July 2008 |
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Raise your hand if you hate your website.
Though social media gets all the attention these days, it's your website that's still doing the heavy communications lifting for your organization. For most of us, our website is at the center of our online communications strategy, the place we send people to learn more, volunteer, take action, and donate.
For all their work, websites are often the most maligned piece of our communications puzzle. Websites are to nonprofits as Tori is to Candy Spelling -- never quite good enough. We wish they had more traffic, or that they showed up higher in the search rankings. Others want to break out of "brochure-ware" and build a site that their stakeholders can truly interact with. The really savvy among us want to learn how our web pages can increase donations and other actions by our communities.
Fortunately for you, we've got all these makeover tips and more in this issue of NTEN Connect.
Best,
Holly
Jonathon D. Colman, The Nature Conservancy
The rise of "web 2.0" has forever changed the game of online marketing. Sure, with enough time and money on your side, you could always draw customers to your site with impersonal ads, affiliate promotions, and expensive broadcast media. But if you're like me (and I am) then you're not made of money and your budget doesn't have room for surprises.
With social media, you can take direct, personal action to find new niches and leads within the most popular, dynamic sites on the web. The services are all free, getting set up is easy, and -- as you'll see -- your results are completely measurable.
Oh, and the people will come -- so many, in fact, that you might just crash your web site with all of the attention you receive. So while your IT staff may not be so happy with you, your ED will be quite pleased.
Nick Allen, Donordigital
Your website may educate and motivate your supporters, but its main purpose is probably to encourage them to take action-- send a message to Congress, attend an event, download a report, buy a t-shirt, or donate all their Google stock.
"Optimizing" your Web pages, especially the ones where you want people to take an action, can dramatically improve your conversation rates, persuading more visitors to actually take the action you want them to take.
What seem like very small changes on a page can sometimes make a huge difference. For example, when we removed just the title (Mr., Mrs., Dr., etc.) and suffix (Jr., M.D.) fields from Amnesty International's donation page, conversion improved 30%!
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Kevin Lee and Bill Snyder, We-Care.com
Many nonprofits are using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as a free way of driving relevant traffic to their websites from Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft searches. They often find the process to be time consuming, but this doesn't need to be the case. By integrating best practices into the standard operating procedures for your various teams, you can achieve significant SEO benefits without investing large amounts time.
To begin with, those writing website copy and press releases must understand how to write for humans and search engines and how external and internal links improve site visibility. Put the punch about what makes the page or press release important right up front. As for links, press releases need to include ones that anchor the text not only to the homepage but also directly to related website content. These links will drive traffic AND improve SEO-- especially when they're reprinted on other sites.
Laura Quinn, Idealware
These days, it seems like everyone's talking about open source content management systems. These packages -- like Joomla, Drupal, and Plone -- can be a great way to go, but they're far from your only options.
For many nonprofits, strong features in areas such as online donations, event registration, and email newsletters are as important as the website itself -- and integration between these components can be a big issue.
If this is the case for your organization, consider a hosted, integrated platform.
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Use Google Analytics
> If you read our blog, you know that you can track clickthroughs and landing page performance from your messaging campaigns through Google Analytics. With a little export-to-spreadsheet trickery, you can also do some pretty cool tracking of your blog posts.
> Of course, if you don't have Google Analytics, that's kinda moot. Okay, totally moot. (Actually, we just like to say "moot". Moot moot moot.) If you're not using GA because you don't know how to set it up, not to fear: Ian Lurie has produced a series of videos on Google Analytics, and the Google Team itself made an overview of the interface. Prefer to read? Nicole Gustas has written a very detailed step-by-step tutorial.
> Once you've got the basics, turn to the experts, like Google's Analytics evangelist, Avinash Kaushik, for a few tricks. (If you haven't seen the Ask the Expert session on GA we hosted with Avinash, you really should: it's free for NTEN members!) The Official Analytics blog has a bunch of great tips, as well. And did you know that you can track results from your site's internal search?
Update Your Website
> If you haven't updated your web site since 1995, it may be time to start thinking about a change. Consider the example of the Autism Society of America (which went from this to this). Of course, plowing forward without a good understanding of what you're doing often ends poorly. To help you decide whether it's time, check out some advice from "Notes on Design" or try using MIT's nerdily thorough checklist.
> Unless you've got a big IT department, though, you'll probably need to outsource some of the redesign work. The Independent Computer Consultants Association lets you search their directory, as does Elance. And don't forget the NTEN Member Directory: we've collected a lot of smart people (just like you).
> We've also got you covered when you're ready to choose a consultant. NTEN Member Seth Schneider wrote up a great list of things to consider when hiring a consultant. You might also want to read the ScamBusters article on avoiding outrageous prices for poor results. (As a bonus, there's a list of the "Best Kept Secrets about Chocolate" at the bottom. Mmmmmm.)
- Can a techie win political office? He can if he keeps running a campaign this smart. Donate enough and you'll get "... a DVD video from [his] mom telling you how wonderful you are, because you are."
- Thank you notes to blood donors attached to giant renderings of red blood cells. All that's missing is Raquel Welch floating past in a miniscule submarine.
- Idealware's new CRM case studies article.
- If you convert your unused laptop into one of those old glass-top Pac-Man machines -- you know, the kind you can set a beer on while you chase Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde -- be sure to invite us over to play.
- Can a solar farm in the Sahara power all of Europe? Or possibly, the world? Will Africa see any of the revenue?
- The "Lil Green Patch" application on Facebook. Everyone at NTEN's doing it, so it, um, must be cool. Friend us and click your way to a greener world.
- Find your perfect genetic match for only $199! This is destined to show up as a late-night cable infomercial pretty soon. "How'd I meet my wife? Oh, you know -- buccal swab."
- The 13 new experimental features in Gmail: pretty much ensuring it will remain in Beta for the next 37 years. Look for the "Labs" tab under "Settings".
- World Taximeter lets you estimate taxi fares before you arrive in a city. Wonder why they don't include, say, Bamako or Agadez?
- Ever been locked out of the Internet by a faulty DNS server? Yeah, it kinda sucks. OpenDNS could make that a thing of the past.
- Call the Future.org lets you schedule phone calls. You could send reminders to clients (or yourself) or program an escape clause into a blind date. Just don't use it for things "...that common sense tells you not to do."
SUMMER OFFER
Join NTEN now as an individual or an organization and you'll get NTEN member benefits for 2009 plus the rest of 2008. That's up to 6 months of free member benefits!
And don't forget: with organizational membership, benefits extend to everyone on your staff.
2008 COMMUNITY SURVEY
To keep track of the growing community and your technology needs and interests, every year we conduct a Community Survey. It keeps us on our toes and helps us determine which programming and content is most relevant to you.
Oh yeah: you can enter to win a FREE registration to the 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco while you're at it.
WE ARE MEDIA
We Are Media is NTEN's Social Media curriculum project where the community is the curriculum!
We invite you to join the conversation each week as we roll out a new theme. Help us identify the best existing resources, people, and case studies that will give nonprofit organizations the knowledge and resources they need to use social media to change the world.
UPCOMING WEBINARS
MEMBER DISCOUNTS
Your NTEN Membership lets you save on a host of products and services:
AspireSoft
12% discount on all software, setup fees, and on-going costs for nonprofit members of NTEN on AspireSoft product line, including complete framework and architecture for building, deploying, and maintaining highly functional websites, intranets, and extranets.
Didit
33-40% off monthly fees plus 91-99% off set-up costs for Search Enging Marketing (SEM) services. Didit is a leading Search Engine Marketing agency committed to helping nonprofits maximize the value they achieve through Paid Search and Google Grants campaigns.
NTEN CONNECT is the monthly e-newsletter of the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN).
Contact the editor at editor@nten.org