By: Eyeing Marketing – July 30, 2008
       www.eyeingmarketing.com

 
Many companies try to be too trendy or too wordy with their websites in order to grab people’s attention and/or make it look very important.  However, there’s nothing wrong with a simple website as long as the layout is fantastic, contains a great color scheme, and includes powerful words to describe the product/organization/service.

Globalgiving, a website dedicated to connecting non-profit organizations with donors and potential donors produced a website that ROCKS.  The website is simple, has a fantastic layout, uses images that stand out, and it’s not wordy (short and to the point).  BRAVO!

 
Homepage - ROCKS

Let’s talk about the homepage, as you know, this area is crucial and having the right visuals and content dictates the success of the website.  Globalgiving did a fantastic job on their homepage by including at the top a simple one sentence call-to-action to donate money to different projects, as well as big buttons on the left with a call-to-action – Find a project, Do More, and See Results.  Additionally, Globalgiving uses the top of the homepage to introduce a new group (Globalgiving Green) and the different types of projects in simple and clean manner.  What impressed me about the website is the different approach that Gloablgiving took to describe what they do.....instead of writing a long boring paragraph, they included visuals and a small description to illustrate what the website does.  BRAVO!  Let’s face it folks, reading a boring paragraph is not exciting, especially if it’s written in a dull manner.  Anyways, the rest of the homepage includes all the usual stuff, so I’m not going to talk about it.  Visually, the website is easy on the eyes and easy to browse. 

Find a Project Page - ROCKS

The find a project page is great because it’s clean, simple, and easy to skim.  All projects are categorized by group and region, which makes it easier for the user to find the particular area of interest.  For urgent projects (natural disasters), those groups are highlighted at the top of the page with a different color to make it stand out.

Do More Page - ROCKS

Globalgiving uses this page to show their supporters of other methods on how they can help, which includes placing their banner (badge) on their blog or website in order to spread the word about the organization, buying merchandise from them, and a variety of ways they can volunteer during their free time.  As you will notice below, this page is very visual at the top but only includes a lot of text to describe all of the volunteering methods. 

See Results Page – ROCKS

I love this page because it’s an area that only focuses on project results, which shows their supporters on how their money has been used and what a difference it made.  BRAVO!  This is an important page because it can be used for donation retention and to pursue potential donors to give, give give!

How it Works Page - ROCKS

There are two types of people that we (marketers) have to deal with on an ongoing basis – the reader and skimmer.  Therefore, it’s always important to try to tailor some of our marketing efforts towards both people.  Globalgiving decided to tailor their “How it Works” page to both individuals by giving people the option to see a video of what they do or a full content description.  BRAVO!

Wanna see their site?  www.globalgiving.com

Marketers – Although Globalgiving is a non-profit organization, they are still selling (different type of selling of course, but you get what I’m trying to say) like any other business, and they were able to produce an effective website without the trendiness and clutterness.  This organization is able to show us that you don’t need a fancy website to get your message across, but rather a great layout, color scheme, content, and images.