Build Your Own Image
A website is typically a nonprofit’s number one form of
communicating with large audiences. An organization can choose to
include as much or as little information about itself as needed. In
general, a website functions to share its story to its funders,
volunteers, supporters and the community served. It can help to decrease
the number of calls to the main office by answering basic questions
about the organization and can also help to cut printing costs.
Steps To Develope Your Website
- Register a domain name. The domain should be related to the
organization’s name or the work that the organization performs.
Nonprofits should also consider creating a fairly short domain name
which is easier to fit on business cards, in emails and in print
publications. The domain should be simple and easy for the intended
audience to remember. Registering a domain name is fairly inexpensive,
so some organizations also choose to register other domains that are
spelled similarly to the organizations actual domain. This can allow the
organization to create a link to the intended website.
- Evaluate the nonprofit’s needs involving the website. Nonprofits
should decide what the scope of the website will be to determine the
type of site. The organization should also decide what internal
resources and funding they have to build and maintain the website, and
plan to fundraise accordingly.
- Determine the website’s platform. Nonprofits should decide if
they want to use a blog software for the website, a site that is created
and maintained with DreamWeaver or other CSS software, or a customized
content management system.
- Based on the type of software, choose a vendor. Nonprofits
should solicit proposals from companies or individuals or utilize
expertise from current staff members, volunteers or other stakeholders.
- Work with a website developer to create the website. This will
involve creating or updating content for the site, designing the site
map, wireframes for layout and graphics for the site, loading content
and testing the site before launch.
- Launch the new website. Nonprofits can choose to kick off the
new website in several ways, including via press releases, announcing
the new site at events, postcards, social media and word-of-mouth.
Effective Websites
While each nonprofit’s website serves a difference purpose and
connects with a difference audience, there are several trends in
effective website development that can be used by nonprofits. First, the
organization’s name and logo should be featured on the homepage and
continue to appear on all other pages within the website. Most often,
the most effective websites are intuitive. Navigation throughout the
site should be easy for the user, with descriptive navigation tabs and
obvious placement on the page. As a general rule of thumb, the user
should not need to click more than four times to get to their desired
content. This involves effective navigation, descriptive titles and an
organized site map. It also involves using keywords in the main content
and articles on the website, so that it can be found in search engines
and placed near the top in searches.
When designing the layout for the website, designers often refer to
the “F” map. This describes the pattern the eye follows when reading a
website. First, the eye scans across the top of the site, then the left
side column, followed by the middle of the site from top to bottom,
forming the letter “F”. This pattern is often considered when deciding
where the navigation, main content and side content will be located on
the page. Websites typically put the most important information, such as
the navigation, in the most viewed section of the page, along the top
of the site and the left column. Content is typically located in the
middle of the page, and most sites put secondary information or related
material in the least viewed parts of the site, such as the right column
and at the bottom.
