25 Nonprofit Website Musts

Attractive, modern, fully functional websites are mandatory for nonprofits that want to be successful online. Each stakeholder — including donors (individual, corporate or potential), volunteers, potential grant decision-makers, the press and partners — has different needs, but all share the common expectation that when they arrive at your website, they'll be able to quickly find what they're looking for.

To best serve your multiple constituencies (and yield the maximum number of actions that you desire, including donations, subscriptions or other positive conversion action), it's vital that your site functions as more than a simple online brochure. While such an approach might have worked in 1999 (and perhaps even in 2009), today's users expect more, and the cost of disappointment (both to current and potential future relationships) is much higher.

Here's a simple two-step process I find useful when beginning the site developmental process:

1. Imagine yourself in the position of each category of potential site visitors listed above.
2. Compile a list of the needs of each category. What would, for example, a member of the press want to see and experience? How about a potential partner or a large corporate donor?

While the informational needs of each audience category(and hence the individual paths to conversion) are unique, there are common features to improve the quality and performance of your nonprofit site for your nonprofit's various constituencies.

1. Navigation and information architecture that meets the needs of all important parties

Designing a fast-loading, intuitive, conversion-friendly site begins with familiarizing yourself with established best practices. Usability.gov — a site maintained by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — contains a lot of great resources (including templates and guidelines) that can make designing and deploying a human-friendly site an easy process.

2. An SEO-friendly content management system (CMS)

WordPress may not be the only CMS that fits this bill, but because its vibrant developer community has produced (and actively maintains) so many useful themes and plug-ins, it's become the industry standard CMS. I especially recommend the SEO for WordPress plug-in from Yoast; this tool makes creating SEO-friendly content nearly painless.

3. Mobile-friendly adaptive design

With the world increasingly moving to mobile, it's imperative that your site look good and perform well on mobile devices. Fortunately, many free or highly affordable WordPress themes are built from the ground up to be adaptive. Don't know whether your site measures up? Google Webmaster Tools provides a handy diagnostic feature that gives you an instant report on how well your nonprofit site performs on mobile devices.

4. A documented content creation/production plan

The Content Marketing Institute has identified the failure to create and stick to a documented plan as the biggest roadblock to content marketing success. Make sure you have a content creation/production plan in place; its elements should include:

• Written content (both short-form, news-oriented blog posts and longer-form whitepaper/e-book content)
• Video content
• Infographics (these can be especially useful if your nonprofit deals with complex issues that can benefit from visualization)
• Podcasts and webinars

5. A content promotion plan

Content that is never seen by your target audience has no value. Even if you lack the budget to promote your site's content via Google or Bing paid clicks, paid social promotion often provides a cost-effective alternative.

6. Images of humans

No matter what your cause, find a way to use human faces in your content. Human expressions have a limitless ability to convey emotion, and there's a special part of everyone's brain (the fusiform face area) that lights up when they're encountered.

7. Bios and headshots for your staff and board

While the focus of your nonprofit is naturally the constituency you directly serve, make sure you highlight the experiences and idealism of the folks who work "behind the scenes." This can build credibility, especially for those who don't know who you are.

8. Stories and/or testimonials

Who has your organization helped? How has it changed people's lives? Testimonials from specific people can be powerful tools to motivate donors to act.

9. Crystal-clear calls to action

While you shouldn't crowd your pages with calls to action, don't hide them in menu bars or "below the fold" areas. Place them in their proper context (for example, embedded in a blog article related to the subject of your call to action), and they'll perform better.

10. An easy email subscription form with a call to action that sounds enticing and interesting

Avoid using tired, dull phrases. Don't just write "subscribe to our newsletter." Try something along the lines of "join our community," "join the movement," etc.

11. A mailing address on the Contact Us page and, potentially, in the permanent footer area of every page

Putting an actual address in your pages adds credibility and can banish the notion that you're a "fly by night."

12. A working phone number on Contact Us Page

Give your stakeholders the options that they need to get in touch with you. While email is often the most convenient method, some people still prefer using the phone.

13. EIN number and explanation of type of nonprofit

For U.S.-based nonprofits, make sure you include your employer identification number (EIN) and explain what kind of nonprofit you are on your "about" page, as well as on any donation pages. Doing so can add to your credibility.

14. Social media links on every page, in the footer or header

Make it easy for people to enroll themselves in your social communities.

15. Linkedin

Include LinkedIn in your social media links if there's a strategic reason to include it.

16. Trust indicators

Link to third-party rating sites if you have a rating you are proud of, or alternatively, add any trust-marks that help build trust in new visitors.

17. ADA-compliant navigation

Making sure your pages are compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) means including tags in your posts and pages that help visually impaired people understand them. The U.S. Health & Human Services agency has a useful checklist for checking compliance on its site.

18. Alt tags on images, particularly images that have navigation associated with them (clickable images)

Doing so is useful both for SEO and to become ADA-compliant.

19. Registration of the site with Google's and Bing's Webmaster tools

These free tools let you instantly identify any performance issues with your nonprofit site.

20. XML sitemaps

If your site is large or complex, you may benefit from using XML sitemaps, which can help search engine robots discover content that may not reside in your site's top-level directories.

21. 301 redirects from old URLs that point to the new locations of the content

Using 301 redirects preserves the SEO benefit of the inbound links to the old URLs while simultaneously providing a better user experience for anyone who comes across the old link and clicks it.

22. Don't forget social media

Go beyond your website and make sure every social media page or profile page has the right messaging, information and call to action. No, you can't fully and directly control every element of your Charity Navigator and GuideStar profiles. But you can control the content in the following areas:

• Twitter profile
• LinkedIn profile
• Facebook page
• YouTube channel (if you have one, and you probably should)
• Google G+ page
• Wikipedia
• Instagram
• Tumblr (if you have one)
• Pinterest
• We-Care.com nonprofit profile page
• Givingworks.eBay.com page

Each of the above off-site content or organization profiles serves a slightly different purpose, but they can all educate and inform. And now that it seems that Google will again incorporate Twitter content in its results pages, what goes on your social channels is now more important than ever.

23. Privacy policy

Having a privacy policy in place (and following it) is essential for building trust among people who may be unfamiliar with your nonprofit.

24. Descriptive and unique HTML title tags for each post and page you publish

Pay attention to what you put into your title (headline) and description tags. This content is arguably as important to search engines as the content comprising the body area of this content.

25. Retargeting pixels

If you're lucky enough to have a media budget, continue using retargeting, which lets you follow your site visitors around with reminder messages. If you use a retargeting pixel at all, consider putting it on your donation "thank you" page. Retargeting current donors in this way provides high ROI because previous donation behavior predicts future donation behavior.

One could probably come up with an additional 25 "nice to have" website features, functions or technologies. But the 25 items above are really important — that's why I consider them "must haves." Nonprofits with significant tech resources or that can partner with a shop with those skills can start personalizing pages to specific members/users or use personalized landing-page URLs within their offline direct mail to tailor messaging to specific visitors or donors.

Only you can decide exactly how to prioritize your "musts" by knowing your target audiences and analyzing the way users are currently using your site. With a plan analysis and common sense, you'll be able to identify areas or your site that require the greatest gain and roll out improvements in the order in which they'll make the most difference to your bottom line.

Kevin Lee is CEO of Didit and We-Care.com. Reach him at klee@we-care.com