Looking to Create a Scouting Web Site? 

Here are some tips:

  1. Don't do it all yourself.  Pick a system that allows for several parents in the pack/troop to change the content and upload photos.
  2. Change the content frequently!  Keep parents and scouts coming back to the site by adding photos, keeping a calendar up to date, and putting links to interesting articles on the site.
  3. Don't pay more than a few dollars per month, if anything at all.  There are free choices out there that we'll talk about below.  Try those out first.  If those don't give you all the features you want, then choose a web hosting company that gives you those. 

You Said Something About a Free Site?!

Yes.  Shutterfly.com, the online photo site, has free sharing sites -- all you have to do is sign up for a free Shutterfly account.  You can assign other parents or pack/troop leaders to be content editors, photo uploaders, or other managers of the site so that no one person has to do it all.  You can even share photos, share videos, calendars, journals, rosters and schedules.

If That's Free, Why Would I Choose Something Else?

Some packs/troops want more features that Shutterfly can't provide:

  • Your own domain name (e.g., pack123.org, instead of pack123.shutterfly.com).
  • Email addresses (e.g., scoutmaster@pack123.org) for leaders.
  • More control and customization of the web site.

In those cases, you are better off choosing a good, low-cost web host, such as Bluehost.com.  They offer unlimited disk storage, unlimited domains, unlimited bandwidth, ftp access, 2,500 email addresses, cPanel, and Simple Scripts web site software installer.  This scoutwebsites.org domain is hosted on Bluehost, and this particular site itself was created with Simple Scripts in under 5 minutes.  Adding the content took longer, but the framework was there in very little time.  The cost is typically less than $100 per year for the pack/troop for this approach.