37 Must-Have Strategies to Better Engage Website Visitors, Part 2

[Editor's note: This is part 2 of a four-part series on the session "37 Must-Have Strategies to Better Engage Your Website Visitors" at the Bridge Conference. Click here for part 1.]

At the 7th Annual Bridge to Integrated Marketing and Fundraising Conference last week in National Harbor, Md., three fundraising technology professionals shared some website best practices in their session “37 Must-Have Strategies to Better Engage Your Website Visitor.” Here are strategies 9-17 from presenters Sue Anne Reed, account manager, online fundraising at The Engage Group; Allyson Kapin, founding partner of the RAD Campaign; and Rob Manix, director of marketing technology at Defenders of Wildlife.

9. Find ways to incorporate video and other multimedia
"Video is becoming more and more important," Reed said. "You have to find ways to use video in compelling ways."

It's now an expectation, not a bonus for website visitors. A good example of prominent video use is the way the United Eco-Action Fund put a video featuring Noam Chomsky right on its homepage.

10. Create an easy-to-find sign-up form
Capturing that e-mail address is important for marketing and fundraising purposes, so visitors need to be able to find your e-mail sign-up form easily. If not, the chances decrease that you'll capture that information.

Defenders of Wildlife found that when it sent visitors to another page for sign-up, it saw people then were leaving the website after signing up, Manix said. So now the organization has the sign-up pop up on the current page so visitors don't have to leave it, which encourages more time on the website.

"Find ways to never leave the page to sign up," Manix said. "If people stay on that page during sign-up, then they continue to explore the website, which is what you want."

11. Give visitors a reason to provide additional information
People will sign up and give you their information if you give them reasons for why it's important. For instance, uses sections such as "Get Connected," "Get Active" and "Get Informed," giving visitors something of value in exchange for their contact info.

12. Have the most important information 'above the fold'
At times, this can be tricky because "when redesigning the homepage, there's a battle of homepage real estate because everyone wants their department's most important thing on the homepage," Kapin said. "You have to think about organizing the homepage in a hierarchal structure. What do you want them to know about you, and what do you want them to do? That's most important."