Your homepage is the face of your nonprofit. Whereas advertising appeals will doubtless be supporters’ first impression of your nonprofit, your homepage tells supporters every little thing they should learn about your nonprofit (whether or not it’s intentional or not). To enhance guests’ expertise in your homepage, discover ways to construct and keep an accessible homepage with a contemporary design that displays the delicate nonprofit behind it.
If you happen to don’t have expertise in internet design, upgrading your web site can look like a monumental job with the potential draw back of breaking core functionalities. That can assist you confidently lead your nonprofit’s homepage growth, this text will go over:
The primary three sections will talk about key features of your homepage, permitting you to take the primary steps in direction of creating and sustaining a higher nonprofit web site. The final part will then talk about actionable steps you and your workforce can implement to repeatedly enhance and improve your web site.
Design traits change, and whereas your present supporters have a transparent thought of what a web site ought to appear to be now, their expectations might shift sooner or later. When you design your web site, proceed to maintain up with technological and design modifications within the nonprofit sector with the intention to have your homepage persistently make first impression.
However first, you’ll want a strong grasp on the necessities. Let’s dive in.
Homepage Options
When guests come to your web site, what would you like them to see first? Practically each nonprofit ought to have just a few core options on its homepage, however the order and presentation of these objects will have an effect on how your guests have interaction along with your web site.
Listed here are just a few must-have options in your homepage:
- Fundamental details about your nonprofit. Fundamental data contains the title of your nonprofit, your contact data, and an abbreviated mission assertion or abstract of what your group is. Moreover, think about spotlighting a venture your nonprofit is presently engaged on or has lately accomplished. Holding common information updates in your web site provides guests examples of your work, whereas additionally assuring them your nonprofit continues to be lively.
- Navigation bar. Your navigation bar needs to be close to the highest of your homepage, needs to be apparent to guests upon first look, and may comprise hyperlinks to key pages in your web site. Put your self in your homepage guests’ sneakers as you think about the labels in your navigation bar, particularly in case you have nested objects. Conduct person testing by having customers follow navigating your homepage to make certain they’re making the correct assumptions about what content material is beneath every label.
- Hyperlink to your donation types. Donating needs to be as simple as doable for guests. Many nonprofits have massive, brightly coloured donation buttons positioned someplace close to the highest of their homepage. Others have the donation kind already open in a sidebar or over their hero picture to let guests enter their donation data with out navigating off their homepage.
- Hyperlink to your volunteer/contact types. Just like your donation kind, your homepage ought to characteristic a “Work with Us,” “Get Concerned,” or “Volunteer,” hyperlink someplace above the fold (or close to the highest of the web page). Remember to differentiate your volunteer kind out of your careers web page, in case you have one. Careers and job alternatives are usually linked in your webpage’s footer if you’re recruiting.
- Brand. Your complete web site ought to characterize your nonprofit’s model, and inserting your brand entrance and heart will make it clear to guests what homepage they’re on. Your brand ought to make an look on each web page in your web site (normally within the higher proper or left nook), however might be bolder or take heart stage in your homepage.
Take into account your viewers and the way your viewers interacts along with your nonprofit as you start the design course of. Are your supporters from a particular space? Have they got particular jobs? Are they from a particular era? Take the time to analysis your viewers and conduct person interviews with the intention to perceive who your web site ought to enchantment to.
Homepage Design
Whereas experience helps, you’ll be able to create a lovely, trendy web site with out being an expert web site designer. You’ll simply have to observe just a few commonplace finest practices and thoroughly think about how design will affect your customers’ expertise.
Your web site’s design ought to improve the data in your homepage moderately than being incidental. Determine what you need to draw your guests’ eyes to as you think about your design selections for:
- Photographs. Your web site ought to have high-quality pictures, graphics, or different visible media. Alongside along with your brand, think about making a most important hero or banner picture that evokes emotion whereas additionally informing guests about what your nonprofit does. For instance, an environmental nonprofit might need footage of volunteers planting bushes or eye-catching graphics showcasing what number of bushes they’ve planted over the previous yr.
- Colours. Select colours that align along with your nonprofit’s model. Along with coloring menu bars and part dividers, think about implementing gradient overlays to offer your homepage a constant colour palette. Nonetheless, make sure you depart white house in margins and between sections to offer your guests’ eyes an opportunity to relaxation.
- Textual content. Textual content design contains your headers, paragraph line-length, and use of bullet factors and numbered lists. Robust textual content design contains clear headers, brief line lengths, and provides readers breaks between blocks of textual content with white house and listed content material.
- Structure. As talked about, think about what order to place your options in. Some web sites use vertical column layouts to show a number of data directly, whereas others act like a social media feed, permitting guests to scroll till they discover the content material they need. Your structure impacts how viewers navigate your web site, so prioritize navigation and comfort above all else by decreasing litter and guaranteeing your navigation bar is at all times accessible.
As you add design components, take the time to verify your web site meets accessibility pointers. Add alt-text to pictures, transcripts for movies, and guarantee essential fields on donation types are marked by one other visible help than simply colour alone.
Homepage Upkeep
After constructing your nonprofit’s homepage, you have to to conduct common upkeep on it. You need to frequently add new content material to your web site with the intention to present your exercise to your supporters, however including new pages with out correct upkeep can result in damaged hyperlinks, complicated web site hierarchy, and lengthy load occasions.
Not all web site upkeep requires you to have information of coding (although it will probably assist), and there are lots of routine operations you’ll be able to full your self. Cornershop Artistic’s information to nonprofit web site upkeep offers a guidelines of things that features:
- Changing outdated hyperlinks. Outdated and damaged hyperlinks could make guests doubt your web site’s safety, which can trigger them to hesitate when inputting their monetary data into your donation kind. Click on all frequently used hyperlinks and take a look at hyperlinks to new pages to maintain your guests in your web site and away from 404 Error messages.
- Checking loading occasions. In case your homepage takes longer than two seconds to load, guests might not hassle to attend, dropping you web site visitors and potential donations. Lengthy load occasions might be brought on by massive picture information or pointless plugins. Try this information for extra details about what it is best to search for (and keep away from) in a WordPress plugin.
- Actively testing types. Observe getting into your data into your donation, volunteer, and registration types to make sure data is flowing by way of to your CRM correctly and that there are not any pointless steps slowing down the method.
Staying up to date on web site and on-line finest practices requires time and routine analysis. In case your homepage has an issue you aren’t geared up to deal with, attain out to skilled web site consultants for recommendation. For instance, severe points like a safety failure require speedy consideration and warrant bringing in outdoors assist to guard your donors’ safety and your popularity.
Steps for Enchancment
Implement the practices on this information as a primary step in direction of forming a greater digital first impression. Bear in mind, although, that creating and sustaining an up-to-date web site requires constant analysis on new expertise and internet practices.
As you enhance your web site, begin trying into further enchancment methods comparable to:
- Attending coaching programs. As nonprofit expertise evolves, the record of issues to be taught grows together with it. Coaching programs can train you the right way to take advantage of the instruments you will have and probably begin tackling duties in-house that you beforehand needed to outsource.
- Hiring a advisor. Chances are you’ll resolve that your nonprofit doesn’t have the time and assets to construct and design your homepage. On this case, look into internet design consultants specialised in nonprofits to find what you want and what choices are on the market. If you happen to’ve by no means labored with an exterior knowledgeable earlier than, this information to nonprofit consultants outlines necessities to remember.
Hold your finances in thoughts as you get to work in your web site. Designing, coding, and sustaining a web site can rapidly turn into costly, so make sure you create an inventory of must-have elements and a finances to make sure nothing important is forgotten with out spending greater than essential.
Your homepage’s guests are used to trendy internet design and can strategy your web site with particular expectations of what a homepage ought to look and act like. When you need to give these guests a novel expertise, guarantee they discover your web site simple to make use of, modern-looking, and safe.
Design your web site with comfort of use and your model id in thoughts, and frequently replace it to verify the hassle you set into its creation by no means goes to waste attributable to loading occasions or damaged hyperlinks. With a strong internet design basis in place, you’ll be capable to begin bringing the entire different pages in your web site on top of things, too. Better of luck!
Concerning the Creator
Ira Horowitz
With 15 years’ expertise, Ira is an knowledgeable in nonprofit on-line communications and on-line fundraising. His work has resulted in elevated funds and resounding supporter engagement for lots of of organizations.
Ira oversees our venture administration workforce and works with purchasers to offer our purchasers with the very best remaining product. He additionally manages all of our strategic engagements and helps information nonprofits to find out their long-term technique targets for on-line communications.