Toolbox Tuesday - Get a Website

2. Get a Website
If you don’t have a website already, you are missing real opportunities to connect with potential clients, supporters, sponsors and volunteers. Getting a website established doesn’t have to be expensive; in fact, there are several ways you can create an effective website without major expense.

For an up-to-date list of free or nearly-free website options, check out the members section of www.exult.co.nz

Setting Up an Effective Website
Make sure you…

Know exactly what you want your website to achieve eg. recruiting new members, providing support and information, promoting events, securing sponsorship. If you don’t know your reason for having a website, it’s hard to know whether it’s doing its job. You could be spending a lot of time and effort for nothing.

Have a professional looking design which follows a standard website layout and includes all your usual branding. If your website looks amateur with tacky add-ons and fancy flashing monkeys, people will at best feel frustrated, and at worst, question your credibility.

Scale photographs and images so that your website loads quickly. If your site takes more than 10 seconds to load, you will lose valuable visitors.

Know who your users are likely to be and cater for their needs. For example, if you are targeting an older audience, you may want to use a larger than normal font or install an audio viewer.

Include testimonials from satisfied clients, members, supporters and sponsors. It’s one thing for you to tell people how wonderful you are, but if someone else does, it really counts!

Show people the human face of your organisation. Have photographs of your team and encourage everyone to write a brief bio about who they are and what their role is within your organisation.

Have the facility for people to make donations online. If you do not have your own payment system available, provide a link through to a fundraising site such as www.givealittle.co.nz .

Give people an opportunity to sign up for regular newsletters or updates. They may not be ready to become a member or sponsor immediately, but with regular contact they may become a valuable part of your organisation.

Include as many contact details as you can. Not everyone wants to make enquiries via email, especially if your organisation deals with issues of a sensitive nature.

Ask your website developer to install a content management system, so that you can regularly update your site on your own. Initially this is an extra expense, but it very quickly pays for itself and means your website can be kept 100% up to date.