What drives your audience?

You can ease community engagement efforts by focusing on a single topic. You just have to find the topic for your neighborhood.

Here are some suggestions on website planning with your community in mind.

Consider ideas like an annual photograph of owners and board members at a board meeting. Adding images to your site is an easy way to get people to visit the site.

While developing your Web site plan, ask yourself “What is the purpose of my Web site?” Does it need to generate leads or requests for information? Is it an image-making tool? A customer service tool? How does your board use it? Once you’re really sure what it is you want your site to do, you can apply strategies to achieve specific objectives.

You can create a roadmap to greater Web site effectiveness by taking the following advice. You’ll find that the investment in time and money—to convert your site to a successful measurable marketing tool—well spent.

Here are several tips that promise both increased qualified traffic to your sites and enhanced visitor usability:

1. Develop a simple plan for your Web site. Focus your plan on your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, both online and off. Define your online and offline objectives. Create a detailed profile of your users. Include the methods you’ll use to track and monitor the use and effectiveness of your site.
2. Ask yourself “What is the purpose of my Web site?” Does it need to generate sales leads or requests for information? Is it an image-making tool? Or a customer service tool? Do your sales people use it to “sell” prospects on your capabilities? Once you’re really sure what it is you want your site to do, you can apply design and usability strategies to achieve specific objectives.
3. Understand the users of your site. Some may have special needs. The more you know about each type of user, the better you can effectively communicate with him/her via your site.
4. Drive traffic to your site! Your site can and should be THE place you want people to go to get deeply involved with your community and to get to know your services. Make sure your URL is on your collateral material, your e-mail communications, and your flyers.
5. Is your content fresh, or is it the same material you put up there when your site was first created? Give your visitors a reason to come back again and again by putting a committee in charge of fresh content for the home page each week or so.
6. Monitor and measure your site. Proof and update content, make sure incoming e-mail is routed and answered promptly and test links and user tools (like your search function). Your traffic analytic tools (http://yoursite.com:2082/awstats.pl) will tell you how many visitors your site receives, where they are clicking within your site, how they found your site, what operating system and browser they are using, and much, much more. Use this valuable information to improve your traffic.

A successful Web site drives visitors to respond. Offer surveys, polls (1-question surveys), e-newsletters and other tactics to encourage visitors to interact with the site. When developed with a strategic focus on direct response, web sites will gather information about users, providing insights for further interaction.

Of course, Web site design MUST revolve around the end user. Consider the needs of your members, management, prospective buyers, the media and anyone else who might visit your site, in addition to your organizations objectives. This approach is called “usability design” and it is necessary when creating intuitive navigation, easy-to-find content and useful response mechanisms.

Download CAI’s Best Practices Report on Reserve Studies/Management

Community associations come in all sizes. They vary in age, amenities provided, and maintenance obligations. Careful planning for future repairs and replacements is not only in the best physical and fiscal interests of the community association, it is required by law in some states. Maintaining a reserve fund not only meets legal, fiduciary and professional requirements, it also minimizes the need for special assessments and enhances resale values. Every community association requires a different amount of cash in reserves to complete repair or replacement projects on schedule without special assessments or loans. How does an association properly determine and compile adequate reserves to fund necessary repair and replacement costs? By conducting reserve studies.

Focusing on motivation increases interest in your site. Offering the “reward” of having their photo on the website can sometimes be enough.

“Happiness is not an accident. Nor is it something you wish for. Happiness is something you design.” — Jim Rohn

I think you’ll be pleased with the results. I’d love to hear how yours turns out.