7 Best Homepage Updates
Submitted by Beth Steinhorn on Mon, 2010-05-24 00:00
Websites are the portal to your organization. It's where your current volunteers can go for the latest news and where your potential volunteers can become familiar with -- and ultimately, engaged with -- your organization. So, having a powerful and effective homepage on your site is crucial to making your first impression one that is a lasting impression. We asked our colleague Monique Cuvelier of Talance, Inc. to share some tips about strengthening your organization's homepage. And, of course, we believe you have volunteers in your midst with skills and interest to help you implement all of these recommendations!
7 Best Homepage Updates, by Monique Cuvelier, CEO, Talance, Inc.
The people who visit your website want to help you. Maybe they want to volunteer, give money, pledge their support, or tell their friends and colleagues about what you do. You'd be crazy not to take advantage of those offers. That's why a non-profit's website should do everything it can to make it easy for well-meaning individuals to support you.
But as the CEO of Talance, a Web development company that specializes in designing for nonprofits, I see websites every day that are loaded with missed opportunities. No donate button. No calls for volunteers. No way to sign petitions. Instead, I see self-serving items like a lengthy mission statement or a navigation menu modeled on an org chart.
The good news is that it's relatively easy to make a few changes to your website's homepage that create a meaningful visit for your audience. Help them help you by applying these seven simple tweaks to your nonprofit homepage.
7 Best Homepage Updates
1. Add a big, bold button for donations.
The more dependent you are on donations, the bolder it should be. These design elements make buttons eye-catching:
- Color - Pick a color that contrasts with the rest of your color scheme; e.g., orange pops against purple.
- Size - Make that button too big to miss.
- Position - Place your button at the top of the page, where more people look.
- Shape - Eyes are drawn to circles, so think of something round rather than rectangular.
I also like to use "Give" or "Support" for wording more than "Donate." They're evocative, clear words that cover monetary donations as well as donations of time or skills through volunteering.
2. Create a menu that guides visitors.
Navigation menus are meant to be a road map to your site, not a reflection of who sits where in the office. Most people don't care who your staff members are, but what kind of work you're doing and how they can be involved. Think about the most important tasks you want your visitors to complete, and transfer those tasks to your navigation menu.
3. Make it easy for volunteers to sign up.
I've known of many organizations that rely heavily on volunteers, but you'd never know it from the website. There's no mention.
If you need volunteers, announce it on your homepage - it's the first place people go. Also link to your open volunteer opportunities from your employment page, from your "Give" page and pepper the site with stories and examples of satisfied volunteers. Don't forget to make it very easy for potential volunteers to sign up.
4. Keep visitors abreast of news updates.
Websites should reflect the progress and activity your organization makes, so deliver the news. This might be anything from volunteer listings to training events to new initiatives. The important thing is to carve out a dedicated spot for updates on your homepage that you keep up to date. People will learn to keep coming back to your site to pick up the latest.
Blogs are great vehicles for this. You can start using one of the myriad free tools out there, or a blog can be built into your website like the JFFixler blog you're reading now. You can also have a simple list of newsworthy items accompanied by a date.
5. Provide a way to connect.
Encouraging word of mouth is vitally important for nonprofits - it's how you spread the word about your cause and enlist more support. The solution is to give your website visitors as many different ways for them to connect with you and each other as possible. A few ideas:
- Newsletter sign-up
- A tell-a-friend feature
- A way to leave comments on articles or blog entries
- RSS feeds for your blog or news updates
6. Tell compelling stories.
Fundraisers already know that the best way to reach potential supporters is through engaging stories. The same goes for websites. People connect on an emotional level through stories, which leads them to act.
When it comes to the Web, you can take advantage of multimedia to tell your story. It can be a written profile on someone whose life you affected - either a beneficiary of your program or a volunteer who made a difference. (Hint: this is a great topic for the news updates feature I mentioned in number four.)
A story can also be a video that you added to a service like Vimeo or YouTube and then embed on your website. Also consider capturing speakers with a digital recorder, and then turn that recording into a podcast. Or think of telling your volunteers to snap pictures at the next event and put those images together into a slideshow.
7. Make it easy to find what's not on the homepage.
The homepage can only do so much. It should never become too cluttered. It should be the launch pad for the rest of your website. Rather than cram everything onto one page, include a search box. If someone needs information they can't find at first glance, let them search through all your pages and archives with a search tool.
For more advice and help on improving your website, ask the pros at Talance.
About the Author
Monique Cuvelier is the CEO and co-founder of Boston-area Web design and development firm Talance, Inc. She is a frequent presenter and has written professionally on technology for 20 years for top-tier publications such as Wired News and USA Today, has written a book on conducting Internet research, and has contributed to many publishing projects.
Websites are the portal to your organization. It's where your current volunteers can go for the latest news and where your potential volunteers can become familiar with -- and ultimately, engaged with -- your organization. So, having a powerful and effective homepage on your site is crucial to making your first impression one that is a lasting impression. We asked our colleague Monique Cuvelier of Talance, Inc. to share some tips about strengthening your organization's homepage. And, of course, we believe you have volunteers in your midst with skills and interest to help you implement all of these recommendations!
7 Best Homepage Updates, by Monique Cuvelier, CEO, Talance, Inc.
The people who visit your website want to help you. Maybe they want to volunteer, give money, pledge their support, or tell their friends and colleagues about what you do. You'd be crazy not to take advantage of those offers. That's why a non-profit's website should do everything it can to make it easy for well-meaning individuals to support you.
But as the CEO of Talance, a Web development company that specializes in designing for nonprofits, I see websites every day that are loaded with missed opportunities. No donate button. No calls for volunteers. No way to sign petitions. Instead, I see self-serving items like a lengthy mission statement or a navigation menu modeled on an org chart.
The good news is that it's relatively easy to make a few changes to your website's homepage that create a meaningful visit for your audience. Help them help you by applying these seven simple tweaks to your nonprofit homepage.
7 Best Homepage Updates
1. Add a big, bold button for donations.
The more dependent you are on donations, the bolder it should be. These design elements make buttons eye-catching:
- Color - Pick a color that contrasts with the rest of your color scheme; e.g., orange pops against purple.
- Size - Make that button too big to miss.
- Position - Place your button at the top of the page, where more people look.
- Shape - Eyes are drawn to circles, so think of something round rather than rectangular.
I also like to use "Give" or "Support" for wording more than "Donate." They're evocative, clear words that cover monetary donations as well as donations of time or skills through volunteering.
2. Create a menu that guides visitors.
Navigation menus are meant to be a road map to your site, not a reflection of who sits where in the office. Most people don't care who your staff members are, but what kind of work you're doing and how they can be involved. Think about the most important tasks you want your visitors to complete, and transfer those tasks to your navigation menu.
3. Make it easy for volunteers to sign up.
I've known of many organizations that rely heavily on volunteers, but you'd never know it from the website. There's no mention.
If you need volunteers, announce it on your homepage - it's the first place people go. Also link to your open volunteer opportunities from your employment page, from your "Give" page and pepper the site with stories and examples of satisfied volunteers. Don't forget to make it very easy for potential volunteers to sign up.
4. Keep visitors abreast of news updates.
Websites should reflect the progress and activity your organization makes, so deliver the news. This might be anything from volunteer listings to training events to new initiatives. The important thing is to carve out a dedicated spot for updates on your homepage that you keep up to date. People will learn to keep coming back to your site to pick up the latest.
Blogs are great vehicles for this. You can start using one of the myriad free tools out there, or a blog can be built into your website like the JFFixler blog you're reading now. You can also have a simple list of newsworthy items accompanied by a date.
5. Provide a way to connect.
Encouraging word of mouth is vitally important for nonprofits - it's how you spread the word about your cause and enlist more support. The solution is to give your website visitors as many different ways for them to connect with you and each other as possible. A few ideas:
- Newsletter sign-up
- A tell-a-friend feature
- A way to leave comments on articles or blog entries
- RSS feeds for your blog or news updates
6. Tell compelling stories.
Fundraisers already know that the best way to reach potential supporters is through engaging stories. The same goes for websites. People connect on an emotional level through stories, which leads them to act.
When it comes to the Web, you can take advantage of multimedia to tell your story. It can be a written profile on someone whose life you affected - either a beneficiary of your program or a volunteer who made a difference. (Hint: this is a great topic for the news updates feature I mentioned in number four.)
A story can also be a video that you added to a service like Vimeo or YouTube and then embed on your website. Also consider capturing speakers with a digital recorder, and then turn that recording into a podcast. Or think of telling your volunteers to snap pictures at the next event and put those images together into a slideshow.
7. Make it easy to find what's not on the homepage.
The homepage can only do so much. It should never become too cluttered. It should be the launch pad for the rest of your website. Rather than cram everything onto one page, include a search box. If someone needs information they can't find at first glance, let them search through all your pages and archives with a search tool.
For more advice and help on improving your website, ask the pros at Talance.
About the Author
Monique Cuvelier is the CEO and co-founder of Boston-area Web design and development firm Talance, Inc. She is a frequent presenter and has written professionally on technology for 20 years for top-tier publications such as Wired News and USA Today, has written a book on conducting Internet research, and has contributed to many publishing projects.
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