Five Things to Do Before You Start on Your Website
Membership Toolkit makes it easy to get your website started. Here are five things you should collect before you get started.
1. Logo - Instantly brand your pages with a logo.
2. Upcoming Events - A list of your organization's upcoming activities.
3. Welcome Statement - This may be a slogan or a paragraph. What will be the opening statement on your home page?
4. Pictures - Pictures will help your website come alive! Pick some of your favorites from past events or picture that represent your organization.
5. Articles & Stories - This is the content information you want to include on your website pages.
Website Best Practice Tips
Define Your Objective
Before you start laying out your website, it is helpful to define who your target audience is and what role will your website serve. Defining these will make it easier to layout your navigation and choose what content to include.
Don’t Recreate the Wheel!
For PTAs/PTOs, if your school website has good information that is kept updated, link to those pages from your website. Don’t duplicate work that is being done on their site by trying to keep your site updated also.
Font Colors & Styles
More is NOT better! At the most, choose 3 colors for all of the font colors on your website. The colors should compliment the colors of your logo and background. Be consistent in using colors throughout all of your pages. Through the Website / Design Settings tab you can set the font colors for your H1, H2, H3 and paragraph text.
Content Presentation
Helpful hints when creating website content:
- Use headers consistently throughout all of your pages (H1, H2, H3).
- Paragraphs should be short.
- Image sizes need to be small so that the page will load quickly.
White Space
Pages that are full of text and graphics become too busy and people will lose interest. Some “white space” is a good thing.
Click Here & Links
Avoid using “click here” in your text. When you are creating links to a PDF or to a new web page, the title of the link is all you need to add. The ONLY underlines on a web page should be for links to other pages or documents.
Website Webinars
This webinar talks about how to edit your website, new trends, and the basics to good design. This webinar includes information on:
- Editing content
- Organizing your content
- How to insert pictures
- Adding links
- Publishing calendars
- Restricted content
- Calls to Action
- Administrator Access
This is the webinar for administrators that already know how to add content and pictures to your website and would like to use some of the other tools that are available with a Premium or Concierge subscription. It talks about how to create a custom website and advanced design features. Topics include:
- Preview Blocks
- Customizing fonts
- Blogs
- Backgrounds
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