Your website is your best 24/7 volunteer - it is working all of the time to promote your chorus, your brand, and your concerts. It is the heart of your digital presence. Your audiences will come to your website first to find out more about your organization, to get their questions answered, to determine if you are a credible organization, and, hopefully, to buy tickets or donate. Because it provides the first impression for your organization, it needs to be available and it needs to be executed well (in other words - it needs to ROCK!). If your chorus doesn’t have a website, it’s time to get one. And if you do have a website, it’s time to optimize it for your audience.
If you don’t have an existing website or are looking to redesign your site, you’ll want to choose a rockin' content management system. A content management system houses your digital content such as your website and blog. There are many content management systems available, but these are my top four picks for choral organizations:
When we talk about optimizing your chorus’s website, building a responsive website is a great first step. A responsive website automatically adjusts its images and content to fit on various screen types. This means that the website is going to look great on any mobile, tablet, or desktop. But web design is more than just looks; responsive web designs provide the best user experience too, making it so that people want to stay on your website. Check out our blog "Why Your Chorus Needs a Responsive Website" to learn more.
SEO, or "search engine optimization," is another important factor in making your website rock. Search engines, like Google, have built-in logic that helps identify the most relevant content for the person searching the web. If you type into Google, “best restaurants in Boston,” for example, Google will try to answer your question to the best of its ability using this logic.
SEO logic is complex and ever-changing; it’s nearly impossible to keep up with it. But, remember that Google’s ultimate goal is to answer someone’s search query. So, regardless of the exact logic, it stands to reason that if you want to show up at the top of search engines, you need to create content that answers your target audience’s questions.
If you’re still not showing up in Google as often or as high up as you’d like, try subscribing to these resources to learn more about your SEO efforts:
Your website will require ongoing maintenance, review, and analysis.
Google Analytics is one of the best tools out there for analyzing your website. Set up your account, add your unique analytics code to your content management system (most CMSs have articles on how to do this), then start tracking your site! Import this helpful list of reports to get started.
For more advanced web analytics, check out these platforms: