When you’re creating a website content strategy for your nonprofit organization, you should consult with your peers early in the process. However, I believe that you should skip the huge “website committee” meetings. Instead, conduct one-on-one interviews with stakeholders to gather detailed insights and information you need. Use the following questions to guide your conversation about strategic objectives and your audiences.
Website content strategy: internal interview guide
Questions to ask internal stakeholders when building your nonprofit's website content strategy Click To Tweet
Establishing website objectives
- In what ways do you hope the new website will support your work?
- What are the strategic goals you are working toward?
- How can the website support the specific steps toward those goals?
Identifying and prioritizing audiences
- Who would you say is your target audience or audiences?
- Why are these audiences important to you and the organization?
- If more than one, can you arrange your key audiences in order of importance?
Creating audience personas (for each of the audiences identified above)
Demographics/psychographics
- How would you describe this visitor in terms of demographic information (i.e. age, location, work, family, etc.)?
- How does this person spend their day (including work day or day at home, specific habits, likes and dislikes)?
- What is this person’s work or home environment?
- What is their social environment?
- What cultural and language considerations should we be keeping in mind?
- What are their emotions and values related to our organization and our work? What matters to them?
Technology
- What technology is this person using to visit our website (including devices and browsers)? How old is their technology?
- What is their level of technical proficiency?
Information needs
- What is this person’s level of experience or expertise when it comes to our organization and cause or issue?
- What do they already know about the information we feature on our site?
- What are the situations or scenarios that cause them to visit our site?
- What questions do they ask, or what specific information are they hoping to find on our website?
Calls to action
- What actions does this person come to our website to take?
- What actions would we like them to take?
- What problem(s) do we want to solve for them?
Key messages
- If our website was a person speaking to a member of this audience, what would you want it to say?
I’ve used these questions to conduct countless interviews when developing website content strategies for clients. They go a long way in moving internal stakeholders away from what they want to see featured on a new website, to what content will support their business objectives and audience needs. A couple of notes:
- I’ve developed this list of question over many years and while conducting countless interviews. Along the way, I have no doubt pulled ideas or inspiration from the books, blog posts and insights of various professionals whose advice I respect. If I’ve lost track of sources whom I should have credited, I sincerely apologize!
- If you recognize this interview guide, I once included it as a pdf download for my email subscribers. I’m sharing it here to make it more widely and readily available.
Creating your nonprofit's website content strategy? Skip the huge 'website committee' meetings and ask meaningful questions in one-on-one conversations. Click To Tweet
