There are also preconfigured systems available, setup, ready for your content, meaning you don't need to worry about the technical setup. The Kent Scouts website is created using Conceptulise which has a number of preconfigured Scouting themes. For Groups in Kent, Conceptulise is offered with a 50% discount. There are other similar systems also available.
Branding
In designing your website, you should make sure it follows the Scout Branding guidelines.
Using images - Copyright
When sourcing images for websites the appropriate permissions should be in place for you reproduce the image.
Two easy ways to do this:
- Use local / internal images - Use photos where you or someone you know took the photo. You should ensure the correct ‘image
release’ is in place for anyone pictured in the image. You can also find images available for Scouting use in the National and Kent Scout image libraries. - Use royalty free photography - If you’re looking for a photo or illustration to accompany a specific theme, there are many image banks online that you can search for licensed photography from. This normally gives a royalty free license allowing the image to be published and
reused by the organisation licensing the image (although you should check the terms). Examples of royalty free providers:
Why can't I just use Google images?
Services like Google images simply provide a photography search engine, returning photos from across the Internet, based on the most relevant results. There is no implied permission to use an image that appears in the results. Images found in this way shouldn’t be used unless explicit permission can be sought from the original copyright holder of the image. The site may have paid a license to use the image which gives them permission to use, but no-one else.
If you need help or advice please contact our website team who will be happy to help.
