What Makes a Web Site Work?

In April, I'll be teaching a class called Analyzing Your Web Site for Effective Marketing in Anchorage. The session is based on something I started doing at the end of my Internet workshops where I'd ask people in the audience to volunteer up their organization's web site for a quick, on-the-fly analysis. I promised to be kind and to give them at least 5 actionable pieces of advice about ways to instantly add-value or improve their sites.

Some of the things I look at when analyzing an existing web site include

1. The effectiveness of your branding. How obvious and clear is your brand? Where is your logo positioned? How consistent is your branding throughout the site?

2. The clarity of your message. How clear is your organization's message when someone arrives at your site? I can't tell you how many times we tend to "fill in the blanks" when we publish content and make assumptions that someone new to our site can understand who we are and what we do.

3. The accessibility of critical content. How easy is it for someone who doesn't know your organization to find the content that is important to them on your site? I comment on the navigation elements and information architecture from the front-end.

4. The use of actions. What important actions do you want site visitors to take? Donate? Volunteer? Sign an e-petition? How obvious are these actions and how easy is it for the actions to happen?

5. The balance of images and page styles. Just because you can add fancy fonts to a page, doesn't mean it will increase a site's effectiveness. Are the images on site enhancing or detracting from the important messages? And don't forget of the all-important white space!

The next Analyzing Your Web Site for Effective Marketing will take place Monday, April 13 in Anchorage from 11:00am to 1:00pm at the Foraker Training Room. For this class, we request that you submit your web site URL in advance to the instructor to reserve your site's spot in the critique session. Email arisdahl@forakergroup.org. This class is limited to 12 people to insure that each organization's site receives adequate attention.

Do you feel your organization's site is effective? If so, link to it in the comments and let us know what is working for you.