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The internet has changed marketing in many different ways. But perhaps the most important factor for the third sector has been the decline in cash and ‘impulse’ giving - and the growth of ‘planned’ donations – typifed by websites like Justgiving.

Increasingly, we use the web to manage our relationships and lives and whether you’re a charity or support organisation, you cannot ignore this fact.

If you don’t have a website, you need to create one – no matter how small you are. If you already have a website, what easy steps can you take to improve it? The question is: How?

Basic principles of good web design

Here are a few do’s and don’t's to consider…

Information architecture and content

Before you start designing and programming your site, you need to plan a sitemap. Basically, this is what goes in your main navigation and it’s important for purposes of search engine optimisation. Remember that individual web pages and the overall architecture need to stand alone. Any user can land on any web page without necessarily having read those around it.

Navigation and visual language

Keep it simple. Before you program the site, show the design to a few friends or colleagues. Let them view it for 15 seconds, then ask them what is the site about, initial impression and what sort of feeling do they get.

Image use

We live in a visual world. Images can make someone laugh or cry. So getting the image right is key. To make them more powerful, align them with the message you are giving on the page. There are great royalty-free image sites where you can download images for nominal amounts. Try istockphoto.com or dreamstime.com.

Basic programming/development

Think before you type, it’ll save you hours later on. Write lots of good explananatory comments in your code about what you’re trying to do and what the end result should be.

Doing e-commerce on your site

Services such like PayPal allow you to take limited amounts of money without the need for much prgramming knowledge, but for taking larger payments or seamless integration with your website, an experienced programmer will be needed. Begin setting up accounts for these services ASAP as it takes longer than you think.

Accessibility

Validate your site as much as possible – use validator.w3.org to see how closely your site conforms to current guidelines – the validator will tell you what you are doing wrong and give you tips on how to fix it.

Keywords and metatags

The keyword meta tag is no longer used by search engines as they were too easily faked – website copy is now key. The title meta tag however can make a huge difference to how the site is perceived in search engines – every unique page should have a unique title tag that’s relevant to the content of that page and contains keywords and phrases people are likely to search for.

Testing

Test as you go, then test again at the end. Again, give the site to your friends and colleagues to play with because they will find them! Remember to test across as many browsers as possible at different resolutions and on different operating systems. Also, whenever you make a change remember to test any section of your site that could possibly be affected by it.

Hosting: What to look for

• High up-time. 100% is near enough impossible, but most hosts achieve a figure in the very high 90’s (97-99% per month). Written contractual agreements of the uptime in a SLA is a good sign.
• Avoid dirt cheap hosting as it’s often provided by hosts who provide fill their servers beyond capacity, making your website slower and unstable.
• Unlimited bandwidth/discspace offers. As above, if it’s too good to be true it probably is…
• Server location. Although you may buy this through a UK host, their server may be in the US or any other country which could negatively impact on search engine rankings witin the UK, as well as reducing loading times.

Updating

Software like Dreamweaver or Aptana can make updating your site easy. Dreamweaver for instance provides a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor so you just type content and it generates the code. Off-the-shelf content management systems (CMS) can also be used but they require more technical skill to set-up and implement.
 

Do it yourself?

There are some great off-the-shelf packages available that enable users with no programming or design experience to create a decent web site - in an afternoon. What content you choose to put on the web site and in what order…well, that’s something they can’t help you with.

Moonfruit offers one of the best and easy-to-use packages for novice web designers.

Easily.co.uk is another great option for everything from web hosting and branded email to web site creation.

Virtualcharity.co.uk provides web templates and services geared to smaller third sector organisations.

Contributions.org.uk provides content management systems for charities.