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Every business and nonprofit must have a webpage. These days, a web presence is simply not optional. However, just having any old webpage isn’t good enough either; you must have a webpage that makes it really easy for your users to find what they’re looking for. Here are ten quick tips to get your webpage into top form.
1. Evaluate your navigation. Are you using a consistent template for each and every page of your site? Are there visual cues in your navigation to help your users know where they are within your site? If not, you are probably confusing people. Make sure your navigation buttons are consistent on every single page, make sense, and tell your users where they are. Here’s an examples of a site with good navigation structure:
Southeastern Cave Conservancy (note how the navigation uses both top-level navigation and sidebar second level navigation)
2. Group information logically. Make sure to carefully analyze the organization of your web page and group related information together. In addition, be sure to provide plenty of links to other pages. For example, if you have a page that suggests people volunteer for your organization, be sure to either include all of the information people will need in the same place. Don’t put volunteer signup information under “About Us” and volunteer opportunities under “volunteer.” That will confuse people. Instead, create one top-level button called “Volunteer” and have sub-buttons for “Sign up as a volunteer,” “Volunteer Opportunities,” etc. Make it easy for people to find what they need.
3. Use a consistent footer. Make sure to include all of the navigation information for your site in a footer. That way, if your readers scroll to the bottom of a long page they can still easily access the rest of your site.
4. Include logical titles for each page. Make sure you include a title for each page. Ideally, the title should be catchy and descriptive. If you have lots of information on the page, use subheadings to break up the flow of information.
5. Don’t include too much information. Keep information on each page shorter than two full page lengths. If you include more, people will likely lose interest and won’t read everything. If you have pages and pages of additional information, figure out if you can break the information into additional subpages, or if you can condense the information (usually you can condense it).
6. Include a site index. A site index is simply a table of contents that includes links to every single topic in your website. It’s very important to include a site index, especially for complex sites. Internet users have very short attention spans, and if they can’t quickly find what they’re looking for, they’ll give up. A site index allows users to quickly scan a list of topics and quickly find information. Here’s an example: http://scci.org/siteindex.html
7. Include links to your newsletter on each and every page! If you have a company or nonprofit newsletter, make sure to include a “sign up” link on every single page. You never know how people will access your web site (often not from the home page) so make it easy for people to find out how to sign up for your newsletter.
8. Ditto for social media. If you use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, or any other social media tool (and you should!), make sure to add links to every social media resource on every single web page. This will make it really easy for people to figure out how else they can connect with you. It’s easy to set this up with templates so if you need to add or remove standard information, you only have to update one file instead of each and every page on your site (more about templates in a future post).
9. Include interesting photos, but don’t overdo it. Pictures are great additions to any website. They can highlight the subject you’re discussing on different pages, can add interest, and can help tell stories. Just don’t go crazy. Be sure to use tastefully cropped images, images that are small sizes so they don’t load slowly, and be sure to include a caption that describes what the photo is.
10. Finally, invite user interaction. To keep your web page fresh and interesting, either include new information at least twice a month, add a blog to your site, or figure out some way to keep content fresh. Constantly providing new content will keep readers coming back. Investigate using “Share This” or other social networking tools to allow readers to quickly share links they like with their friends. You can also consider adding commenting features to your web pages and/or blogs if you want to get people really involved in your website. Another bonus to adding a blog or frequently updating content: it will help bump your site way up in internet searches!
 This weekend I’m attending the Alabama River’s Alliance’s Watershed Leadership Conference. In past years at the conference I’ve learned a great deal about how to build stronger nonprofit boards, how to more effectively communicate with members, and how to monitor my area for erosion control violations. This year, however, I’m presenting at one of the sessions to help others understand social media and I”m really looking forward to it!
Over the past year, I’ve gotten really excited about the potential for social media to make a positive different for both businesses and nonprofits–but social media takes some time to understand. Before embarking into the strange new world of Facebook pages, LinkedIn profiles, Twitter, and Delicious social bookmarking, you first have to have a plan in place to get the most out of the time you invest in these new mediums. It’s essential to first thoroughly understand these new tools and how to make them work for you.
For my conference presentation I’m planning to focus on some of the basics: what are Facebook pages, what is Twitter, is LinkedIn really useful? I’ll provide tips for how to set up these pages to make them as effective as possible, explain how to post content that is meaningful and useful, plus explain why it’s important to completely integrate your web site and all social media. We’ll look at several good examples of nonprofit social media pages to help you really understand what works and what doesn’t.
Before my talk I’ll post all of the relevant information for the presentation here and session attendees can download all of the handouts and examples of useful sites. Looking forward to talking about social media!
If you’re interested in learning more about social media, check out this great resource from Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED). TED is a nonprofit organization dedicated to showing people how to effectively use technology and good design to spread good ideas. There are over 500 talks archived on the TED webpage. If you want to learn more about effectively using social media to spread the word about a nonprofit or a business, the following talks are a great starting point:
TED and Social Media
As some of these talks point out, social media is the new “normal.” It’s essential for businesses and nonprofits to understand this new medium to effectively market your products and services.
Ah, an issue near and dear to my heart, finding more efficient ways to communicate at work. As someone who has long decried the tendency to have umpteen meetings every week for “group discussions” about simple tasks, this is an article everyone should read:
A Little Less Conservation
Now, we all know that communication is very important, and that many organizational problems are caused by a failure to communicate. Most people try to solve this problem by increasing the amount of communication: cc’ing everybody on an e-mail, having long meetings and inviting the whole staff, and asking for everyone’s two cents before implementing a decision.
But communications costs add up faster than you think, especially on larger teams. What used to work with three people in a garage all talking to one another about everything just doesn’t work when your head count reaches 10 or 20 people. Everybody who doesn’t need to be in that meeting is killing productivity. Everybody who doesn’t need to read that e-mail is distracted by it. At some point, overcommunicating just isn’t efficient.
This week, take a hard look at who you are communicating with and why. Do you really need to copy everyone on that email? Is it really necessary to invite your entire team to several mandatory meetings, or would their time be better spent working independently? If it is necessary to have a large meeting, have you created an agenda for the meeting to keep issues on track and increase overall efficiency?
Also keep in mind that there’s a fine balance you need to find. Although communicating too much kills productivity, not communicating enough can be just as dangerous. Don’t cancel all your meetings or stop sharing information with your staff. Just try to figure out a good balance that increases efficiency while allowing your talented staff the freedom to do their jobs.
 I’ll admit it. I dragged my feet setting up a Facebook page. I resisted setting up a beefy LinkedIn profile. When Twitter came along, I played around with it a bit, found it interesting, but didn’t post regularly.
Why did I resist all of the new social networking tools? Not because I have privacy concerns or find the new technology scary. My main concern was time. Would I really have time to dedicate to all of these new tools? I finally gave in and got on board with all of the social networking toys, and I love them. And I do have time for them.
However, I’ve noticed an interesting trend with some businesses. They’re afraid of social networking. They don’t want a presence on Facebook, Twitter, or even LinkedIn. After talking with local professionals, the main concerns seem to revolve around three things: privacy issues, a fear of accidentally giving away information about business pursuits, and providing a means for the public to post comments that may not reflect corporate values.
Are these valid concerns? Yes. Are there ways to address them and still take advantage of the many benefits of social networking? Yes. Is social networking really worth the effort of figuring out answers to these issues? Yes!
First, it it helps to understand how businesses with very real privacy concerns can greatly benefit from social networking. First, social networking is a great way to get the word out about corporate news. Do you post press releases to your web page? If you do, spread the word even faster by also posting a link to the press release to social networking sites. Second, social networking sites are great tools for human resource departments. HR staff can post job openings and recruit the best candidate. Third, many employees love social networking, so setting up corporate social networking sites help you communicate with employees and help them feel more connected to your company.
So how do you address privacy concerns? First, create a policy that outlines the information you want to appear on your sites. Next, only allow specific employees to post information. If you need help figuring out what to include in a policy, think about the great information about your company you want to share, and start there. For example, your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter pages can periodically highlight information already on your corporate webpage. Post a link to your corporate values so your followers will get insight into your company. Post links to press releases. If you’re attending a trade show, post your booth number and invite everyone to stop by for a visit. Post each and every job opening to maximize your chances of recruiting the perfect candidate.
For those worried about inappropriate comments on your social networking sites, all of the tools allow you to either turn off commenting or let your staff approve comments before they appear. If you just want to get the word out about your company, it’s easy to do that without introducing the added complexity of monitoring comments.
The final step with social networking is developing a corporate policy to help your employees understand what they can and cannot say about your company on their personal sites. Make sure to tell your employees what information they should make sure to keep to themselves, and what information they can share. You can find a variety of sample social networking policies by doing a few quick Google searches.
See, it’s easy to fill social networking sites will information that is useful to your company, yet doesn’t infringe on any privacy or confidentiality concerns. So don’t be afraid of social networking. Embrace it, and add some very useful tools to grow your business and your staff!
 All nonprofits rely on volunteers for at least some aspect of their work. Smart nonprofits have good plans in place to recruit, train, and communicate with volunteers to maximize the impact on their cause. Do you know how to best communicate with volunteers? Read on for tips for how to make sure your volunteers feel connected to your organization and stay involved.
1. Create volunteer training. Do you have a good volunteer training program in place? If not, think about at least implementing a high-level volunteer training program. This could even be online—a basic “Volunteer Guidebook” to ensure your volunteers thoroughly understand your organization, what they can do to most effectively help, and provide any information that they may need to know that is unique to your cause. For example, create a short a short PowerPoint presentation or video on your website that outlines your organization, your staff and board structure, key people to contact if a volunteer has a question, and the key projects you’re currently supporting. In addition, include information about important groups related to your cause. If your organization has some specific projects, such as monitoring water quality in your state, you should also provide information about regional water protection groups and mailing lists, government organizations, training opportunities, conferences, and other partner nonprofits the volunteer could monitor for information. Also provide guidelines for what you want volunteers to communicate to others about your cause. If your group works hard to come up with partnership solutions to problems instead of engaging in legal action, be sure to give your volunteers tips on how to most effectively interact with others on your behalf (make sure volunteers don’t threaten to sue if that’s not what you do). If volunteers go out into the community (for example, many river groups look for improper erosion control devices at construction sites) be sure to provide explicit guidelines for what they should and should not do–no trespassing, no confrontations, etc. Just take some time to think of all of the issues that your volunteers may encounter while helping your organization and be sure to write down common questions/problems and answers.
2. Make your volunteers know they make a difference. After recruiting and training your volunteers, now it’s time to make sure they have a great experience working with you. This can be challenging for nonprofit staff already pressed for time. However, try to integrate some volunteer management and appreciation into some of your weekly or monthly tasks. For example, plan a monthly “volunteer lunch” for volunteers to stop by, have lunch with your staff and board, and just spend some time talking about ongoing projects. When a volunteer completes a task, give the volunteer a quick call or send an email just to say “Thanks! We really appreciate you!” Another idea is to host an annual “volunteer appreciation dinner” to recognize your volunteers, give them a small gift, and socialize.
3. Start a volunteer newsletter. These days, It’s fast and cheap to create very short monthly or quarterly newsletters that you can email to your volunteers. A newsletter can highlight all of the different volunteers jobs your valuable volunteers are tackling, you can advertise new volunteer needs, and you can recognize different volunteers every month. A monthly or quarterly publication is one of the best ways you can make your volunteers feel connected to your organization and valued as a volunteer. If you already have a newsletter for regular members, consider adding a new section specially for volunteers to recognize the people who help you. Never underestimate how important it is to regularly communicate with the people who volunteer their time. And also remember that to be effective, ANY communication material must be sent out at least quarterly. Any less than 4 times a year will not be effective in making your volunteers feel connected to your cause.
Need some additional tips to come up with a volunteer “welcome book” or newsletter? Here are some broad outlines you can consider. And be sure to include lots, and lots, and lots of pictures!
Volunteer orientation/welcome book or PowerPoint presentation:
1. Enthusiastically welcome your volunteers and thank them for their interest.
2. Outline your organization, what you do, and who you serve.
3. List each staff member and board member–and be sure to include contact information.
4. List ways to connect with your organization (web page, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.)
5. List potential sources of information (mailing lists, conferences, training, etc.)
6. List other organizations volunteers should be aware of. Include other nonprofits, government agencies you interact with, educational groups, etc. If volunteers will need to contact people in other groups, provide contact information.
7. Discuss your most important projects and objectives and how volunteers can help.
8. Discuss any concerns unique to your organization. Safety during site visits? What to say, or not say, while talking to people in the community? How to promote your organization as a volunteer?
Newsletter ideas:
1. Include a “volunteer of the month.” This can simply highlight the work one volunteer is doing to help your organization. Include personal information about the volunteer so other volunteers can feel a connection to the person.
2. List ongoing volunteer needs. Ask that current volunteers refer friends who may be interested.
3. Include a note from someone on your staff or board. This can rotate monthly so you volunteers can get to know many of the people involved in your organization. The note can highlight ongoing work, discuss future plans, or anything relevant to your cause.
4. Include a questionnaires. People like to give feedback, so maybe once a year add a questionnaire asking volunteers for feedback on how your volunteer program could be improved. Web sites like “Survey Monkey” make it really easy to create questionnaires.
5. Highlight significant accomplishments. Did you just win a big grant? Did your group win an award? Did you participate in an important conference? Be sure to share this information with your volunteers.
6. Include some “fun” information. Links to uplifting news articles, media stories, etc. to make your volunteers smile.
 While researching nonprofit organizations in my community, I came across a fabulous statistic for our local volunteer center. According to an article posted on a local magazine’s webpage, the volunteer center had recruited over 20,000 volunteers the previous year and have around 4,000 volunteers in their database ready to help other local nonprofits. Wow! This is quite a feat for my medium-sized city. The organization also had received a prestigious award as one of the best volunteer centers in the country. I was mightily impressed and definitely wanted to include a bit of detail about these accomplishments in the article. So, I popped over to the group’s webpage to look for more information. I visited every single page on their site. Nada. Didn’t see any kind of press release, article, or link to any outside articles. I was puzzled. I picked up the phone and called the volunteer center to make sure these great statistics were accurate.
The volunteer coordinator answered the phone and I explained that I’d found some great information about the organization, but didn’t see any links on their web page. I asked “is this information accurate?” The woman on the phone said she couldn’t comment about my questions and she would need to refer me to the executive director. Really? Well, ok.
I heard back the next day with confirmation. Yes, the organization had indeed recruited over 20,000 volunteers. Yes, they really do have thousands of volunteers listed in their database. Yes, the did receive a national award as one of the top 10 volunteer centers in the country.
Why wasn’t this information not only easily available on the group’s website, but shouted from the mountaintop? Why did the first woman I talked to have to refer me to the ED? This highlights some basic marketing that every nonprofit needs to implement. Let’s go over the basics.
1. If there is any news about your organization in local, state, or national media, post a link from your webpage. Make it easy for people to find out how great you are. There is no shame in bragging (as long as you are not obnoxious about it). Highlighting positive news stories will make your organization even more credible to potential supporters, volunteers, and partners.
 2. To make news easy for people to find, have a “News” link on your webpage with an archive of all the great news about your organization over the years, as well as your accomplishments. If you don’t have a news archive right now, it is easy to create one. Just go through your records, and create some articles about all of the wonderful things you have accomplished.
3. Share good news and good statistics with your staff, volunteers, and supporters through your newsletter, web page, blog, Twitter, etc. Make sure that everyone involved in your organization finds out about good news, media attention, and your group’s achievements.
4. Empower and encourage your staff, volunteers, and supporters to SHARE the great news about your organization! If someone calls and wants basic information about your organization, make sure you have common questions, news events, and your accomplishments posted on your web page and blog in easy to find locations. Especially make sure that your staff knows all of the great statistics about your organization, and empower them to share their knowledge with the public. Allow your staff to answer questions about your organization. Only require referral to the already overworked executive director when a reporter asks for a quote that reflects the official position of the organization.
Making it easy for your staff, volunteers, and supporters to spread the word about your good work will pay off for your organization!
 If you work for a nonprofit involved in conservation or the environment, are you sure you are effectively communicating about your cause to your members, your community, and the public at large? How sure? Several recent studies have shown that scientists, and people who need to convey scientific information, aren’t doing a very good job conveying scientific information. Want proof?
- About 33% of Americans think humans have existed in their current form since the beginning of time. Yet only 2% of scientists believe the same. In addition, there is no credible science challenging the theory of evolution, so how can 1/3 of Americans still question it?
- Only about 50% of Americans think people are behind climate change, but there is little to no scientific doubt on this subject.
- And maybe the worst: There are still 11% of Americans who think there is no global warming at all.
It’s time to be concise, clear and provocative with our science. We can no longer talk only to each other or a select few others. We must do better. We need to be simple, clear, and dramatic — accurate, but dramatic.
How can you be dramatic, yet accurate? First, write in a way that is really interesting and draws in your reader. Start with a story that is personal and readers can relate to. If you’re writing about animal conservation, write about human interactions with endangered species. One of the best examples of adding human interest to animal conservation is Bat Conservation International. The group managed to take one of the most feared and hated animals (bats) and generate huge support for protecting them.
If you’re writing about land conservation, feature a family who used a threatened piece of land for a wedding, outings for their children, or other human interests stories–and tell why it is important to that particular family to preserve the land. The Nature Conservancy excels at writing human interest stories about their work.
Of course, you need to add statistics and numbers to some of your materials to make your points, but keep them simple.
 Your nonprofit does great work, helps your community, or your cause, in fabulous ways. But do you do a good job communicating your successes, your goals, and your dreams, to your supporters?
A surprising number of nonprofits aren’t very good at communicating with supporters, and communication is something that can really pay off big if you do just a few things right.
First, take stock of how you communicate with your supporters right now. The bare bone basics that you absolutely, positively (no fooling!) must have are a webpage and a newsletter (on a regular schedule of no less than quarterly). These basic tools help ensure you can tell supporters, and potential supporters, about your work, your mission, your volunteer needs, and anything else you want to share with the world.
Once you have these basics in place, step up you communication a notch and try some new social networking tools: Facebook, Twitter, and blogging. These are great ways to reach younger, tech-savvy audiences… audiences that may be good pools for future supporters. Don’t know how to get started? Poll your volunteers to see if you have any writers who are interested in getting the ball rolling. All of these newer tools are fairly easy to use if you just experiment a bit (plus they’re fun!).
No matter what kinds of communications tools you use, it’s critical that you share news and information with your supporters on a regular basis. Tell them what you’re up to. Share a personal story of how your group has made a positive impact on your community or supporters. If you’re planning any big changes, also share that information and how the changes will positively impact your group. And of course, you also need to share bad news. If your board had to make a controversial decision, be up front with your members and explain the decision and how it will impact the group. It’s never good to keep your members guessing about what is going on, or worse, having members hear incomplete or inaccurate news through the grapevine.
So start thinking of ways that you can more effectively reach out to your supporters. Future posts will explore many ways that you can maximize the benefits from all different kinds of communications tools.
I just turned in an article for Pet Age, a trade magazine for pet shop owners. Trade magazines are not like magazines you can find at the bookstore; they are geared towards helping business owners become more effective and efficient in their industry. For example, the article I just finished focused on how to help pet store owners explain complicated aquarium filters to brand new customers.
Did you know that trade magazine editors almost always keep lists of useful “expert” sources writers can interview for stories? What are expert sources? They are people well-established in their business, but also very knowledgeable about a variety of aspects of their particular business. To become an expert source, you also need to be a good interview subject, explain your ideas clearly, and even provide some interesting stories writers can incorporate into articles.
If you can become an “expert source” for a trade magazine in your field, you will increase your exposure to your peers, be able to use the resulting articles for marketing your business, and leverage your “expert source” status for the magazine into “expert source” status for your customers. Here are some tips on how to become a go-to source for a trade magazine and how to go about becoming a writer’s favorite source for interviews.
1. Contact the editor. Look in your profession’s trade magazine and find the name of the editor-in-chief. Look up the person’s contact information online and send them a very short note explaining your business, your areas of expertise, and your willingness to help with future articles. Most trade magazine editors are very easy to approach and welcome hearing from potential sources.
2. Plan to meet trade magazine editors at trade shows. If your profession holds annual trade shows, you can be almost 100% sure representatives from trade magazines will be attending the show. You can simply call a magazine and ask who is attending, then contact that person and ask to meet them during the show. You can then introduce yourself, explain your business, and offer to become a source.
3. Contact writers. If you notice a writer in a trade magazines who frequently covers your field, you can also contact the writer directly. Try to find the writer online and send him or her an email with information pretty much identical to what you sent editors. The next time the writer is writing a related story, you may become an interview subject.
4. Keep in touch with editor/writers without being annoying. One of the best ways to keep your name in front of an editor/writer is to send him or her press releases. This will not only convey the message “Hey, I’m a great source in my field, contact me!” it’s also a good way to highlight any innovative or unique ideas your business is pursuing. This is also another good incentive to start writing and submitting press releases!
5. Practice good interview skills. You’ve become an expert source for a trade magazine. Bravo! Now comes the fun part: giving a good interview. When a writer contacts you requesting an interview, there are a few things you can do to get ready. First, find out specifically what the article will cover, and ask for a few questions the writer wants to discuss in-depth. Ask the writer to send you this information via email, then set up an appointment to talk on the phone. This will give you some time to think about some great information to provide. Remember, writers look for useful information, but also want colorful quotes and stories. Writers will typically tell editors which sources give great interviews, and the editors will recommend you again as a go-to source.
6. Don’t panic if the writer asks to record the interview. Most writers want to record interviews simply because recording allows them to concentrate on your conversation without having to frantically write down every word you’re saying while you’re talking. Recording allows the writer to later go back and transcribe your conversation, ensuring accuracy for any quotes the writer attributes to you. If you feel uneasy with recording, you can also ask the writer to delete the recording after the article is fact-checked.
7. Trade magazine articles are always fact-checked. Don’t be nervous that a writer who interviews you will twist your quotes into something crazy. Trade magazines are meant to be useful to businesses, so every article is fact-checked. This means someone from the magazine will contact you to verify information attributed to you in the article. If you’re not happy with a quote, or if it isn’t exactly right, the fact-checker will ensure the information is changed to be accurate. If you want to verify that your interview will be fact-checked, just contact the magazine and ask before you conduct the interview.
8. Now, leverage the article for your business. Be sure to publicize articles where you are featured as an “expert source.” Post a link to the article, or if the article isn’t publicly available, ask the magazine for permission to re-use it. Make a note on your web page, Facebook page, LinkedIn page, and Twitter page that you are featured in “XYZ’s April issue.” Send out a press release. If you local paper runs short business news summaries, submit a short blurb.
There you go! Good luck becoming an expert source. It’s a great way to increase visibility for your business!
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