The Importance of a Good Professional Wrestling Website
How many times have we as fans complained that a company’s website isn’t up to date? Obviously, as usual, I’m not referring to the WWE or TNA. I’m talking about all of the many, hundreds of independent wrestling companies across the United States.
Wrestling is a weird industry. It’s one of the few remaining entertainment mediums that rely heavily on paper flyering as one of its biggest forms of advertising. Clearly, somewhere along the way, many independent wrestling companies’ promoters have lost touch with what century we’re in. While paper flyering is cheap and easy, it can’t replace the importance of a well-run website.
A website is a wrestling company’s furthest reaching advertising medium. Local TV ads, flyering, Twitter, and Facebook are all very good tools, but in the end, your average wrestling fan has the simplest time accessing a promotion’s product by easily finding the company’s website.
All wrestling websites should have 3 essential things:
- An Upcoming Events/Dates Section
- A Results Section
- A Roster Page
Anything else is a great bonus, but these are the three items that a wrestling company NEEDS on their site to assist in promoting their shows.
The upcoming events/dates section is one of the first things that Average Joe fan looks at when visiting a wrestling website. If there are no upcoming dates listed, it’s quite easy to assume the company is defunct, after all, how many promotions have gone under in the time you’ve been watching wrestling? A list of upcoming events (if available/known) are fantastic, but realistically, just having the next show listed immediately after the previous event is enough. The upcoming events should not only contain the date of the event, but the location, time, and as much of the card as possible. You’d be shocked by how many times short-sighted promoters have killed possible attendance numbers by not advertising big names coming in and/or dropping the ball on announcing matches for the event.
The results section is an often overlooked page by even some of the best wrestling companies. I believe their thinking is that there are so many wrestling news sites that report results that they don’t feel the need to update this section. This is quite frankly unacceptable for a lot of fans, especially new ones to the product. If a fan has to go searching for results from previous shows to see what to expect at an upcoming show, they’ll probably lose interest and move on to another company. Believe me when I tell you it helps Average Joe fan to look at a company’s website and see that someone like Michael Elgin appeared on the last show and won a classic match vs. another star like Kyle O’Reilly. Give the fans some optimism with the results so that they know they’re checking out a company that is willing to go the extra mile with their shows based on past performances.
A roster page is another essential part of any wrestling website that MOST companies do not hesitate to add to their website initially. Unfortunately it’s rare that this page stays up to date. This page should list the current champions as well as the core roster. Pictures of the wrestlers would be ideal, but work with what’s available. This is also one of the first places that a potential fan looks when deciding whether to invest time and money into a company. All it could take is them noticing a wrestler they’re particularly interested in, thus making the decision to attend a show. Much like so many other things in wrestling, it’s a domino effect.
If you’re a professional wrestling promoter and you’re dead set in your ways of flyering every parking lot, convention center, telephone pole, and store window that you can find, far be it for me to tell you not to. What I would encourage you to do is get a scanned copy of that flyer and stick it on your website (upcoming events section) and share that flyer (which should have the website address, Twitter, and Facebook pages listed) absolutely everywhere. Find websites, forums, and online hang outs for wrestling fans and share, share, share.
Unfortunately this article may fall on deaf ears for those of you who already update your websites and advertise your shows in the smartest ways possible, but hey, for the dinosaurs of the world (we all know some) perhaps you’ll take a little friendly advice and use every potential medium available to deliver your company to a larger audience. #SupportIndyWrestling
Want a couple of examples of what a good wrestling website looks like? Well here ya go:
DREAMWAVE Wrestling has an absolutely amazing website. It has great colors, a great design and it’s very simple to navigate. Not only that, the flyers they use to promote their shows are incredible. You can visit it here- http://dreamwavewrestling.com/
Vanguard Wrestling All-Star Alliance is another company with a very good website. It’s up to date, catchy to the eye, and contains all of the necessary elements for a good wrestling website- http://www.vwaawrestling.com/
Want to discuss this article? Tweet me @PhenomenalTLD or email me at PhenomenalTLD@gmail.com
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Indy Power Rankings for the Week of September 16th, 2013:
1. ‘Money’ Matt Cage
2. Uhaa Nation
3. Benjamin Kimera
4. Michael Elgin
5. Isys Ephex
6. Drew Gulak
7. Biff Busick
8. Ricochet
9. Eddie Kingston
10. Team CK (Sean Carr & Kage)