No website can exist in isolation in today’s era of global connectivity – it exists in a highly watched environment where the customers, partners, competitors and search engines are watching your every move. The purpose of a website audit is not to find faults in its design, content or architecture – but, rather an audit should be seen as an excellent opportunity to align your website with the expectations of the web community and the WWW framework.

A website audit should not be seen as just a list of things-to-do – but, rather as a framework of design and content which creates the best impact in the shortest span of attention. Non-Profit or NGO websites have a very specific message to deliver and the recipient of this message is extremely knowledgeable. The audit of NGO websites goes beyond the technical and functional areas of – Site architecture and readability, Menu and Page Navigation, Content structure and Flow, Meta tags and SEO relevant tags, Content & Graphic placement – Copywriting rules, Internal Link Structure, External Link Analysis, Page Index status, Site performance analysis and Site accessibility.

The user factor…
Like any other website, NGO websites cater to the needs of the visitor and some factors play a relatively bigger role in the reputation of a non-profit website….

• Page load time for 56k dial-up / DSL/Cable / T1/T3
• If the site entrance is a Flash animation, is there a skip-intro option
• Is the site cross-browser and cross-platform (MAC and PC) compatible
• Quality of site appearance at 800 x 600 resolution and above
• Quality of audio & video clips
• Do the pages fit in a browser window or do you need to scroll?
• Are the naming and labeling of links clear?

• Uniqueness, freshness and Message delivery of the content
• Volume (neither too concise nor too voluminous) and understandability ( not suited only for PHDs) of the content
• The content should be aligned with the Call-To-Action (CTA) buttons
• Is the content relevant with the website graphics

• Are the online interactive functions like shopping cart, live chat, registrations etc. working?
• If the site is collecting e-mail addresses, is there a disclaimer associated with it?
• Presence of a privacy policy is also vital if some user information is garnered
• If the site has promotional micro-sites, are they consistent in look, purpose and features with the main site?

CopperBridge Media is engaged in delivering a complete NGO strategy to its clients and the audit of NGO websites is a mandatory part of this challenging process.