10 things everyone needs to have on their website

 Session Hashtag: #10things

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Agenda   

• Panelist Intro 

• Presentation 

• Q/A

#10things

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Panelists

• Nicole Aro, DNC (@nekaro)

• Henri Makembe, Blue State Digital (@henrim)

• Alex Kelner, Blue State Digital (@kellnaaah)

• Katie Harbath, NRSC (@katieharbath)

• Michael Turk, CRAFT | Media Digital (@MichaelTurk)

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1 - Well organized information architecture hosted on stable, scalable, user-friendly platform 

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Your content is only as good as the platform.• If your site goes down, makes

it hard to maintain, or difficult for users to find information, the best ideas in the world won't save you.

• Your platform should grow to accommodate the campaign.

2 - Clear mission, narrative and branding

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Visitors to your site will typically spend only a few seconds to a few minutes on your site.

What are you telling them? How easy is it to find meaningful content?

If they leave, and never return, what should they take away?

3 - Integration with offline message & organizational goals

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• Clear and consistent message and mission across media - “About” section should reflect a field organizer’s description of your organization.

• Cross-media engagement: build, document, celebrateo Online to offline

Event calendar Hosting opportunities Share your (volunteer) experience 

o Offline to online Email & text signups on sign-in sheets Hashtags, live-blogging

4 - Prominent email signup/capture#10things

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Email signups = Building online organization.Online organization = Offline organization

• Email signup  must always be visible, obvious, and easy

• Use analytics to determine most successful placement and strategies

• Use  splash pages, petitions, etc. at high traffic moments

• Be creative!o For example, use FBML on your Facebook page to direct new

fans to sign up for email

• Use offline activity to build your online list

5 - An optimized donation page#10things

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• We don't always know which pages will convert best. Test, test and test again.

• Each audience is different. What results in the highest/most donations won't be the same for each website.

• Use Google Site Optimizer. Part of analytics and fairly easy to use.

V.

6 - Dynamic/frequently-updated written/visual/video content

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• Why would anyone come back to your site if it's the same every time?

• Think about your audience. What do they want to read/watch/look at?

 • Don't blog for the sake of blogging. Have something to

say - dynamic content doesn't have to be a blog.  • Sometimes being fast/current is better than being

perfect.

7 -  Interactivity components#10things

• Website needs to be two way communication and visitors always given a way to interact with you. 

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7 -  Interactivity components#10things

• Varying levels of interaction people will want to take.o Level 1: Sharing content via email & social networkso Level 2: Sharing thoughts on particular topicso Level 3: supporters interacting with each other.

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7 -  Interactivity components#10things

• Examples: Facebook share/Retweet buttons, email sign up, Google moderator to ask people for their questions

• Engagement & interaction leads to emotional investment

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8 -  Action opportunities with proper daisy chains

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• When you ask someone to take action on your site it is only the first of many steps. Each ask should be followed by another ask.

• Example: After e-mail sign-up, Thank you page should include ask for a financial contribution.

• Example: Ask visitor to share content with their friends, then ask them for their email then ask for money

• CAUTION: Don’t bombard people with every ask at once, but doing it in a certain order will help them feel like a part of the campaign not just an ATM machine.

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9 - Basic SEO__________________________________________________#10things

• Fill out <title> & meta tags (i.e. description and keywords)

• CONTENT: 1) Use keywords. 2) Use H1 & H2 Tags.  3) Use ALT tags for images.  4) Speed matters. o CAUTION: Don't overdo

keywords

•  Link to other pages on your the site

• Use SEO-friendly URLs (i.e. www.mysite.com/section/pagetitle/  is better than  www.mysite.com?pageid=123)

9 - Basic SEO__________________________________________________

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• Submit sitemap to search engine

• 404 Page

• Use free tools to help you optimize (Google Webmaster tools,  Hubspot Website Grader, Seobook's FF Extension) 

10 - Data tracking/monitoring (analytics, reporting, etc.)

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• Use Google Analytics

• Know who your visitors are, where they come from, why they came  and where they went

• Track the performance of your Ad campaigns & Set up funnels to track the performance of your daisy chains

• Make changes to the site based on Analytics 

• Compare  your stats to competitors

• Google Insights & HeatMaps

____________________________Questions?