Keep your website relevant

Christin Boyd, TrainerPatrick Tewson, Web Consultant

NPower Northwest

• Vision – A thriving community with high performing

nonprofits.• Mission– To strengthen the nonprofit sector by catalyzing

innovation and driving adoption of technology solutions.

Future Brown Bags & Webcasts

• Please visit our website and blog, or “like” us on Facebook, for more information regarding upcoming brown bags and trainings.

Contents

• Web Site Goals & Audience Identification • Site Map • Web Content Life Cycle – Content Plan– Write– Maintain– Archive

Your goals today

• You don’t want a rigid process or too much technology getting between you and your clients

• You want the site to convey the values and energy of the people at your organization

• You are one of many people contributing to the web site and communicating with constituents

• Managing the web site is one of many tasks you perform, so it needs to be done efficiently

Web Site Goals

• Your organization has a mission statement and a set of goals, perhaps for the year or overall.

• Clear goals will help your team – scope your work– guide your priorities– clarify communications with constituents.

• Goals should describe the result rather than the implementation details.

Target Audience

• Who is your audience?• Who does your organization serve?• Who helps you serve them by volunteering,

partnering, contracting, donating?• Are there subgroups who you want to reach

out to with a distinct message or tone– E.g. volunteers 55+, families with preschoolers

Target Audiences

Site Map

• shows you where content should be published• shows readers where to find content

Home

For Families

Literacy Programs

Evening Class

Catalog

Calendar View

Success Stories

For Employers

WA State Programs

King County Programs

Volunteer

Student Volunteers

Adult Volunteers

Contact us

Address, Map

Phone directory

Bios of Volunteer Coordinators

Site Map in Outline Format

• Home• Services– Literacy Programs

• Evening Class Catalog• Calendar View

– Success Stories• Volunteer– Student Volunteers– Adult Volunteers

• Contact us– Address, Map, Phone directory– Bios of Senior Staff Members

Process for managing web content

Plan: Prioritize & Schedule Content

Write & Format for web

Publish

Maintain

Archive

Planning New Content

• Plan for content maintenance tasks from the start.

• Make a Content Plan spreadsheet– People & Roles– Dates– Categories / keywords / tags

Sample: Plan for New Content

Ideas for new content

Audience Keywords

Subject Matter Experts

Author Publish Date

Checkup Date

Archive Date

Success story: graduates

All Programs, News

Samir Kumar; Zoe Ford

Jane Smith

6/1/11 3/1/12 6/1/12

Swing-shift childcare

Families Programs

Miles@nightcare.com

Raj V. 5/15/11 12/1/11

Black Tie Event:Volunteer recruitment and details

Volunteers

Event, Volunteer

KarenAn Bob Jones

9/2/11 9/15/11

Black Tie Event: Invite page; ticket info; menu

All Event, Donate

KarenAn Bob Jones

7/15/11 9/15/11

Columns for your Content Plan Spreadsheet

Dates:• Draft Due Date• Approved Date• Publication Date• Last Modified Date• Checkup Date• Archive Date• Deletion Date

Tasks:• A task can contain a date, a

person assigned to, and some instructions

People:• Author• Co Authors• Subject Matter Experts• Reviewers/Editors• Approver

Descriptions of the content:• Category • Keywords or Tags• Audience• Goals

Write & Publish

• Note the URL in your Content Plan document– Should look like this:

http://www.myorg.org/events/may/black_tie– Not this: http://www.myorg.org/search?Subject%3Alist=innovation&portal_type

%3Alist=Blog Entry&review_state%3Alist=published

• Update your Content Plan– Subject Matter Experts, contact information– Estimate Expiration Date, Checkup Date

Maintenance

• Use Content Plan spreadsheet to remind you of upcoming tasks and record the who completed task.

Publish Date URL Checkup Date

Checkup Completed? Archive Date Archive

Completed?

6/1/2011 Success/graduates.html 7/30/2012 Yes, Christin updated photos 6/1/2012

5/15/2011 Programs/Childcare/NightCare.html 7/1/2011

Yes, Raj V. added public transit link

7/15/2011 Events/BlackTie.html

8/15/2011

9/15/2011

Archive

• Old news makes your organization seem stagnant

• Archive Aggressively• No need to break links• Commit to Archive Dates in your Content Plan • Give staff the authority to archive • You can archive articles, pages and photos in

two ways:– Visible to the public– Not visible to the public, but saved for use by staff

Your Archive Strategy

• Work with your technical staff to create a process for archiving your content without changing the URL.

• If someone wants to find older info, how will you help them navigate the archives?– Simple search– Search form with fields, categories– List of links to old newsletters• “May Newsletter” not very useful• “May: Book Drive; Graduation Event” article keywords

or titles

Thank You

Christin Boyd, training@npowernw.orgPatrick Tewson, PatrickT@npowernw.org

NPower NorthwestWebsite: www.npowernw.org

Facebook: www.facebook.com/npowernwTwitter: @npowernw