While I was working at a medical association last year, we used heat map tools to discover that members were abandoning our website. It didn’t mean our content wasn’t good or they didn’t want to join our association. It meant that our website didn’t have a modern design and our members couldn’t easily navigate our website on a mobile device.
Staying competitive and relevant in today’s digital world requires you to implement innovative ways to engage members. And, you must do so in a way that they can relate to and find easy to use.
Lost as to what to do next? Here are simple and effective actionable steps to help your association modernize its website.
Modern design.
Every day, you’re challenged with attracting and engaging members with a compelling experience that builds your brand online. Adding to that challenge, in a recent report, Microsoft claimed the human attention span is an average of only eight seconds.
So, with that in mind, is your website design prepared to keep your members’ attention for more than eight seconds?
To best accomplish your goals of attracting and engaging your members, adopt a rule where simplicity meets design.
- Provide a modern visual design branded to your association which quickly signals to members that they are on your website.
- Utilize a user-experience design (UX) that creates an intuitive member experience.
- Implement a website navigation that makes it easy to explore your site.
- Display strong next steps or calls to action to keep them engaged.
Mobile responsive.
Think for a moment about how your members and you engage with websites like Amazon and Netflix in their daily lives. How often do they and you use smart phones or mobile devices? Chances are, a lot. According to Hostingfacts.com, 75% of website users throughout the United States are coming to your site through a mobile device.
Most likely, your members have developed expectations from this browsing experience which causes them to expect the same when visiting your site. For your association to deliver this expectation, your site must be mobile responsive.
A mobile responsive website automatically and intuitively changes how your website is displayed to fit any device on which your members are viewing and reading it. Thus, the content and layout of the web page adapts to the screen on which it’s displayed, whether that’s a mobile phone or tablet.
If you build your website on a platform that supports mobile browsing, your association will be able to automatically support your members.
Legacy websites are becoming obsolete as members explore life through mobile devices. Members are craving exceptional digital experiences. Creating a mobile responsive website with a modern design are two imperative strategies in modernizing your association.
Is your website stuck in the 90s? Download this free ebook for strategies to modernize your association.
