7. Outline Your Content

Send us the content you want to put on your website so we can help you develop and manage the structure of your pages. We will assist you on how to clearly communicate your message and not confuse your website visitors trying to find information.

1. The best approach is to start from the top and decide with our help what you hope to accomplish with the new website.
     
2. Assemble all of the material, photos, and ideas that support that goal. 
    
3. Spread them out in front of you on a big table and clump them together in general categories.
     
4. Take each category and divide it out into more specific subcategories.
     
5. Once you are satisfied with how you have arranged your piles, then write down headings that describe these piles. These headings become the titles of your webpages and you can then start building your website.

1. Putting your organization's Vision, Mission, Goals, Purpose, etc. on the front (home) page. Instead you should accomplish this with clearer and simplier methods using elements such as slogans, photos, animation, phrases, testimonials, and single descriptive words.
    
2. Too much emphasis on the merits of the organization and too little emphasis on the benefits of what the organization offers the website visitor. Flip this around and you have an effective website. Benefits should always be front and center on the home page.
    
3. Putting too much information on a page. Instead, webpages should be concise and easy to read. Don't be afraid to leave 'teasers' that will pompt a website visitor to call or email you for more information. 
    
4. Photos on a page that appear to be unrelated or communicating different messages. Instead they need to support the purpose of that particular page and the overall message of the website.
    
5. Structuring your website based on your organizational structure rather then your potential visitors expectations. Instead, an effective website lays out the navigation of the website through the eyes of visitors and not by departments, staff responsibilities, or the org chart.  If a visitors have trouble finding information then what is the point of your website?