The Nonprofit Website Insider

Clear page hierarchies, easily scannable content, prioritized goals and CTAs, well-tuned typography, and optimized CTA placement.

Welcome to the latest issue of the Nonprofit Website Insider, which is all about guiding your visitors effectively through a well-structured page hierarchy and calls-to-action (CTAs).

So, what does that mean? A number of things. I’ve pulled together a curated collection of articles about creating page-specific goals and CTAs, crafting a clear visual hierarchy in your page graphic design, fine-tuning typography, structuring content for easy scanning, and strategically placing CTA. While not all of these articles are nonprofit-specific, the underlying principles are quite universally applicable.

Who am I? I’m Laura S. Quinn, a consultant with 25+ years of helping nonprofits with websites. I help staff as a Website Coach + Guide, and to define Website Strategies. 

We’re nearly at 400 subscribers! I’d love for you to share this issue with colleagues and listservs who might be interested. (Speaking of, thank you to whoever in Montana shared this newsletter, and welcome to the 40+ organizations in Montana who joined in the space of a week!)

Enjoy the issue!

Laura

Using objectives to optimize web pages (Laura S. Quinn Consulting)
The logical first step in thinking about the hierarchy of your webpages is to think about what you actually want visitors to do on each of them. My article from a few months ago walks through a process for defining goals for each page, and then the specific calls-to-action that should be prioritized on the page. 

The basics of visual hierarchy and why it’s important for your website (Elle & Co)
If everything is equally important on your webpage, nothing will be important. To help people understand what they can find on a page and what their next action might be, you’ll need a clear visual hierarchy. This infographic shows you what that means. 

Typographic hierarchy in print, web & app design (Pimp My Type)
How do you use typography to make headers and buttons stand out? This is a great article for non-designers, with tons of examples of websites, showing not-so-great design and how to make it better. 

Bite, snack, meal: Are you making your web content digestible? (Mighty Citizen)
As you create a page of content, it’s important to think about the many people who aren’t actually going to read the whole thing in detail. How do you provide a useful headline about the information (a bite), a quick summary (a bite), in addition to the whole meal? Mighty Citizen provides a useful overview of this widely used concept. 

Writing from the top down: pros and cons of the inverted pyramid (Poynter)
Should you write your website stories in a classic “inverted pyramid” style? That will help visitors get the facts quickly, but might get in the way of engaging them in a story— so it depends on your goals. This article lays out the pros and cons.   

How to create a heatmap with Crazy Egg (Crazy Egg)
Not enough people know about Crazy Egg, which is a straightforward tool that allows you to see page level information on your site. For instance, you can see exactly where visitors are clicking (including, for instance, on things that aren’t actually clickable). This is a great source of data about exactly how well your page hierarchy is working