37 Must-Have Strategies to Better Engage Website Visitors, Part 1

Reed said Best Friends Animal Society and Paso Pacifico have strong donate buttons.

6. Choose an appropriate color scheme
Make sure your website’s color scheme matches your organization’s other materials. Plan ahead before you start to code what colors you want to use for your design, link color, text, etc., said Reed.

She suggested using a palette generator to find matching colors if you have to adhere to specific branding guidelines. If there is a strong branding color you have to follow, using palette generators such as kuler.adobe.com or colorschemedesigner.com allows you to put in a color and then generates a palette to use on your site that doesn’t create a lot clashing. It’s all about keeping a cohesive design.

7. Test your links
“There is nothing worse than someone coming to your site, clicking on a link and getting a 404 error page,” Reed said. That’s what makes testing your links so vital. There are several tools available to help automate link checking, such as validator.w3.org/checklink and home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

8. Use great images to help tell your story
Manix said using images is a given for Defenders of Wildlife because animals lend themselves so well to imagery. Plus, images help grab people’s attention.

“People’s attention spans are something like 2.7 seconds online,” he said. “If you’re text-heavy, you’ll lose someone. On all landing pages, we have rotating carousels of animals. Whatever speaks to your supporters, those are the images you should use.”

Manix said Defenders of Wildlife keeps its images up for five seconds on its rotator, but there is still debate among his colleagues on the timing. Kapin added that to decide how long images should remain on screen, you should think of your audience. If it’s an older audience, she said, you may want to keep them up there for seven or eight seconds, while if your visitors skew younger, you may want to try three or four seconds. Of course, it’s best to test it and see what works for your audience.