site visits webinar: 10 takeaways from 50 association websites

what’s trending in association websites @ a glance

what we’ve done

five key pages reviewed per association

why ?

• thousands of pages, not a web page• device friendly responsibility• content arms race• lead generation promise and pressures• sophisticated CMS tools and integration

with your marketing ecosystem

today’s realities

caveat:with all the fervor about digital technology, marketers often forget visitors don’t read code

some balance best of breed,

design, content and technology

methodology?

which sites we touched

•50 of the largest US Associations•AMLAW Global 100•Accounting Today 50•Vault 50 consulting firms by prestige•all organized by headcount …

criteria for our comments

mom’s rule

you know how it goes:if you don’t have something nice to say …

about those ribbons

observation one:clear and pervasive brand promises

are lacking on many sites

consistent and impressive branding

going deep with a brand promiseone example …

observation two:responsive design is becoming the standard

observation three:sites still dominated by words v. visual content

when designing content:visit the entire salad bar

rethink content as a salad bar

observation four:publications and news pages lack editorial simplicity

(and with so many sources of information, they need it)

v

observation five:associations are people driven organization, yet sites too often lack the human element

observation six:adoption of visual content, video and moving

elements to engage visitors is trending

observation seven:this old template is still too common, there is a visual

and verbal vocabulary that dominates, causing a sea of sameness

notable exceptions

observation eight:clever branded imagery is rare, associations hue toward

the literal … with some pleasant exceptions

wrapping up