Nonprofit Online Success: Tips for Achieving an Effective Web Presence

Nonprofit Online Success"
Technology, marketing, and staffing decisions for the Web

Presented by:
Derek Olson
Vice President, Foraker Design

Nonprofit Online Success Webinar
Slide 1

Agenda

•  Your Online Brand
•  Four Pillars of an Effective Website
•  Internet Giving

Slide 2

Agenda


Slide 3

Difference between an online and
ofﬂine brand: Experience
•  Online brand is an interactive experience that includes unique perceptual tasks
& problem solving strategies on the part of your website users.
•  This experiential nature of your online brand carries some pretty big risks, but it
has some potentially big rewards as well... Both of which we’ll talk about.
•  For starters, there are three simple tools you can use today to help attain those
rewards:
•  Measure! (website traffic, user behavior, email campaign readership, etc.)
•  Talk to your users whenever you can
•  Make many small changes to your website—as opposed to infrequent big
changes

Slide 4

Ofﬂine brand is passive
Everyone knows how to “navigate” printed materials: they don’t need to expend
brainpower on solving the problem of how to turn the pages of a brochure…

Online brand is active
Online, people are clicking, searching, navigating – often through brand new interfaces
that useOnline Success Webinar
indicators of how to get from page to page. A website is a piece
Nonproﬁt
unconventional
of Slide 6
software… and like a lot of software, it can be stressful to try to figure out…

Good online brand = user trust
Online experiences can generate stress:
•  Heart rate goes up
•  Blood pressure goes up
•  Breathing rate increases
•  Folks get a little hot under the collar

Results: A negative emotional response.
That’s a bad brand experience…

Slide 7

Good online brand = user trust
The good news:
•  Stress is an expected part of navigating
a new website
•  Opportunity to make a positive
impression by reducing stress

Results: A positive emotional response.
That’s a good brand experience…

Slide 8

Ugly, overwhelming website
prevents user trust
•  Intention to trust
triggered by visual
appeal
•  Actual trust triggered by
quality of information
*Trust and mistrust of online health sites
Sillence, Briggs, Fishwick, and Harris (2004)

Slide 9

Don’t forget the ofﬂine component
of your online brand!
Technical support
On the Web, human contact is incredibly important to your
brand. Prompt responses to contact form submissions/live
chat, and providing a physical address and phone number
are good ways to build a strong online brand.
Community moderation
Full-time forum moderators are very important, and help
steer community away from discord and towards support.
Budget for this.
These two things show users your organizational “take” on helping
people, and are a great channel for getting feedback from your
audience…

Slide 10

Agenda


Slide 11

Four pillars of an effective
website

CONTENT

Design
Usability
Tech
Marketing

Slide 12

website: CONTENT

CONTENT

Design
Usability
Tech
Marketing

Slide 13

Content: what is it?
•  Textual copy
•  Imagery
•  Charts and graphs
•  Video/audio
•  User-contributed content

Web content is:
•  Easily-scanned
•  Original
•  Built for viral spread and search

Slide 14

Content is King!
Textual content, or words,
are the currency of Internet
search engines. While the
explosion of video, audio, and
image-based Internet content
has provided strong incentives
to improve search capabilities
for these content types, the
fact still remains:

Textual Content is King.

Slide 15

Content: How to get high-
quality Web content?
Option 1: Buy it
News feeds, academic
journals, etc.

Option 2: Write it
Plan for staffing, give
staff right tools for the job

Slide 16

Content Management System (CMS)
Questions to ask:
•  Buy or build?
•  Open-source or commercial?
•  Developer or editor?
•  Does it force a new editorial
process on your
organization?
•  Make sure you understand
the total $$$ of ownership

Slide 17

Care and feeding of Web Content
1.  Set up guidelines (a wiki?)
Keep it simple to start.
2. Make sure tools (CMS)
facilitate rather than
hinder.
3. Get people to do the work,
hold the knowledge,
update the wiki, assess
the next CMS, etc.

Slide 18

website: DESIGN

CONTENT

Design
Usability
Tech
Marketing

Slide 19

Design: what is it?
•  Logo
•  Color palette
•  Layout
•  Fonts
•  Photography
•  Illustrations and other imagery

Slide 20

Design: user intention to trust
Print Design vs. Web Design

Focused on your message Easily distracted

Slide 21

Design around your content
Once you have a message, begin design…

Lorem
ipsum

Slide 22

Design around your content
•  Layout is affected by
website information
architecture
•  Tone of design must
match tone of text
•  Effective home pages
spring from a thorough
understanding of deep
content

Slide 23

Design effects your HTML/CSS
•  Web standards
•  Accessibility
•  Performance
•  Search engine
optimization
•  Usability

Slide 24

website: USABILITY

CONTENT

Design
Usability
Tech
Marketing

Slide 25

Usability: What is it?
Usability = Being easy to use.
Usually applied to software, but relevant to almost
anything (can openers, pogo sticks, airplane
cockpits).

Ease of use can be measured by how quickly a task
is performed, how many mistakes are made, how
quickly the system is learned, and how satisfied
people are who perform the task.

Slide 26

Usability = being easy to use
How do you achieve it?

VS.

Maaco Approach User-Centered Design

Slide 27

User Centered Design
•  Talk to your users
•  Measure
•  Iterate

Slide 28

Usability ROI
•  Small reductions in
support costs = big $$$
savings over time
•  Increased usability of
donate form = more $$$
every day

User Loyalty
Customer Support Costs

Slide 29

Usability and user trust
You can’t convert visitors into donors and grass-roots
advocates (viral marketing) if your website makes them
feel stupid.

This frustrating experience was
brought to you by _______.

Slide 30

website: TECHNOLOGY

CONTENT

Design
Usability
Tech
Marketing

Slide 31

Technology: what is it?
•  Web servers
•  Firewalls
•  Applications
•  Databases
•  CMS’s
•  Donor database software
•  Email marketing software
•  HTML and CSS

Slide 32

Technology: static vs. dynamic
Do you need lots of infrastructure?

Slide 33

Technology: the CMS (again)
•  Do you need a Content Management System (CMS) to
facilitate website updates? If so, should you build, buy, or
borrow it?
•  Don’t forget about usability for your staff!

Slide 34

Technology: hidden costs?
•  Can be difficult to assess
total cost of ownership of
Web software
•  Some considerations:
•  Hosting
•  Implementation
•  Maintenance
•  Upgrades/Updates

Slide 35

Technology: System Integration
Commercial or open source
“products” don’t always play
nice together.

Repeat offenders:
•  CMS’s
•  Site search tools
•  Donor databases
•  Email marketing tools
•  Outsourced donation systems

Slide 36

website: MARKETING

CONTENT

Design
Usability
Tech
Marketing

Slide 37

Marketing: what is it?
We’re talking about online marketing:
•  Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
•  Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
•  Traffic analytics
•  Website A/B testing
•  Email marketing
•  Viral marketing
•  Achieving conversion goals (e.g. donations,
email news signups, etc.)

Slide 38

Marketing: Measure!
How? Start with Google analytics…
•  Easy
•  Free
•  Powerful, expanding
•  Well documented
•  Stable
•  Generous towards non-profits

Slide 39

Marketing: SEO (Search Engine
Optimization)
What it is: What it isn’t:
Free (or organic) listings

Slide 40

Marketing
How Optimized is your Website?
•  Are you in the index?
•  #1 for your name?
•  Do you show up in subject-related
queries?
•  Does traffic come in from deep site
pages?

Slide 41

Marketing
Search Engine Optimization & Accessibility

•  Remember this blind
user: Googlebot
•  Valid HTML/CSS code
•  Choose a CMS focused
on SEO

Slide 42

Marketing: SEM
Search Engine Marketing
(SEM) = paid listings
•  Start with Google AdWords
•  Explore Google grants
•  Don’t forget to staff this new
work!

Slide 43

Email Marketing
Avoid domain blacklisting:
•  Send from capable systems, not from
desktop email clients
•  Make unsubscribing easy (e.g. a
“Remove Me” link in every email)
•  Make sure multiple lists / systems stay
synchronized
Content must be tailored to
email communications
•  Subject lines are crucial. Put important/
descriptive words first.
•  Keep content short, link back to website

Slide 44

Viral Marketing
What is it?
•  People doing your marketing for
you (usually for free)
Why?
•  Because your content or
functionality is valuable
•  Because you have made a
positive brand impression and
they have taken up your cause
as their own

Slide 45

Viral Marketing
How do you get it? Make content-sharing simple:
•  Keep URLs short—ideally less than 72 characters
•  Make URLs human-readable, for example:
•  Good: http://www.foraker.com/user_experience.html
•  Bad: http://www.foraker.com?PageID=jd83ydgd53
•  Avoid using frames on your website. Frames interfere with
bookmarking, search engine indexing, and inbound links
•  Manage link rot (URLs should not change for content that is still
active)
•  Enable RSS Feeds for frequently-updated content types

Slide 46

Marketing: User Contributed
Content
What is it?
•  Blog comments
•  Discussion Boards/
Forums
•  Letting your users
participate and give you
feedback

Slide 47

Agenda


Slide 48

Internet Giving

Giving you $$$ is probably not
on anyone’s to-do list…
•  Make giving simple
•  Make it available when users are
ready and willing
•  Timing is important
•  Usability is critical

Slide 49

Internet Giving: Who’s Driving?
Donors are in the driver’s seat…

So build roads that are:
•  Easy to use
•  Transparent
•  Trust-inspiring

Slide 50

Internet Giving: Viral redux
•  Make it easy to spread the
word about your cause
•  Make it easy for recipients
of “the word” to act
•  Usability is (still) critical
•  Measure viral activity if you
can

Slide 51

Conclusion
Your website is a window into
your organization. If things are
confusing, or they think you’ve cut
corners… they will think twice about
putting their money in your hands.

Remember: Measure, talk to your
audience, then improve!

Slide 52

Thank you.
Resources:
• WC3 Validator: (http://validator.w3.org/) - check your
website’s HTML code validity, important for SEO, viral
marketing, accessibility, cross-browser rendering, and more.

Questions? • “Don’t Make Me Think” book (a great intro to usability (
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321344758/
bookstorenow57-20)
Derek Olson • Jakob Nielsen’s Website - also an excellent resource on low-
cost usability (www.useit.com)
(303) 449-0202 • Usability First (www.usabilityfirst.com) - Informational site
with tips, techniques, a glossary of terms, and more
dlo@foraker.com • Trust and mistrust of online health sites Sillence, Briggs,
Fishwick, and Harris (2004) Online abstract:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=985776 (requires ACM
membership, fee)

Slide 53

Nonprofit Online Success: Tips for Achieving an Effective Web Presence

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