Helplines Partnership has over 25 years experience working and
supporting the charity sector. During this time we have been active
listeners to the specific problems that charities have when they try to
communicate their message to their stakeholders. In the age of digital
a good website is vital for communications. However, given the
funding restrictions of most charities, what is the best way to design
and develop an excellent website at minimum cost? What are the
pitfalls to avoid? How should you begin to think of what kind of
website will best represent your social impact, and inspire your
volunteers and funders? In this e-book we are offering you some tips
from our experience, and hope they may be helpful.
Things to consider before you begin
Thousands of websites are launched and closed every day but having a website is a vital cost-effective marketing
tool that brings dividends. However, a bad website can be harmful and detrimental to your organisation so spend
the time to get it right.
Starting from a blank piece of paper is intimidating so take time to explore, research and imagine your website from
the outset. The following is a list of things to cogitate:
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What do you want your website to say to people?
What does your company offer, sell or provide?
What is your Unique Selling Point?
Who is your target audience?
What are your company’s mission, history, services and activities?
Have you testimonials or user feedback to promote?
What key documents, marketing material or other sites to link to?
Which websites do you like the look of and which ones do you dislike?
What images would you like to see or use?
What colours would you want on your site?
What domain name do you want? www.mydomainname.co.uk
What advertising material do you have currently?
What message do you want to get across?
What pages would you like in your website?
Gather a list of words relating to or describing your business.
Keywords help to increase the chances of your website
being found on search engines.
Keeping tally of resources
Websites cost both in terms of money and time. Pricing varies hugely depending on the complexity, design, size,
content type, integration, maintenance, functionality and the list goes on. Having a clear specification is helpful to
both your organisation in terms of scoping out and narrowing down what is essential and desirable from a web
build and also helps the web developer provide a more accurate estimate and suitable website and content
management system. The costs which tend to run the life span of your website are: hosting, domain registration
and the time spend maintaining your website.
Websites can be created and launched within a couple of days or take several months to design, develop and
test. You will need to identify a specific individual with a firm understanding of your organisation’s strategic goals,
objectives and services to co-ordinate the project and liaise with the web developer. Once launched the website
will need to be maintained which again depending on the website could represent a couple of hours a week to a
full time job. If you haven’t the time to continually update the website you can create static pages with general
content inviting individuals to contact you for more details as opposed to being specific, resulting in the need to
update the web pages with new prices, photos, products etc.
The 5 things you must include
No matter whether you are a local charity or a large commercial conglomerate there are 5 key pages/ functions
your website must include:
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About Us – vital for new visitors to gain an overall understanding of your company
Contact Us – everyone will need to easily find your address, email and number
Sitemap – this will not only help people navigate your site but help improve your search engine rankings
Social Media – quick links to your accounts are essential i.e. Facebook, twitter etc.
Statistics – helping you identify popular pages, keywords, links etc.
Website Do’s and Dont’s
Do repeat your contact details on every page or embed them into the header/footer.
Do place a copyright and all rights reserved sentence on your footer.
Do provide alternative names for images and links so that screenreaders can identify them.
Do keep it simple and consistent. You probably don’t like reading a busy and cluttered webpage, so keeping
it fairly predictable on most pages helps retain your visitors that bit longer.
Do ensure your home page spells out your most important message and contains links to the key sub
sections within the site.
Do spend time testing your website before you make it public. Ensure it renders correctly and speedily on
other browsers, perhaps get some friendly clients to provide their opinions.
Do plan your Search Engine Optimization and continually review it to ensure it is current and marketing your
activities appropriately ie meta data is specific.
Do have a date last updated
Don’t bury key information, if people cannot obtain vital information within two clicks they might not have the
time to go any further.
Don’t have too much variety on your website when it comes to fonts, formatting and colours. Less is more
and consistency is key.
Don’t have too much animation on your website. It not only slows the uploading of your page but can also
detract from other content on the page.
Don’t write a novel on each page. Get your message across in the first sentence and then expand using
bullet points, infographics or a few key sentences of text.
Don’t make your website image heavy as this slows down the loading of your page and there aren’t too many
images which can depict what you want to say.
Useful links
There are a plethora of useful tools and plugins out there for you to explore and play with. I have only provided
one example for each for illustration purposes. There are of course lots of alternatives and I am by no means
recommending the ones below over any of the others.
Google Analytics - http://www.google.co.uk/analytics/
Gain insight into how your visitors use your site
Domain Registration - https://www.123-reg.co.uk
Research and purchase domain names
Link Checker - http://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/
Finds broken hyperlinks within your website
Web Page Test – http://www.webpagetest.org/
Test the loading speed of your site on different
browsers
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Screenfly – http://quirktools.com/screenfly/
Platform emulator tool to test how your site renders
on mobile and tablet devices
Fotolia – http://www.fotolia.com
Purchase images for your website
Vimeo - https://vimeo.com/
Upload, share and view your videos
ISSUU – http://issuu.com/
Online digital publishing platform
Contact Gemma
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