Fixing Your Club Website

Practical, platform-specific fixes for each of the five lenses the club audit checks.

Findability

Can a local, searching on their phone, actually find you?

  • Claim and complete your Google Business Profile. Fill in every field: category, hours, phone, website, photos. This is the single highest-value fix, since it is what shows up when someone searches "Rotary [your town]".
  • Keep your club's name, address and phone number identical everywhere: website, Google Business Profile, Facebook, and any directory listing. Inconsistent details confuse both people and search engines.
  • Give your homepage a proper title: town name + "Rotary" + a keyword or two (for example, "Rotary Club of Newcastle | Service Club Newcastle NSW").
  • Write a meta description for your homepage. Treat it like ad copy: one or two sentences that make someone want to click.
  • Use exactly one H1 heading per page, and use it for the actual page title, not a logo or slogan.
  • Add Open Graph tags so a Facebook link preview shows the right title, description and image, rather than a blank or wrong thumbnail.
  • Add LocalBusiness or Organization schema, plus Event schema for your meetings, so search engines understand what you are and when you meet.
  • Submit a sitemap and set up Google Search Console so you can see how you appear in search and catch indexing problems early.
Platform notes. WordPress: install an SEO plugin such as Yoast SEO or RankMath. It handles page titles, meta descriptions, Open Graph tags, schema markup and sitemap generation from one screen. EzySite/DACdb: EzySite renders much of the page body with JavaScript, which search engines and link-preview crawlers struggle with. Set titles and meta descriptions server-side wherever DACdb allows it, and lean harder on your Google Business Profile and Facebook page to carry findability. Ask DACdb support what server-side SEO fields your EzySite version exposes. Wix: use the built-in Wix SEO settings panel and run through the Wix SEO Setup Checklist for each page.

Compliance

Is the site legitimate, safe, and usable by everyone?

  • Use the current Rotary masterbrand logo and official colours. See the Rotary Brand Centre and this portal's Brand Guidelines page.
  • Add alt text to every image, so screen readers and search engines both understand what is shown.
  • Label every button and carousel control (not just an arrow icon with no text alternative).
  • Keep heading order logical: H1, then H2, then H3, without skipping levels.
  • Check colour contrast. Rotary Royal Blue (#17458F) on white passes contrast requirements for body text; Rotary Gold (#F7A81B) on white does not; use gold sparingly, for accents rather than paragraph text.
  • Serve the site over HTTPS, not HTTP.
  • Publish a privacy or cookie notice if the site collects any personal information, including through a contact or enquiry form.
  • If the club solicits donations, disclose your ABN and how funds are used.
  • Publish a youth safeguarding statement. See the District Youth Protection resources for wording clubs can adapt.
  • Get signed written permission from everyone identifiable in a photo before you publish it, as Rotary brand guidance requires. This matters most for photos that include children or young people.
Checking your own site. The audit uses an automated accessibility engine called axe-core. You can run the same style of check yourself for free with the WAVE or axe browser extensions before you ask for a re-audit.

Attractiveness

Does the site look good and welcoming to someone who has never met a Rotarian?

  • Lead the homepage with a hero that shows impact (people, projects, community), not just a large logo.
  • Add a stat band: members, years serving the community, funds raised, projects delivered.
  • Use genuine photos that pass the "mirror test": a visitor should be able to picture themselves fitting in. Show a range of ages, women, families, and candid moments, not only formal group photos at a lectern.
  • Compress images before you upload them. Aim for under roughly 300KB per photo. Squoosh is a free, simple tool for this.
  • Design mobile-first. Most visitors will land on a phone, so check the site on a real phone, not just by resizing a desktop browser window.
  • Use plain-English navigation labels. A visitor does not know what "Fellowship" or "Vocational Service" means; use labels like "About Us", "Our Projects", "Join Us".
  • Include the content sections Rotary recommends: club news and updates, a short "What is Rotary?" explainer for people who have never heard of it, meeting time and location, an event calendar, and clear "get involved" options.
  • Use the free, professional People of Action photos, videos and banners from the Rotary Brand Center rather than generic stock images.
Platform notes. WordPress: most image plugins (or the theme's media settings) can bulk-compress on upload; check your theme's menu builder supports plain-language labels and dropdowns. EzySite/DACdb: compress images before upload, since EzySite does limited automatic optimisation; keep the DACdb navigation menu short and renamed away from DACdb's default jargon. Wix: Wix compresses images automatically on upload, but starting with a smaller file still speeds up load time; use the Wix Menu Manager to rename navigation items.

Currency

Does the site look alive, or abandoned?

  • Update the footer copyright year at the start of each calendar year.
  • Update committee and programme content after the 1 July Rotary year rollover: new president, new board, new programme focus.
  • Only list events that are genuinely upcoming. Remove or archive past events promptly.
  • Publish a news post or update at least monthly, even a short one, so the site shows recent activity.
  • Remove stale or duplicate downloads (old newsletters, superseded flyers, expired forms).
  • Add the Rotary RSS feed (rotary.org/rss.xml) so global Rotary news updates on your site automatically, keeping it fresh between your own posts.

Conversion

Can an interested visitor actually act on their interest?

  • Provide a one-click "Join Us" page. State plainly that no invitation is needed. Answer cost, time commitment, and expected attendance honestly, since vague or missing answers make people assume the worst.
  • Offer a ladder of lower-commitment entry points before "become a member": attend a meeting as a guest, come to a working bee, follow on social media, subscribe to a newsletter.
  • Include a few genuine member quotes, in their own words, about why they joined and what they get out of it.
  • Repeat one clear call to action in both the header and footer of every page (for example, "Join Us" or "Come Along").
  • Provide a working enquiry form that delivers to a monitored inbox, with a named contact and an expected reply time.
  • Give meeting details a complete stranger could act on without asking anyone: day, time, venue, a map link, parking notes, and what to expect on a first visit.

Good examples in our district

A few District 9660 clubs whose websites are worth a look for ideas and inspiration:

Get step-by-step help from Claude

Every audit report includes a ready-to-paste Claude prompt, pre-filled with your club's specific findings from the audit. Paste it into claude.ai (free to use) and it will walk you through each fix in plain language, in priority order, tailored to your platform.

Have not been audited yet? Request one by emailing keiran.rodgers@rotary9660.org.au or raising a ticket at support.rotary9660.org.au. See the Club Website and Social Media Audit page for what the audit covers and what you receive.