The Web is an interactive medium. Your visitors are expecting you to give them something to do - and they'll remember you, be more likely to tell people about you, and give to you if you make their visit meaningful, fun or interesting.
Quizzes & polls. "What's the largest living mammal? Guess in our free quiz!" or "Is the new Administration doing enough to ensure access to health care for the uninsured? Vote here!" People love to click buttons and check boxes. Quizzes and polls are an easy way to get visitors past your home page.
E-newsletters. Put a subscription box for your e-news prominently on your home page and on every page on your site. Keep the request short and sweet, "Sign up to receive our e-news!" This also helps cultivate future donors and adds to your email database.
Tell-a-friend. Let your visitors spread the word about your great site. Place a link or button inviting visitors to tell their friends about your site or a particular campaign.
E-cards. An e-card is a digital greeting card. You may have received an email that said, "So-n-so sent you a greeting card! Click here to see it." The link then leads back to a page with a greeting card image and personal message on it. More and more nonprofits are using e-cards to engage visitors on their sites and send messages about their cause to prospects. They're especially good for holidays and special campaigns.
Advocacy. Have petition signup forms and other creative ways to have your visitors take an easy first step towards helping your organization. Most people don't donate the first time they visit your website, but getting them to take some form of action is a great way to cultivate future donations.
Message boards. An online message board is like the bulletin board in the lobby of your building. It's a place for your constituents to post useful information for each other. While they are often a one-way communication vehicle, many message boards are home to heated debates and long discussions about particular topics. While this works great for some organizations, it looks bad to have a message board with only scattered and old postings. So consider your audience and factor in any hot issues or event planning others want to be involved in.
Chat rooms. Few nonprofits use chat rooms on their web sites. They really only work if you have lots of people visiting your web site at one time for a specific, compelling reason. If you think your constituents are interested in online chat, it might work to promote an online chat "event" with an expert or high-profile member of your organization. In place of chat rooms, think about hosting Webinars or conference calls such as Network for Good's Nonprofit 911 calls.
Members-only sections. There aren't many reasons to have a members-only section, although many organizations seem to be interested in them. Perhaps you have content that is pretty unusual, particularly valuable or rather sensitive. If you're set on having a "members-only" section, consider all the implications: your members will need a login and password to access it - how will you manage that? Will they keep track of their passwords? Will people feel forced to signup? A better system is to usually offer all of your content for free and encourage people to signup for newsletters or other programs to get more of it.
The most important thing to remember about all of the above ideas is to remain creative, innovative and interactive.
Groundspring ITS Topic 4