The workshop focused on the entire process of building an effective website geared toward fundraising, branding and keeping the organization's mission front and center while offering specific tips from planning to evaluation.

Here are the key take aways                                                     :

Part 1: Before the Redesign - Expect six months to a year for the entire redesign process.

• Identify your key website goals first
  • Get together first and talk to identify what your goals for your new website are.  This is especially important to do before contact an consulting agency.
  • Goals differ for every organization.  Some goals include media outreach, brand awareness, identifying as a local chapter versus national organization, and fundraising.
• Decide who will "do" the website
  • Elect key players from internal staff. These are the stakeholders who have the most vested interest in the website.
  • Elect a project manager to keep the process on track.
• Select and Agency
  • Contact a lot of agencies because each will have different specialties and some might be a better fit for your organization or your identified goals.
  • Narrow the selection down to two or three and have them come in to do a "dog and pony show" to find the best fit for your org.
  • The most important consideration is the agency's Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expertise. Other key considerations include: marketing expertise, fundraising expertise, knowledge of your organization and technical experience.

Part 2: The Redesign Process - Now that you've laid out your goals, decided on key staff members and a project manager, and selected an agency to drive the project, you're ready to begin.

• Web Discovery
  • Analyze your old website. Evaluate what worked and what did not. Have your agency prepare a heat map study to see where visitors are active on your site.
  • Survey stakeholder groups to determine what content is needed and all constituent audiences are considered.
• Strategic Planning
  • Work with your agency to perform a technical review to determine who will be your site host, donations processor and constituent relationship manager.
  • Present homepage layout in black and white for approval.  Too many people get distracted with colors and images if presented too early in the layout process.
• Take your time with your site's wireframe
  • This is the tree structure of your page beginning with your home page and moving into interior and specialzed pages.  
• Search Engine Optimization
  • Put SEO on every page as your developing copy.
  • SEO should carry through from your strategy all the way through the end when you launch and beyond.
  • SEO includes search phrases,  title tags, links, alt tags, headers and header tags, body copy.
• Implement Security
  • You site needs to be secure and your donation forms need to be secure.  Make it clear to your audience that they are visiting a secure site - especially if you are soliciting donations.
  • Test your security by having users test every possible entry point to your page.
• Quality Assurance
  • Be sure to optimize your website for as many different internet browsers as possible.
  • Optimize for older versions of web browsers too.  Some people aren't always up to date with their technology.
  • Only consider designing a site for mobile devices if you organization has an appropriate need for it.  Many non-profit sites do not need a mobile site, nor is it worth the extra expense.

Part 3: After the Redesign - Launching the new site is only the beginning. Now that you're new site is live, you still have a lot of work to do.

• Monitor key data and trends
  • Traffic, visitor technology, referring sites, content tracking.
• Keep your content fresh
  • Make sure you have updated information to keep your site dynamic and competitive.
  • Get great photography and update your photos frequently.
• Begin preparing for the next redesign
  • The typical website needs to be redesigned every 3 years.  For non-profits this tends to be every five years.
  • Some bigger organizations begin strategizing for a redesign as soon as their new website is launched!

In closing, remember that having a website is like having a child ­­‑ you're going to need to care for in and it's going to be a long-term relationship.