Web Content Best Practices for Nonprofits

Linda Kolker Best Practices for Web Content

AGENDA

9:00-9:15 Orientation & Introduction

9:15-9:45 Part 1 – Foundations

9:45-10:30 Part 2 – Content Format

10:30-10:40 BREAK

10:45-11:45 Part 3 – Content SEO for Google

11:45-noon Evaluations

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Web user research on

Non-profit websites


What donors look for

Causes that share their ideals and values.

How the organization proposes to help


What’s most important to donors

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Mission Goals Objectives Work

Presence in reader’s own community


What kills donations on sites

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Majority of problems are content-related

Content problems53%

Navigation,transactions, etc.47%


? Donate

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17%

Nowhere to click to donate!!!

What kills donations on sites


Credibility

Engagement

Ability to deliver


Best Practices for Website Content

Part 1


Laying the foundation:

BEFORE you create content

Define goals

Know audiences

Who you are

What sets you apart from competitors


Know your website goals

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Specific Measurable

Examples of specific and measurable goals: • Increase donations from small donors by 10%

• _____________________________________

• _____________________________________


Know your audiences

Audience segments

Age

Gender

Income

Lifestyle

Opinions & Values


Practice: audience profile

For ONE audience:

Age _____

Income ________

Gender ________

Lifestyle ____________________________

Opinions & Values______________________________


Know who you are

A statement that sets you apart from competitors


Examples of taglines


How well does your site

Reflect your goals? Reflect your audience(s)? Scale of 1-5 (5=best rating) Is your tagline at top of home page? Every page?

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Practice: laying the foundation


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Part 2


Overview

Brief, specific content written from the perspective of your readers’ interests, desires and background.

Content that is formatted to make it easy to find what they’re looking for on the page.

Headlines, subheads and content that are oriented to their interests and goals.


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Site visitor behavior



Users read about 20% of text 20

20%


What’s here?

How can I find what I’m looking for?

Short articles

Skim highlights

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Ruthless about abandoning sites



How people scan a

website page

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Skimming content


Inverted pyramid


Use subheads

Tell the story on their own

Capture essence of paragraph


Make paragraphs short

6 lines MAXIMUM

3-4 where possible



6 lines MAXIMUM

3-4 where possible

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Make sentences short



6 lines MAXIMUM

3-4 where possible

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Make sentences short

Use bullets & numbers


Use boldface and italics

NEVER underline text unless it’s a LINK


Credibility

Grammar

Spelling

Punctuation


Pair up and review sites

First, take a couple of minutes to review your partner’s site

Home page:

What does this organization do?

What’s special about it?

Is that clear at a glance?

Review lower-level pages:

Can you scan and know what the page is about?

Is the most important information at the top?

What could be shortened, and how would you do it?



Part 3


Help people find you

Optimize your content for Google organic search (SEO) results


What’s good for copy

is good for SEO


SEO for content

• Identify keywords (search terms)

• Make a list of 5-6

• Select one or two per page for optimization


What’s a keyword?

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Select keywords

Know your audience

What words are they likely to use?


Identify keywords

One of your audiences?

____________________________

Two or three phrases they might search for? ____________________________

____________________________

____________________________


Research competition for keywords

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Using your keywords

Make a list

Narrow down to 5-6

Assign 1-2 keywords to each page

Use no more than 1-2 per page

Front-load in page titles and heads

Top-load keywords – at top of page


Top-down content


Use keywords in page titles

“Selecting the first 2 words for your

page titles is probably the highest-impact ROI-boosting decision you

make in a Web project.”


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Where to add Page Title to a web page you’re creating

Headings (levels & tags)

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Where to format headings


Image captions & <alt> tags

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Caption text


Copy text from page on your website, paste into text editor (Word, Notepad, etc.) SAVE this document! • Revise the page title, main headline (Most important

words at beginning of each) • Shorten a paragraph • Underline something you could link to another page

Linda Kolker Best Practices for Web Content 56

Review

Lay the foundation: audiences, goals, your identity,

competitive differences

Make content easy to find on your site and read on the page

Make it easier for people to find you via Google: optimize site content

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Resources

Letting Go of the Words—Writing Web Content That Works by Janice (Ginny) Redish

Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy by Herschell Gordon Lewis

Don’t Make Me Think, by Steve Krug

Almost anything by Jakob Nielsen. Books. Web site = useit.com

Usability.gov

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Web Content Best Practices for Nonprofits

Documents

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