Customize Your News Section

Your club should be "fixed up" to suit the topic of the club as much as possible. Perhaps you have a great pic and shiny new club colors, but it takes more than just looks to make a successful club. There has to be substance, and the News section is a great place to start.

Go to your club's News section and you will notice at the top, it gives you the option to personalize it by Content or Layout. Click on content and you will be given an array of choices to pick from. How do you chose?

It depends in great part on the topic of your club. The number one thing to always keep in mind when setting up your club is to make everything appropriate to the club. The majority of clubs should have Bookmarks and News Clipper, as well as Saved Searches, as a minimum. The reason for this is that all these features can be set up to reflect the topic of your club.

Bookmarks is simply links--but only the founders can add to these links. You should put your most important links here, so they won't get lost in the up to 100 links on your links page. News Clipper works like a search engine (perhaps because it is one :P) and finds news articles based on your instructions. You tell it words and phrases to search for and members can find the latest news on the topics you set. Saved Searches is simply search results, using Yahoo Search (which is also a good addition to your news section), that have been saved for future reference.

Other than these basic choices, the rest can be added or left out as your club subject dictates.  You will notice that you have no choice as to which side each feature goes on. This can present a problem with balance; one side may be too long. If you find that the left side looks a little bare, Weather is a relatively innocuous item that can fill the space; whatever you do, get rid of Scoreboard unless your club is sports related.

The Front Page Headlines Section may also be a good item to include if there is a category that relates to your club. It has several news categories and you can probably find a few to include. Net Events is another one to look into.

Once you have edited the content, you should then edit the layout. The most relevant items should be placed nearest the top.