Websites / A practical guide
What should a golf club
website project include?
A clear brief covers the visitor journey, content, design, connections, search, ownership and launch. Agreeing those things early gives your club and its website partner a useful starting point.
Start with the job the website needs to do.
A website project should start with your club's priorities. You may need more visitor bookings, clearer membership enquiries or a better route for society organisers. Agree which journeys matter before discussing layouts.
Give each journey a useful next step and identify who at the club will handle the response. A good brief explains what success would look like, without promising a result the website alone cannot deliver.
Make the different journeys easy to follow.
Prospective members, visitors and society organisers arrive with different questions. Plan the pages around the information each needs: what is available, what the experience includes and how to enquire or book.
Start with an inventory of the existing site. Decide what to keep, combine, rewrite or retire. If you change a URL, include its destination in the migration plan rather than leaving old links behind.
Agree the words and imagery as part of the build.
Ask who will write the copy, supply photographs, organise filming and approve the work. These are part of making the site useful, not details to solve at the end.
Your club's identity should carry through the page designs. Choose imagery that helps someone understand the place and experience. Include formats and usage rights in the brief so your team knows where the assets can be used.
Be precise about bookings and enquiries.
A link to a booking platform, an embedded form and a direct system integration are different pieces of work. Ask which approach is included and what the visitor will experience.
For enquiries, agree the receiving team, the information collected, the confirmation message and the follow-up responsibility. If CRM or a website assistant is part of the plan, check its scope and supported connections explicitly.
Include search and migration in the scope.
Discuss page titles, helpful headings, useful answers and links between related pages. Important information should be available as readable page content, with photographs and video supporting the explanation.
Decide whether the project keeps every visible URL or changes some of them. A hosting-only move needs a tested copy, a controlled DNS change and monitoring of the old and new hosting. A changed-URL move also needs a current-to-new URL map, permanent redirects, updated internal links and canonicals, and a new sitemap. Rankings and inclusion in AI answers should not be promised.
Put ownership and recovery in writing.
A supplier change needs more than a folder of files. For every transfer, name the outgoing owner, the receiving owner, the evidence being handed over, the acceptance test and the person to contact if the transfer fails.
Use the register below to agree domain, content, customer routes, access, support and launch responsibilities. Replace role descriptions with named people before sign-off.
Test the full journey before launch.
Review the site on desktop and mobile. Follow the important routes, submit test enquiries, check where they arrive and confirm what happens when a form fails.
Check existing links, redirects, video controls and keyboard access. Make someone responsible for the launch decision and early monitoring. A finished design is one part of the handover; the website also needs to work for the people visiting it and the team receiving the interest.
Supplier handover register
Give every handover item an owner and an acceptance test.
Copy these eight items into your project plan. Complete every field with the outgoing supplier, receiving supplier and club team; a file is not handed over until its receiving owner has accepted it.
Treat a hosting-only move and a changed-URL move as different jobs. Google’s guidance for a hosting change with the same visible URLs focuses on testing the new hosting, changing DNS, monitoring both hosts and delaying shutdown. Its separate guidance for a move with URL changes adds URL mapping, permanent redirects, updated canonicals and internal links, a new sitemap and monitoring.
Domain, DNS and hosting control
- Outgoing owner
- Name the account holder who can grant or transfer access to the registrar, DNS and current hosting.
- Receiving owner
- Name the person responsible for the new hosting and any agreed DNS change.
- Evidence
- Verified account access, a current DNS record export, hosting details and support contacts.
- Acceptance
- The club can access the registrar; the receiving owner can reach the agreed hosting; the required DNS records are recorded and checked.
- Recovery or escalation
- Keep the current host and its support route available until the move is accepted. Record who can reverse or correct a DNS change.
URLs, content and redirects
- Outgoing owner
- Supply the current page, file and media URL inventory, including any existing redirects.
- Receiving owner
- Own the content decision, URL map and redirect configuration for every changed address.
- Evidence
- A current-to-new URL register showing what stays, moves, combines or retires, with a named redirect owner.
- Acceptance
- For changed URLs, test each old address against its relevant new destination, then check new-page canonicals, internal links and the sitemap. If visible URLs stay the same, mark the URL-map work not applicable and use the hosting-only plan.
- Recovery or escalation
- Keep the original inventory and a named route for correcting redirects, missing content or unexpected error responses.
Copy, photography and film
- Outgoing owner
- Identify the source files, current locations, creators and any known usage conditions.
- Receiving owner
- Confirm who stores, publishes and approves each asset after handover.
- Evidence
- An asset register with editable originals where supplied, published versions, credits, usage rights and expiry or territory limits where relevant.
- Acceptance
- Required copy and assets open in the agreed formats, match the register and have an approval or rights record.
- Recovery or escalation
- Record who can replace an unavailable or disputed asset and where the approved previous version is held.
Booking and action routes
- Outgoing owner
- List every booking link, embedded form, export and supported connection, using the precise type for each.
- Receiving owner
- Name who configures and checks each visitor route on the new site.
- Evidence
- Destination URLs, embed or connection scope, required access and the expected visitor outcome.
- Acceptance
- Follow each route on desktop and mobile and confirm the visitor reaches the agreed external page, form or supported connection state.
- Recovery or escalation
- Name the supplier or club contact who can restore a previous link or provide the agreed fallback route.
Enquiries and follow-up
- Outgoing owner
- Document where each form or enquiry route currently sends information and the confirmation a visitor sees.
- Receiving owner
- Name the club team or person who will receive and own each type of enquiry.
- Evidence
- Field list, destination, confirmation copy, access requirements and agreed follow-up responsibility.
- Acceptance
- Use agreed test details to check validation, confirmation and receipt with the named owner before launch.
- Recovery or escalation
- Record the escalation contact and an approved alternative contact route for a failed or delayed enquiry path.
Analytics, consent and search access
- Outgoing owner
- Identify the current analytics, consent and search properties, their account owners and any handover restrictions.
- Receiving owner
- Name who will retain or receive the access needed for the agreed measurement and search checks.
- Evidence
- Property IDs, access-role record, consent configuration, verification method and handover status. Do not include passwords in the register.
- Acceptance
- The named owners can access the agreed properties; required verification remains in place; the live consent state matches the approved configuration.
- Recovery or escalation
- Keep a named account administrator and platform support route for lost access or broken verification.
Editing, training and support
- Outgoing owner
- Explain the current editing access, maintenance responsibilities and any work that still needs supplier help.
- Receiving owner
- Name the people who will edit, approve and support the site after handover.
- Evidence
- Role-based access, training material, support contact, response arrangement and the recorded scope of ongoing care.
- Acceptance
- Each named person can complete the agreed editing task and knows how to request support without sharing another person's account.
- Recovery or escalation
- Record the access administrator, urgent support route and the approved method for restoring content or permissions.
Launch acceptance and monitoring
- Outgoing owner
- Remain available for the agreed transfer checks and any evidence only the current supplier can provide.
- Receiving owner
- Name the launch decision-maker and the owners for early technical, content and customer-route checks.
- Evidence
- An acceptance list covering priority journeys, mobile, keyboard access, links, redirects where required, canonicals, sitemap, intended robots.txt rules, temporary crawl or noindex blocks, forms and monitoring owners.
- Acceptance
- For hosting-only and changed-URL moves, verify the intended robots.txt rules, remove temporary crawl blocks and HTML or HTTP noindex rules, then check the live URLs return the expected responses after the switch. The named decision-maker records pass, accepted exception or blocker for every check.
- Recovery or escalation
- Agree the go/no-go contact, correction route and conditions for using the previous hosting or visitor route if a material check fails.
Choose the work first
Still deciding how much needs to change?
Use our guide to deciding whether to improve, redesign or rebuild your golf club website before agreeing the supplier handover.
Your next website
Start with what your club needs.
Capture Sites brings website strategy, design and managed delivery together. We agree the content, journeys, supported connections and ongoing care around your club.