Web Design Matters

When a new organization, association, or chamber of commerce is looking to construct a website, they have a number of questions to ask themselves, and choices to make. Unfortunately, they often ask the wrong questions and make the wrong choices.

One of the first bad questions is "Do we need a website?". Of course, I'm biased in this matter, but with reason. I have the facts on my side. Yes you need a website. Over 90% of your potential members look for goods and services online as their primary method. To not have a website, and expect to get membership is a bit of a stretch. Even if you try and contact people directly about joining, one of the first things those people will do is look for your website. If you don't have a website you'll be seen as completely illegitimate. What sort of organization doesn't have a website? If someone asked you to join their association, and you asked them what their web address was, and they said they don't have one, and they were using a yahoo.com email address, would you give them the time of day?

Yes, you need a website. Yes, you need a domain of your own. Yes, you need an email with that domain name on the end of your email.

After that comes another bad question: "Why do we have to spend any money? Get a $5 site from Godaddy." Again, I'm biased by the facts, but think about it yourself. Someone contacts you to join an organization, they have a website address and everything. You look at it and it's a plain page, with a phone number on it. Maybe a home page on a generic template, no logo, no real content, an about us page, and a contact page. Maybe a poorly placed photograph that's completely unrelated to what you thought the association was....Are you going to join it? Most people won't. They'll bounce, ie they'll leave your site as soon as they got there.

The bounce rate of a website should as close to 20% as you can. You MIGHT get lower, but you can't expect to. 20% is about the base of people going somehwere they didn't want to go. If you're looking at a 40% bounce rate on people coming to your site, that means 1 in 5 people might actually have come to you for legiitimate reasons, but left immediately. Why? One of the main reasons is design. People see the website, think it looks bad, or unprofessional, or illegitimate, or confusing, and they're gone.

And even after people don't bounce, a bad web design can harm you. Often people need to be convinced to join something, and a poor website is no way to convince people. If you have a choice to join something and it's a vibrant, well designed, active website and community, are you more likely to join that, than one that's 3 pages of static content: home, about us, contact us? Because, even if you're the only chamber of commerce in an area, or the only association for people in your field, people can still decide NOT to join your group. They need incentive, and a poor website will incentivize them to keep their money in their pockets.

High quality web design is very important. The design has to be appropriate to your association, your character, who your group is, and be visually pleasing, and designed with usability studies in mind, so that you keep your bounce rate low, and have a better chance at capturing new members. On top of that it needs to continue to be good, and to grab the user, so that they see your organization as looking good, professional, high quality.

A low quality looking site says you're low quality. A high quality looking site says you're high quality. (A non-existant site says you don't exist)

A cheap template design, on a low functioning website is essentially asking to lose half your prospects within minutes of seeing your site. 20% or more will bounce immedately, with the same, or double to bounce within minutes, never to return.

oClubhouse offers each of our clients a custom high quality web design made specifically for their organization or association (check out our portfolio). One that keeps usability and conversions in mind, to help make your club successfull, and to not send people away as soon as they come in your doors.

Does your association need a website? Yes. Does it need to be high quality? Yes. How do we get that for a reasonable cost? oClubhouse.

Get started with oClubhouse today.