5 Website Design tips for Nonprofits January 4th, 2011

Many nonprofits suffer from low budgets. But there are many things you can do incrementally to quickly improve your website’s effectiveness.

Make the site User-Friendly

Just as with any site, nonprofits should follow the basic guidelines for web design. Ease of access and navigation are as important as visual aesthetics. It is also important to make the site media friendly, an easy information site for journalists. Contact information should be accessible and downloadable images can help with cohesive media coverage.

Good Content Informs and Energizes

The organization’s main purpose should be immediately apparent. Why should the user be donating or volunteering? It is important to list out the goals of the organization ahead of time and work with these priorities as guidelines. Some organizations have different departments and people heading those departments.  Have each write the content for their respective department so that the best description is captured.  Great images will always enhance your message. Every image should help tell your story to get the most emotional connection for your cause. Videos are an even better way to show programs in action. Even simple image animations can be informative and engaging.

Ask and You Shall Receive

The most common goal for nonprofits is to raise money for their respective causes by appealing to donors. Tastefully but directly show how easy it is to make a donation with a button or donation area in plain sight on every page. Using direct messages like “DONATE NOW” will be more effective than passive language asking for donations. Other Calls to action can include applying for a grant, attending an event, opting in to various communications channels (Facebook, Newsletters, Emails).

Mobilize Your Army of Volunteers

Another target to keep in mind are the volunteers. Use call to action terminology like “Take Action” or “Ways You Can Help” to prompt users to act.

Social Media Was Made for Nonprofits

  1. Social media users are always looking for good content to share.
  2. People are more likely to respond (donate, volunteer) if they know you.
  3. Viral social communication can reach exponential numbers.

Maximize your social network by incorporating social tools everywhere. Let users promote your content via “likes”, “tweets”, and “shares”. Banners, and widgets that link back to your site can be made available for others to install on their own sites. Letting users comment on content also creates a strong engagement bond.

Quick Takeaways

  • Create a newsletter to keep people up to date with your organization. Be sure that signing up for a newsletter is easy and accessible.
  • Include a news/blog section to show that the organization is a living, breathing thing. It will keep people up to date with stories and news directly from the people volunteering and projects being put in place. Updating this often will help keep the site alive and people interested in what you are doing as an organization.
  • It is important to “keep it real” and not come off as a business. Yes, nonprofits are businesses in themselves, but they are in the business of making a difference. People want to know that their money is going to something meaningful.

What web design tricks have most helped your nonprofit business?

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Function Over Form September 17th, 2010

If you regularly use the internet, you have probably noticed an increase of smooth animations and functionality within forms, navigation menus, photo galleries and all sorts of other widgets. These lightweight, browser-compatible scripts are quickly becoming a great alternative to Flash media. They often come pre-built and can be flexibly styled to accommodate the look and feel of any website. Here’s a simple example of an image slider. Try clicking the arrows on each side to see the images cycle.

When it comes to implementing something slick like one of these scripts, many people tend to overuse it’s capabilities in order add an unnecessary fanciness to their website. Often times, this overuse actually inhibits usability rather than improving it.

These scripts should never be added for strictly aesthetic purposes. Before I add any sort of this functionality, I try to identify the problem and how it could logically be solved. After all, a website’s functionality needs to be intuitive and straight-forward to the end user. Once I figure out what the most ideal solution is, I find, modify or build a script based on that solution.

As a graphic designer, focusing on visual aesthetics is just one part of the creative process. Before the design is even started, the message, target audience, and desired functionality and workflow needs to be accurately defined. The design itself is just the icing on the cake.

boston website design

While working with Spotlight Communications on the U.S. Pavement Services, Inc. website, the client communicated how important it was to detail all eight of their services above the fold on the homepage. To do this, we created an “accordion” slider that expands a specific service to reveal more information when it is moused over. When the next service is moused over, the open service collapses. Check out the live example here.

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Learning to Skate January 18th, 2010

Boston graphic design and ice skatingI’ve skated all my life, but have never been particularly good or comfortable with it. This year, rather than freezing on the sidelines while watching my daughter’s lesson, I decided to get on the ice too.

I’m actually in a different group from her — I’m learning hockey skating. In just ten weeks, I’m amazed at how I’ve progressed. I’m doing crossovers to the right and left, forwards and backwards. I can stop on a dime from my right or left side (well, a very large dime) and reverse direction quickly. And its a lot of fun.

So I wondered, why is it that after just ten 25-minute lessons, I was able to progress so quickly, when I haven’t really improved over the years? The answer is in the quality and style of the instruction. The instructor never asked what we were comfortable doing, she just told us what to do next. “Skate in a circle. Now reverse direction. Now do it backwards…” We didn’t need to do it well, we just needed to do it. With a little confidence and some faith that it would all work out, I did everything she asked. And after a while, it became more comfortable.

Then I made a connection to how I art-direct my designers. (You knew this would get back to graphic design, right? This is a blog about design.) I hire young, smart, and eager designers. I look for raw talent and energy, and then I dump my requests on them. It shouldn’t matter if the designer is unfamiliar with the client, type of project, software environment, or other technology required to complete the project. It’s all about first determining the best solution, and then figuring out how to get there.

And in my experience, we always get there. As long as the team has the confidence to learn a new program, design a web site for a new industry, or snowplow to a stop while skating backwards — there’s nothing that can stop us.

PS – if anyone wants to meet me at the Daly Rink some morning, let’s do it.

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4 Ways to Increase the Time Users Spend on Your Site August 3rd, 2009

increase time users spend on your siteIf you have an online business and a corresponding website, you’ve likely had to address user engagement at some point, and if you haven’t, it is time to start. While getting traffic to your site is crucial, if users don’t stick around once they arrive, they are unlikely to convert into customers or sales, so make them stay.

Here are four ways to maximize the time users spend on your site. Address these factors and you are likely to see an increase in user engagement and conversions!

1. Make your site welcoming and easy-to-use

With the number of distractions, not to mention websites, vying for users’ attention, it is important to make sure your site is welcoming and easy-to-use.

Many of us have arrived at a website and noticed it makes us feel calm and comfortable. The website is inviting in some way and makes us want to stick around and explore. Try to think of a website design that makes you feel this way and take note of the qualities that stand out on your next visit.
This ‘sticky’ quality to some websites is a big part of ease-of-use, but there are more tangible aspects of your website that contribute to a carefree user experience. Things like a speedy site load time, uncluttered and logical navigation, and reader-friendly formatting of your website copy that includes headings to break up important points in your text and bolded keywords to direct users attention will make users feel at home on your site and encourage them to spend time looking around at what you have to offer.

2. Give users clear calls to action

If you want people to stick around, tell them what to do. When a user visits your site, they need more than a quick load time and welcoming interface design. They need direction.

Use clear and prominent calls to action to tell users what to do next, whether that is to read more about your company, check out your blog, try your product, or fill out a form. Be sure your calls to action are strategically placed on your site in areas where the eye tends to gravitate. Use call to action buttons when it makes sense, and design them to grab attention without making them garish. Finally, avoid overwhelming your user with conflicting calls to action. It is okay to repeat a call to action on an individual web page and at times it makes sense to give your visitors an option, but if you give them too many, you’re taking a risk that they glaze over and move on.

3. Educate users with articles, case studies, eBooks, and white papers

Users want information. They want to be educated. If the primary goal of your site is to inform, educational content specific to your business is an obvious inclusion, but the same is useful if your goal is sales, and to get a sale you need a user to stick around.

Add value to your site by educating your users and you will not only increase the amount of time they spend on your site, you will also help build brand credibility and activate the law of reciprocity, a powerful marketing principle popularized in the milestone book, The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini.

The law of reciprocity states when you do something for or give something to someone, they are naturally inclined to repay the favor, and marketers have been employing this principle for ages. Give your user something of worth in the form of content and they will take the time to divulge it. Once they are through, they are likely to be more inclined to become a customer, request more information, or at least come back for a second visit. Either way, you win.

4. Keep your content fresh

No matter how useful your content is, it also must be fresh if you want repeat visitors and long-term user engagement. While an impressive white paper or comprehensive how-to guide will gain traction on its own via word-of-mouth draw new visitors to your site, if you want people to keep returning over time, always offer them something new.

Start a company blog and post 2-3 times per week, host a forum where experts can share industry tips and advice, or pull in RSS feeds from authoritative sites and blogs to give users a comprehensive look at the pulse of your industry. As long as your content is dynamic, engaging, entertaining, and/or useful, users will take the time to consume it, spread the word, and return for more.

Hope these tips help you improve the performance of your website. Good luck!

Amanda Moshier is the staff writer and editor at Wpromote, Inc., the #1 search marketing firm in the US as ranked by Inc. 500. For more information on PPC Management, SEO Management, or how to grow your small business online, please visit www.wpromote.com/. You can also connect with us at twitter.com/wpromote.

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Extreme Marketing through Social Media May 11th, 2009

Social Media Targets AudiencesEveryone knows social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and blogs can drive traffic to your site and help build your brand. And nowadays, every marketing conversation has some component of social media. Last month, my team stepped away from the fodder and physically DID something – face to face.

On April 29th, Metropolis Creative engaged hundreds of marketers through social media by having an Extreme Website Makeover party . This was our most successful marketing effort to date (I founded the company in 1999). We harnessed the power of social media, partnerships, networking and free booze into one brand building and socially engaging campaign that stirred a contagious buzz (before, during and after the event). Nearly 150 marketing professionals came off-line to shake hands and interact by using more than 140 characters.

The campaign served its purpose of strengthening the Metropolis brand, engaging face to face interaction, and also was a helpful experiment in demonstrating how to plan, deliver and measure a social marketing campaign.

Social Media Reach

The campaign’s impact, influence and reach were measured by these tools:

Congrats to American Public Television for being awarded the Website Makeover winner and props co-sponsors SHIFT Communications and RatePoint.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiMvdt4OvKE]
Ready for Extreme Website Makeover 2010! But how can Metropolis make it more extreme…?

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