Best Practices for Non Profit Websites
1. Tell your story and know your niche
Let your visitors know clearly what you represent: put up your mission statement, historical background, testimonials, and information about your staff and board of directors. Personalize it as much as possible. Tell stories about your accomplishments, but keep in mind the old marketing saw: what's in it for your users? Also, be sure to make any information you post as media friendly as possible: put up press releases and content-specific items with relevant contact information on them. Submit your press releases to relevant niche-market news sites on the Web, if any exist. Check out some examples of non profit websites currently using Wild Apricot.
2. Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
When writing copy for the Web, you run a better chance of being discovered by search engines run by Google and Yahoo! if you use keywords that are specific to your organization. The easier you are to find in search engine directories, the more likely visitors are going to come to your site. However, you should refrain from overusing keywords as this can drive people away. A good rule of thumb is that if your content sounds funny when you read it out loud, you've probably used a word a few too many times. Try to use similar words and synonyms, instead.
3. Allow others to share stories with you
Have a section of your Web site where they can share their stories with you. Consider creating a wiki, a photo-sharing site, or another means of allowing people to share information, dependant upon your needs. (Wikis are a great tool, for instance, if you are hosting a conference and you want your participants to sign up, make their own announcements, and later share information like PowerPoints they presented at the conference.) Create two-way content and don't preach to the converted. Show people that you are interested in sharing and working together with other organizations. (See our blog for more information on best marketing practices for non profits.)
4. Experiment with new technologies
If you are willing to make an extra investment in time and money, try developing videocasts or podcasts to augment your message on your Web site. This may be a helpful strategy in targeting youth, in particular. With that said, developing video or audio content probably isn't a make or break proposition right now, as the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) reports that we are perhaps still a decade away from widespread adoption. However, as the technology to produce and listen to niche-market casting gets cheaper and more prevalent, these may become more and more effective way of getting your message out there. Experimenting with these technologies also makes you look cutting-edge and participatory, which may help with your marketing and branding as well. Keep an eye on emerging technologies, to see if they may help your organization attract more donors.
5. Be upfront in your messaging
Many Web sites to this day tend to speak about their organization and not what's in it for their visitor, leaving it up to the harried person looking at the screen to figure out where they should go to find information.
Ideally, right on your home page, you should:
- Tell visitors what your non-profit can offer them quickly and concisely.
- Easily direct these visitors to any relevant information they need to know, with as few internal links as possible. (No more than nine links per page is a good rule of thumb.)
- Have an immediate call to action - whether you're trying to solicit donations or volunteer support, you need to let people know exactly what you want from them.
6. Have a site that loads very quickly
Visitors won't have a great deal of patience if it takes a long time for the Web site to load, especially if they are on a slow Internet connection. Make sure that your coders have optimized whatever code they're using, and that your pages have a fairly non-complex design with as few large images and files as possible.
7. Offer up-to-date, easy navigation
Can your users find the information they're looking for quickly? Or do they have to wade through a maze of (sometimes broken) links? The easier your site is to use, the more relevant you will become to a wider group of people within your target audience.
8. Use color
People make snap decisions as to whether or not they like something within seconds. You need to select your colors carefully to augment your branding. Don't be afraid to use images, photos and charts (and so on), but do use them as sparingly as possible to prevent the aforementioned slow load times. Take your Web site for a test drive in various browsers and on different types/sizes of screen. What looks great on one screen or browser can look absolutely horrible on another.
Consider where your Web site is going to be used, as well. Are you going to showcase it at a lot of events or conferences where it will be projected onto a screen for stakeholders to see? If so, your site might look a lot different against an off-white screen than it may on your monitor. Does your non-profit target people who may be color-blind or visually impaired? If so, you need to think about their needs as well.