In today’s increasingly tech-mediated world it is absolutely essential that your company or organization have an effective and compelling website. Your website serves as the public face of your organization and in order to place your organization in the best light possible your site needs to be informational, aesthetically pleasing, and user-friendly.
If your website was created more than five years ago and hasn’t seen any significant improvements since then, you may not be engaging your audience in the best way possible and it may be time to develop a new website. If you think your organization’s website could use a serious revamp then here are ten steps to follow in order to build a more successful website.
1. Determine your Objectives
Before you can dive into the nitty-gritty details of your website’s design you need to establish what it is you want your website to do for your organization. Maybe you want to promote services, raise money, build a community of supporters or improve membership rates. Or perhaps your goal is to educate people about an issue, inspire action, increase your visibility and clout or demonstrate your organization’s viability to funders. You may have one simple goal in mind or you may want to achieve all of the goals listed above. Whatever your objective for the website is, it is important to be clear about what the site needs to achieve, being as specific as possible so that you can track the results.
2. Assess Your Site
Now that you’ve set your goals for the website, it’s time to evaluate where your site is already succeeding and where it could use some work. Use the checklist below, rating each statement on a scale of 1-10 to uncover the areas to focus on.
____ 1. Your mission is clear.
____ 2. Addresses the audiences’ needs.
____ 3. Offers multiple points of engagement.
____ 4. Accept the types of donations you want.
____ 5. The design is professional and presents your organization in the best light.
____ 6. Colors are used effectively to represent your brand and aid in navigation.
____ 7. The content is relevant and the language conveys your personality.
____ 8. Photos are used to tell a story and elicit an emotional response.
____ 9. The navigation is clear — visitors can find what they need and know where they are in the site at all times.
____ 10. The site is easy to update.
3. Determine Your Budget and Resources
Building and maintaining a successful website is no easy task, so it’s crucial that you are as organized as possible in terms of how much time, money and staff you are willing to dedicate to the project. Here are some key factors to consider:
- What is the budget allocated for the site?
- Who will create the site or manage the development process?
- What is their level of knowledge?
- Who will keep the site updated?
- What is the approval process (board approval) and how will that be managed?
- When is the site needed?
4. Identify Your Audience and Their Needs
Think about the types of people you want visiting your site and determine the actions you want them to take. This will dictate what kinds of features you include on the website. If your nonprofit is seeking to gain web traffic from major donors, then you want your site to let them read about the organization, discover giving opportunities, learn about the financial health of the organization and increase their donations. If your organization provides services to a particular demographic, then you want your site to help them learn about the organization, determine if they qualify to receive the services you offer and seek those services out directly through your organization or through links to other resources.
5. Create Your Site Map
6. Determine the Features Needed
Determine the features your website needs to engage your audience. Do you need a photo gallery, an email newsletter sign-up, a blog, video footage or links to social media? If your organization has a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flikr, or Google+ account then it should be easily accessible from your website. If you plan to have a page where people can donate to your organization, determine what types of donations people can make such as one time, recurring, in memory of, employee matching, gifts in kind, corporate or event sponsorships, planned giving or donating stock.
You have many options for an online donation system including PayPal, NYC Charities, Network for Good, Acceptiva and other existing systems. Beware that some of these services may come with a set up charge and monthly fees. Most importantly, make sure that you integrate all of these features into your donor management system or donor database to keep track of who is giving to your organization. Syncing these features together effectively will also give your organization a more clean and orderly internet presence.
7. Select Your Content Management System (CMS)
Now we’re starting to get technical. It’s time to determine what platform or software you will use to build your organization’s website. Popular picks include WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. WordPress works well for basic nonprofit sites, but can be limiting when it comes to more sophisticated features. Joomla and Drupal are more complicated to use, but provide more flexibility in how content is managed universally across the site and can integrate better with donor management systems. Check out idealware.org to download a free report that compares different content management systems.
8. Determine Your Keywords
If it is important that your site achieve high rankings in search engines, then you need to plan for that before you start building your site. Use Google’s free AdWords tools to assess the keywords that people are using to search for organizations like yours. Then, plan your site with those keywords in mind, for example, by creating pages based on those keywords and using them in the page header, headlines and links. But that’s not enough. Search engines look for fresh content and links back from other sites with relevant content.
9. Develop Your Content
In order to develop quality content for your site, first answer the following questions:
- What is your source material?
- What people in your organization have relevant information?
- Who will write the content and are they the best choice?
- What content will need to be updated regularly?
- Who will keep the site updated?
Once you know the answers to these questions, it’s time to create the content. When writing copy, understand your purpose, whether it be to inform, to persuade or to elicit an emotional response. Try to connect with people’s beliefs and passions, make it personal by dramatizing your point with a story, and always be aware of the assumptions you’re making about your audience. For photos and graphics, make sure the image is conveying the story or message you want it to represent.
10. Establish Analytics
Donations generated through your site are one way to measure its effectiveness, but it’s not the only way. You can improve the factors that increase your fundraising by looking at other metrics, including:
- Number of unique visitors
- Source of traffic (which search engines, partners and affiliates your traffic comes from)
- Number of people who signed up for your newsletter
- Amount raised through online donations
- Number of link-backs from other sites
- Number of signatures collected on a survey
- Number of volunteers recruited
- Number of in kind contributions
- Amount of corporate support generated
- Amount of fee revenue generated
- Amount of fundraising merchandise sold
Whatever metrics you choose as your dashboard, the important thing is to review it regularly so that you can learn what works and what doesn’t, and then adjust your site accordingly to improve your results.
So, there you have it. If you follow these steps then your organization’s website should effectively convey your message to potential clients or donors. Remember that your website may very well be the first impression you make on people, and you want them to be compelled to support you and your cause with each and every mouse click.
