To get a website, your organization needs a name for the site, materials to put on the site, a contact person for the site and a little money.
Website Name
The website's name can be your organization's name or something else. The name should be something easy to remember and easy to type. The total number of characters allowed for the name is 26 - 22 characters for the name plus 4 for the .com, .net or .org. Today's web browsers allow for longer names, but longer names will not work well with older computers and browsers. It's best to stay within the 26 character limit.
The main three website extensions are .com, .net or .org. Which one do you use? It's your choice. Many nonprofit organizations like to use .org. The .com is still the most recognizable, most widely used extension. If you have the funds, EarthWINS recommends you get your name in .com, .net and .org. Getting your name in all three extensions will discourage other organizations and businesses from registering your name in one of the extensions you don't use.
Website Materials
In order to help people learn about your organization, you need at least these materials on your website:
Logo - It can be text in an interesting font, text with
a picture or only a picture. With the popularity of Facebook
and other similar websites today, your organization needs
a visual image people see and remember.
If your organization
doesn't have a logo yet, EarthWINS can design a simple logo
to get you started.
Pictures - Your website needs at least 2-3 pictures per page. People visiting websites get tired of seeing all text. You need pictures to keep them interested and coming back to your site. The pictures can be members of your organization, events your group has organized, the room or building where your group meets, people or place your group is helping or working to protect.
Videos - EarthWINS hasn't added videos to a site yet, but there's always a first time. If you have video(s) to put on your site, EarthWINS will help you get them on the site.
Text - Your group will need this text on your site:
About your organization
Meetings and events
Donate
and/or volunteer
Board and/or staff members
Newsletter
issues if your group distributes a newsletter
EarthWINS will do limited typing as needed for pages on the site. However, any large amounts of text must be sent to EarthWINS already typed and saved as a computer file.
Website materials can be sent via postal mail, email, UPS.
Text can be emailed or saved/sent as a Microsoft Word 97
file on a CD. If you cannot save your text as a Word 97 file,
the text can be saved as a text file (.txt). Text for a website
has to be reformatted in most cases, so it is always a good
idea to send a hardcopy printout of how you want the text to
look on the site.
Photos can be sent as is for scanning or emailed
or saved/sent on a CD. PDF files can be emailed or saved on
disk and sent.
Contact Person and address for the Site - Your organization will need a person (Executive Director, Officer, or other staff/volunteer) who EarthWINS and the public can contact. In addition the site will need contact information - email address, phone, po box and/or street address, city, state, zip code for the site.
Cost of the Website - An EarthWINS website costs $25 to register and host your website name (domain), plus $15 per page/hour. One page = one hour. EarthWINS will gladly work with you to keep the cost of the site down. Our goal is to help your organization get more recognition, more members and more funding for your particular cause.
EarthWINS
Websites
P
O Box 573
Shawano, WI 54166
715-524-5998
info@earthwins.com
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