Your Website is Old.
This is the second in a series of posts detailing The Ten Fatal Flaws of Your Nonprofit Website. Subscribe using the link above to make sure you are alerted to each flaw as they are revealed.
This post will discuss the flaw of your site being out of date. Does your site look like it was designed five or ten years ago? If your website’s design or content hasn’t been updated in years, your users will think you don’t care about them or your business. Do yourself a favor and give your website a much-needed facelift!
The good, the bad, and the ugly
Remember Web 1.0 from 1995? I do. And it was ugly. Web sites had too many links to choose from. The idea was to give users as many choices as possible: don’t let them have to peck and hunt for the information your site has to offer. Give them multiple ways to find the same information. This led to sites that were hard to use with too much to do in a smaller screen size.
Web design has come a long way since 1995. We now know that less is more when it comes to links and choices on a website. Users don’t want to be bombarded with too many options; they just want to find what they’re looking for quickly and easily.
That’s why clean website design has evolved to be the preferred website design method. A clean website is simple, easy-to-use, and free of clutter. It’s the kind of design that allows your visitors to focus on your content, not on trying to figure out how to use your site.
The next time you’re looking at your website, ask yourself if it’s “clean” and easy to use:
- Is the purpose of your site clear and obvious? Can someone look at your homepage and quickly understand what you do?
- Is your site visually pleasing? If your site looks like it was built in the 90’s, it’s time for an update.
- Does your site have relevant and original content? Your site should show content that’s relevant to your target market and original. Is there old content and posts that are no longer relevant? If so, get rid of them!
- Does everything work? Check that all the links are not out of date and still work. Here is an online tools that will do this for you.
- Is your site easy to navigate? Your navigation should be intuitive and simple. The design has to be made with the end user in mind so they can easily find what they want when using the site. I will cover site navigation in more detail in a later article.
It’s hard to believe that the web is entering its fourth decade. With the passing of time we have learned what makes for a good website, and what makes a website hard to use and out-of-date. A website that is old looking and not usable will reflect poorly on your organization’s credibility and integrity. If you make the effort to keep your site fresh and up-to-date, the reward will be your audience understanding your mission, programs, and engagement.