Your website is your number one marketing asset. It’s the first place people look to learn about your organization and take advantage of all that you offer. Making sure your association has platform that allows high engagement is the first step to retaining your valuable members. Read the full article on the Socious blog: http://blog.socious.com/how-to-create-high-engagement-association-websites

1. 4 Elements of a
High-Engagement
Association Website

2. INTRODUCTION
Your website is your number one marketing asset. It’s the first
place people look to learn about your organization and take
advantage of all that you offer.
Your website plays a central role in lead generation, the sales
process, and customer retention. For associations and other
nonprofit membership organizations, their website is how they
keep members engaged and informed.

3. INTRODUCTION
Though the early Internet mindset is in the rearview mirror, many
association executives and boards think about colors and design
when people talk website planning. Some may consider navigation,
but after that, the ideas wane.
Ensuring that your website is cohesive and intuitive is a great start,
but it only scratches the surface of what you need to have a
website that keeps your member engaged over time.

4. Balance the Needs of Members and
Your Organization
4 Elements of a High-Engagement Association Website

5. BALANCE THE NEEDS OF MEMBERS AND
YOUR ORGANIZATION
Before launching into tactical changes that you should make to
your website your organization has to consider the audience you
are trying to impress. Who is driving the content? The answer is
simple – your members and you. Let’s dig into the complex
relationship between these two answers.
Your members will be using your site every day (hopefully) and
you should place a premium on their preferences and
demographics when constructing your association’s website.

6. BALANCE THE NEEDS OF MEMBERS AND
YOUR ORGANIZATION
While members’ wants are important, don’t let them get in the
way of innovation. Just because your members have not thought
of something yet, does not mean that you should provide a
certain type of value or solve your audience’s problems in a
specific way. It is usually not the job of members to think of
innovative solutions for the association. That’s yours. As Henry
Ford said, “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would’ve
said a faster horse.”

7. What Makes an Engaging Association
Website?
4 Elements of a High-Engagement Association Website

8. WHAT MAKES AN ENGAGING ASSOCIATION
WEBSITE?
Every association will take a slightly different approach to
developing, launching, and managing their websites. How much
content you have, the history and politics of your site, and how
many audience segments you are targeting will all impact how
you layout your association’s website.

9. WHAT MAKES AN ENGAGING ASSOCIATION
WEBSITE?
With goals for how members, prospective members, lawmakers,
the media, and donors will interact and get value from your
website, creating a site that keeps people engaged can seem like
a daunting project for association leaders.
Regardless of your industry and audience, here are four areas
that every association must pay close attention to when creating
a website.

10. GOALS: INCLUDE STRONG CALLS TO ACTION
A common thread among association online strategies is that
websites exist to get people to take specific actions. These
include joining, renewing, registering for an event, and
downloading industry research.

11. GOALS: INCLUDE STRONG CALLS TO ACTION
How can you get website visitors to meet your goals for your
website?
While people fly through websites and online content, their eyes
always land on visuals, particularly bold clickable buttons. An
effective design makes use of these calls to action (CTAs) to
create a visual hierarchy to call out the content and actions that
are important.

12. GOALS: INCLUDE STRONG CALLS TO ACTION
Calls to action are important because they provide a logical next
step for the reader. Important calls to action on an association
site would be things like “Join Now,” “Sign Up,” and “Learn More.”
Don’t let these buttons get lost amidst dense text. Make them
pop with good design.
Pro Tip: Don’t get so caught up on making them pop that you
abandon brand cohesion or user experience.

13. VALUE: PROVIDE A PEER-TO-PEER COMMUNITY
A strong online community is one of your top member acquisition
and retention tools. It helps people connect and stay connected in
between conferences. The discussions, resource libraries, and
peer-to-peer social network in your community provides a place
for members to help other industry professionals.
The member community component of your website is also one of
your most valuable member benefits. It provides a one-stop
source for exclusive members-only content, conversations, and
access to experts.

14. GETTING FOUND:
LEARN SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
This is a very important aspect of a website because without it, the
people in your target audiences won’t find you nearly as easily.
Your members may know about you, but people may not link your
organization’s existence to the issues that you fight for.

15. GETTING FOUND:
LEARN SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
Consider these situations:
• When a lawmaker Googles an issue
• When a journalist is researching a piece on your industry
• When a member is looking for a resource or tool
• When prospective members want to know more about a challenge he or
she is facing
• When a member of the public wants to learn more about an issue
In all of these instances, where is the first place that people will look for
answers? That’s right…their favorite search engine!

16. GETTING FOUND:
LEARN SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
Search engines rank websites based on the search company’s
proprietary algorithm. While none of them offer up the exact
formula for high organic placement, Google has shared that
quality content, as determined by visitors, is important. That
means social shares, inbound links, time on page, and numbers of
pages visited factor into the search equation.

17. GETTING FOUND:
LEARN SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
To rank on the first page of the search engine results, you can hire
an expert who stays on top of the search engines’ constantly
changing qualifications, or you can invest time and energy in
learning about keywords and content.

18. GETTING FOUND:
LEARN SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
To get you started, here’s the abbreviated version:
• Search engines will decide if your content is valuable by the interaction
people have with it.
• Make your headlines count. Use important keywords and phrases people
will search for as headlines on your page.
• Tag the images you use with keywords.
• Use a variety of keywords but don’t keyword dump. Nobody wants to see
the same word repeated over and over.
• Refresh your website with new content often.

19. MEMBER EXPERIENCE: OPTIMIZE USABILITY
If you’ve ever been on a website where you’re fumbling around
looking for information, you know how frustrating that can be.
According to the Nielsen Norman Group, most visitors stay on a
page 1-20 seconds. Don’t lose a prospective member because
they can’t find something they need.
For that reason, you’ll also want a good search feature. A bad
search only leads to frustration. There is no sense in offering your
visitors a tool that doesn’t work.

20. Association Website Takeaway
4 Elements of a High-Engagement Association Website

21. ASSOCIATION WEBSITE TAKEAWAY
The most effective association websites are more than a
collection of images and text. They are built around specific
goals. Along with providing exclusive ongoing value, so that
members return to your site often, they leverage higher
engagement to increase conversions on the calls to action that
are important to your organization.
However, taking steps to ensure that your website is usable
provides the foundation for both your members and your
company to benefit from an engaging website.