Tuesday, February 18, 2014

The new official Highlanders website impressive

The Highlanders Football Club has taken a positive step in setting up a new website that many have been calling for after the previous one was neglected and not functional. The latest pages are very impressive to the eye and just having that up and running is commendable.

The website is well thought out and well-designed. There is a lot of club colour representation, typically. The black and white stripes dominate the front page and there is no question as to message being portrayed. Besides the excellent slide show of the club pictures, recent and historic, there is a rich photo gallery to enjoy.

The welcome page has a poll that is easy to utilise as one can vote on the matter in question with one single click. The page shows a summary of all top stories as well as the league standings and top goalscorers chart. One can easily leave a comment by introducing themselves and using their e-mail and post without much fuss.

Of course, it can be better in many ways, like the voting poll settings. The poll takes you away from the Highlanders page instead of popping up another tab. There is a little bit too much colour due to the bold and wide borders of black and white on the sides. These eat away too much space for main material. Dealing with that will de-clatter the site and lesson the burden on the eyes.

It still remains to be seen how much up to date the site will be and how much time feedback and response will take from the administrators. While it is not expected to be manned 24/7 due to financial limitations, a turn-around of 24 to 48 hours will be fair.

There is few things also that one can notice; the few advertisements and lack of sponsors. The one bars slides with three of the ads and as you browse below, there is another bar that slides with 'Our Partners'. The  list has a few names that I have no doubt deserve to be there under that banner, but I am not sure of their contribution to the well being of the team.

BancABC are a sure strong partner while I would say the Castle Lager partnership is a loose one given that the breweries sponsor the league. I guess the same can be said with Mbada Diamonds. Adidas could qualify by default since their alliance is mainly with BancABC. I am not sure of any further cash-injection any of the listed 'partners' have made or will make.

In that questionable list is the conspicuous presence of Liverpool and Supersport among others. It could be that they are doing something somewhere that has not been brought to our attention and in that case, it would be a great pleasure to give them visibility on the site which is expected to have a fair share of traffic once the league kicks off and the team performs.

At the time of writing I was the 29605th visitor and many thousands are expected to flock in there for the updates on a daily basis. That is one great feature to have on the website, the views counter as potential web sponsors will want as much traffic to advertise on the site.

I recommend as many photos as possible on the gallery, from 1926 to 2014 if possible and one hopes traffic to the site will swell and fan contribution will be very much visible. Well done Highlanders. God Bless Bosso!

(Visit the website at http://www.highlandersfc.org.zw/)

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