Happy Birthday StLouisPickleball.com!

Happy Birthday StLouisPickleball.com! (pic borrowed from Steve Altis' Pickleball Birthday Cake)

It has just been over a year’s time since we launched StLouisPickleball.com and I am proud to say that this site has become an excellent resource for news, information, communications, questions, pictures, videos, etc. just about everything Pickleball in the St. Louis area. Our analytics show a lot of our success in trying to grow the game locally and throughout the region. Since the time we’ve launched, we’ve had over 15,000 users to the site with 32,000 page views. 54% of users are “new” to the site and 48% of you keep coming back!

Our goal in launching the site was to have a place that was easy for people to find on the internet. A site where folks wanting to learn more about the game could find information and places to play. A site that was professional with a custom logo that would dictate our professionalism as a sport and where key decision makers in communities considering starting the sport could see that we are organized and are serious about the game and the benefits it provides community members.

To that degree we have made a key difference in adding more and more Pickleball programs to various community centers, tennis facilities, and other venues for Pickleball play. I’ve even heard of several people building courts in their own yards and/or painting lines on their driveways for fun family and friend get-togethers. However, there is more work to be done as we are still without a centralized outdoor Pickleball facility. To that extent we do have some construction projects in the works that we hope to announce in the near future, but we could always use more!

We have built out our communications systems on Wiggio.com with our STLPickleball group listserv. We now have over 600 people on this email system that allows for quick broadcasting of Pickleball information. This includes our information about tournaments, events like our Round Robin (see below), and the first nationally televised Pickleball event, the US Open of Pickleball on May 20th at 6pm CST (Charter – 207&821(HD), AT&T-643&1643(HD), DISH-158, DirecTV-221). If you would like to join our Group Listserv, simply email your request to info@StLouisPickleball.com.

Our 2nd Annual StLouisPIckleball Round Robin will be Saturday June 4that Kirkwood Park. This was a great time last year as it really brought together our great St. Louis community of passionate Pickleball players. Please RSVP early as we are limiting it to our first 104 players. Email KathyW@cim-group.com .

So Happy 1st Birthday StLouisPickleball.com! Thanks for all your support of our website and please feel free to make any suggestions for improvements. Thank you for also showing your StLouisPickleball pride by purchasing one of our new StLouisPickleball Shirts with our new logo (pictures below). The proceeds help support the costs of hosting and maintaining the site. We also sell custom logo window decals for your auto’s or other Pickleball items!

Keep coming back to the site and referring others to it. We’ll continue to try to make it a site to be proud of and one that makes an influence on others finding it for the first time. Not too bad for this “webmaster” who is very non-technical and didn’t know anything about building or maintaining a website prior to launching who is also celebrating a birthday of his own today.

See you on the courts soon! Go StLouisPickleball!