Celebrating Holidays

We've recently launched a website in honor of an organization’s 150th anniversary. What a beautiful way to honor this milestone! However, I often wonder why organizations wait for anniversaries to launch a new website? Do we need special occasions as an excuse for a website refresh? Instead of waiting for your organization’s next milestone, we encourage you to bring some extra attention now to your website. 

1. Out with the old. Think of this as fall cleaning. Take the coming weeks as an opportunity to tidy up your online homes and dispose of any website clutter:

• Update outdated content.
• Take down High Holiday information.
• Make space to advertise for upcoming programs and events.
• Fix and/or remove broken links. There's nothing worse than offering stale references to website visitors. There are a number of free broken link checkers available. Try one, like this one.
• Break up copy-heavy content with bullet points and/or graphic elements. Free your website from weighty verbosity and make your pages easily scannable.
• Read from your members’ perspective. Are you clearly listing contact information & other information that they want to see?

2. Spruce the place up. Just as you might place fresh-cut flowers in different rooms around your house or synagogue, consider what small gestures would bring color and cheer to your online space. Think of .jpgs and .gifs as Fall bouquets by placing bright, community-filled images not only on your homepage, but on landing pages throughout your website. We like the colorful images that Jacksonville Jewish Center highlights throughout their website: https://jjcjax.org/

3. Incorporate video on your homepage. Videos boost your SEO & offer a fun, intimate and engaging look inside your community. You don’t need to hire a professional to produce a great video. Why not ask your Rabbi to speak about what makes your community so unique. Ask a few gregarious board members to do the same. Need examples? Check out Valley Beth Shalom's homepage: https://www.vbs.org/

4. Get social! Have you joined Instagram? What about Pinterest? There are plenty of ways to find your community on social media. Is your Rabbi blogging? Have your Rabbi post the High Holiday sermons online. Share a slideshow of recent events and use social media to bolster your membership engagement efforts.

5. And lastly, don’t forget about mobile technologies. The number of visitors that are going to be assessing you on mobile devices is only going to explode in the next two years. Is your site mobile-ready? Unless it’s been specifically designed to do so, your existing site will not translate to a mobile platform that will be useful to your members or prospective members. Mobile needs to developed through both platform and content. Are you putting your best foot forward to engage with people in this ever expanding format?

Don’t wait for for the next milestone to upgrade your digital presence. Start today!