5 Tips For Creating Websites for School-Associated Orgs
School-associated organizations need well-crafted websites to reach supporters and enable online interactions. Use these tips to create an effective website.
Guest post by Murad Bushnaq, Founder and CEO of Morweb
Your website is the face of your school-associated organization, significantly enhancing your ability to connect with potential supporters and engage your audience. Building an effective website can be time-consuming, including researching design tips and gathering analytic information, especially without web design expertise.
With years of working alongside hundreds of nonprofits, associations, and educational groups, Morweb has built websites for colleges, high schools, and other school-associated organizations. To help you get started building your new website, we’ve put together five key tips specifically for educational organizations.
Your organization should be able to implement each of these tips into your website with a bit of work and research. However, if you find yourself in need of additional advice or help, don’t hesitate to reach out to a professional web design agency that can answer all of your organization’s specific questions about your website.
1. Find an affordable, intuitive website builder.
Some website builders are more effective than others for different professional sectors. For example, nonprofits may use a website builder to build donation pages and establish trust with their donors, while schools need a solution that can enhance their educational effort and build smooth communication with all stakeholders including their supporters, parents and students.
While each organization will have its own priorities for what it's website needs to accomplish, here are a few key features to look out for when assessing different school website builders:
Multimedia support. For many school-related organizations, sharing resources such as educational and how-to videos is a necessity. Assess potential website builders on how well they support these features and how they accommodate the slow loading times that multiple images and videos can cause. For instance, some website builders will automatically compress images, which decreases the file sizes and speeds up page load time.
Customizable layouts. Your website builder should give your team options. If your team lacks experience designing websites, check out website builders that come with multiple school-specific templates and prioritize ease of use for front-end designers.
Mobile optimization. If you’re running a parent-teacher association, your members already have full-time jobs and will likely need to use your website while on the go. Many website builders have mobile options, but be on the lookout for one with automatic mobile optimization that prioritizes usability and fast loading times.
Additionally, be sure to assess potential website builders’ security. Some platforms perform regular security updates for all websites they support, while others leave it up to individual organizations to protect themselves. If your team is less experienced with cybersecurity or would prefer to limit the number of responsibilities your team takes on, make sure to find a website builder that takes care of security issues for you.
2. Make your mission clear.
If you accept donations, recruit volunteers, or encourage website visitors to participate in your organization in any way, you’ll need to make sure your mission is straightforward and easy to find. Remember that your mission isn’t just a summary of your organization, but an external-facing document that new web visitors will want to see.
A clear mission statement is especially important for fundraisers and donation drives as supporters will want to know how their contributions are making a difference. You can ensure that supporters will find and understand your mission on their first visit to your website by:
Creating a clear navigation system. Your website will have a few core pages that the majority of visitors will navigate to at some point while browsing your website. For many organizations, these will include donation, services, and about pages. While getting creative with website design can create a new and positive experience for visitors, it’s best not to experiment with your navigation and ensure users will find your mission exactly where they expect to.
Branding all additional websites and other online marketing materials. Your website hosts your mission, but all additional websites and platforms (including microsites and social media) should also be branded to your organization and offer a brief explanation of your mission. There are numerous fundraising ideas for schools that your organization can host, and all of them benefit from presenting your mission as clearly as possible.
Using images and videos to demonstrate your mission. A plain text description of what your organization is and what your goals are is necessary, but sometimes, videos and images can help supporters visualize your services and role in education more clearly. For example, if your organization helps schools manage after school programs, you might feature photos from past programs you organized.
Your mission will also be conveyed through other elements on your website outside of your mission statement. For example, the first piece of text on your website will form many visitors’ first impressions of your website, so carefully consider your homepage’s title, subtitle, and descriptive text.
3. Ensure your website is accessible.
The best organizations’ websites reach the widest possible audience by implementing accessibility features. Accessible websites improve the user experience and allow visitors using screen readers and other assistive technologies to engage with your content. You can make your website accessible by including the following features:
Video captions and scripts. Videos are an effective way to break up text and get your organization’s message across in new ways. However, not every user can watch videos or rely on their audio. Subtitling your videos with closed captions or providing a separate script helps these users interact with your video. Similarly, providing captions and alt text for images can also help visitors understand what your images are displaying and why they’re important.
Meaningful text hierarchy. Dividing your content up by headers helps keep topics organized and prevents visitors from getting overwhelmed by big blocks of text. Make sure that your headers follow a sequentially descending order with no skips between them (e.g. heading four appearing before heading three). Otherwise, readers using screen readers may get confused since they typically tab through the different headings to understand what content is grouped together on the page.
Legible text. Text can be unreadable if it’s too small, lacks sufficient color contrast, or is in a hard-to-read font. Use a legible font for the bulk of your page, and save fancy fonts for titles if you decide to use them. Ensure your site builder allows users to resize text up to 200% and adjust the page to greyscale to improve color contrast.
When performing website maintenance, make sure to include accessibility checks, especially for new content. Doing so will make sure all of your visitors are able to use your page and help you quickly catch any minor slips that might occur during website updates.
4. Identify key features to include.
Rather than thinking of your website as a collection of pages with text and graphics, try contextualizing it as a place where users accomplish specific tasks. After all, users don’t visit your website to read text; rather, they read text to learn about your organization.
The features you choose to include on your website will shape your users’ experiences and how they go about completing their tasks. Exactly what those tasks are will vary depending on your organization. CommunityPass’ after-school software page outlines a few common features school-related organizations’ websites should include:
Registration forms. School-related associations and any participant-based programs need to manage registrants and members, collect fees, and attract new participants. Your registration forms should be as streamlined as possible to encourage additional signups and include time-saving features such as automatic payment reminders and collection.
Merchandise store. Whether you’re selling event tickets, merchandise for your school’s sports team, or school supplies, an integrated storefront lets your organization quickly update its catalog of items, adjust prices, and collect payments.
News page. Regularly updating your website signals to supporters that your organization is healthy and still operating. Plus, maintaining an active posting schedule looks good to search engines, too. Rather than producing brand new content pages every week, your organization can keep a news page or blog that updates supporters on recent events or provides them with new information about your school or organization.
You can monitor how effective these features are at assisting visitors by monitoring analytics. The analytics tools within your website builder will allow you see which pages users are navigating to and how they’re finding your website in the first place, helping you identify things your website is doing well and places where it can improve.
For example, you might discover that your email campaigns are the most effective way to reach supporters, but that your registration forms are experiencing a higher rate of page abandonment than you prefer.
5. Create valuable content for your website.
To attract and engage your website’s audience, you’ll need to create valuable content that provides the insights and details visitors are looking for. This helps you build credibility and also enhances your organization’s visibility on search engines.
Morweb's guide to nonprofit website builders recommends populating your website with blog posts, interactive content, and other engaging content. Once you’ve developed high-quality content, you can use tools like Google Ads (or, the Google Ad Grant, if your organization is eligible) to get your website in front of as many eyes as possible.
The Gist
Building a new website requires dedicated time and research. Establish a website maintenance routine early and invest in a robust website building tool to save your team future headaches.
With the right website builder and a clear, user-friendly design, your website can leave a positive impression, boosting your organization's credibility and trustworthiness.
About the Author:
Murad Bushnaq is the Founder and CEO of Morweb, a custom-built website design and CMS solution that empowers nonprofits worldwide to achieve their missions through software, design, and strategy. Since its inception in 2014, Murad has acted as CEO & Creative, helping nonprofits amplify their online impact through engaging web designs, intuitive software, and strategic communication. Backed by expertise in both creative and technical services, Morweb is a trusted partner for nonprofits seeking to maximize their online presence.
Tips for Continuous Improvement to Your Nonprofit's Website
If you want to set your nonprofit website up for long-term success, taking a continuous improvement approach is your best bet. Find out why and how here.
Guest Post by Anne Stefanyk at Kanopi Studios
These days, the internet changes rapidly. There are new tools, platforms, and best practices that come to light every day. Because of this, waiting for a large website overhaul project is no longer the recommended route when it comes to site maintenance.
So, what does this all mean for your nonprofit’s website and online marketing efforts?
Here at Kanopi, we work with a wide range of organizations to help them develop and maintain a successful website. We’ve found that the best nonprofit websites are those that take a continuous improvement approach to maintenance. This approach is much more valuable, especially for their sites’ long-term health.
What is a continuous improvement approach to website maintenance?
Traditionally, organizations would create their website, design it, develop it, and then push it live. It was a very straightforward and linear process, that often resulted in a “set it and forget it approach.” Basically, after launch, the site risked being neglected, with the result being a large redesign and optimization project taking place a few years later to update the site again.
Hopefully, you would update the website’s systems and tools to the most recent version, refresh content and copy to be up-to-date, ensure that all pages and series were in working order, and more. However, these large maintenance projects also cost a lot of money and could take up to 6-12 months depending on their scope, leaving a large amount of time where the site is not up-to-par.
With the modern evolution of the current online world, it’s actually much more beneficial to think of the website development process as circular instead of linear, reflecting a more continuous improvement approach.
This Kanopi article on how to make a website last states: “Don’t think about your site in terms of Strategy > Design > Development > Launch, and then let it sit untouched for a while… Instead, think of a circular process of Strategy > Implement > Learn & Iterate, where after you Iterate, you revisit Strategy again! This will translate into a site that is always being refreshed and improved without breaking the bank.”
Here are some other benefits of taking a continuous improvement approach:
All of your website’s plugins, modules, and integrated tools are up-to-date and work seamlessly with each other
Your website is always fully accessible and compliant with all relevant laws
Users can more easily explore your website, learn about upcoming projects, and access your services
Every aspect of the donor journey, like mission research on your website, is seamless
You’ll see increased online conversions, like gifts, event registrations, and volunteer signups
You’ll set your nonprofit website up for long-term success, as your website health is much stronger when it’s constantly updated
Making small, minor tweaks on a more consistent and ad-hoc basis is more manageable time-wise and labor-wise than dedicating a large chunk of time to updating everything. And, this way there won’t be moments where users visit your site to learn something new and instead are met with outdated information or even broken pages or links.
When does your website need improvement?
So, now that you know why a continuous improvement approach to your nonprofit website is essential and how it can benefit your organization and goals, when exactly do you make those critical updates?
It’s not hard to determine exactly when your website could use a little love. Here is a list of questions to ask yourself:
Has your organization or mission evolved?
Do any of your software, tools, apps, modules, or plugins need updating?
Has your industry evolved? Are there any recent news updates you should share?
Can your users find what they are looking for? How navigable is your website?
Have your website visitors’ needs changed? Garner feedback through an email survey for more insight.
Is your content presented clearly? Is anything confusing?
Is your conversion rate declining? This can be the rate for online fundraising, event registrations, or any other organizational goals.
Have your search engine rankings changed? Has your landing pages’ bounce rates increased?
Have other similar nonprofit organizations changed their approach?
Is your site fast enough? A page speed of under 2-3 seconds is recommended.
Does your site look great on mobile devices? Is it compliant with other accessibility laws?
Is your site easy to use and edit? Can different staff members access and update content quickly and as needed?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then it’s a good sign that your website could use some quick maintenance. Taking care of these needs immediately rather than waiting until the last minute is much more beneficial not only to your site’s health but also to your supporters’ user experience.
What are some website maintenance continuous improvement best practices?
Ready to start taking a continuous improvement approach to your nonprofit’s website maintenance? Here are some additional tips that we recommended:
Do a SWOT analysis of your website. This will help outline any strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats you have to your site.
Map out user journeys to see how different users navigate through your site. Determine the different pathways they take and how you can improve your website to better align with these pathways.
Do a complete site audit to determine if your content is old or if there’s anything you need to update or archive.
Review major site components like your page architecture, overall design, site performance, and more.
Make small tweaks like removing links that people don’t click on, or archiving old content.
The most important part of your website maintenance plan is to always be open to learning and improving. As you continue to update and tweak your site, you’ll learn a little more about what works and what doesn’t.
Make it a habit to measure your site’s health and do data checks on a regular basis. You can even schedule user testing to make sure that your website is consistently meeting supporter needs. Work with your team to set up sprints to integrate this feedback into your site.
Wrapping Up
If you want to make your website last and ensure that your mission is a high priority, taking a continuous improvement approach to maintenance is your best bet. Don’t let your online engagements fall to the wayside and pile up your maintenance tasks to do at the last minute.
If you need any more guidance on how to track your website’s health and the small tweaks you should make, contacting a technology consultant for nonprofits can help.
About the Author:
As Founder and CEO of Kanopi Studios, Anne helps create clarity around project needs, and turns client conversations into actionable outcomes. She enjoys helping clients identify their problems, and then empowering the Kanopi team to execute great solutions.
Anne is an advocate for open source and co-organizes the Bay Area Drupal Camp. When she’s not contributing to the community or running her thoughtful web agency, she enjoys yoga, meditation, treehouses, dharma, cycling, paddle boarding, kayaking, and hanging with her nephew.
https://twitter.com/Anne_Kanopi