During website strategy processes and the massive pile of content creation work that follows, you will be doing a lot of thinking about how your online tools can support your mission; your programs; your audiences.

As you move through this work, it is wise to continually reflect on whether you are keeping your eye on the big picture of your site strategy.  Here's a short list of questions that you can refer to that will help you focus on changes and time investments that will provide the greatest returns.

Key questions to ask yourself over and over as you plan, deploy, and maintain and utilize your organizational website:

1) Will we be able to maintain this thing?

This is obvious but can’t be over emphasized. You will make hundreds of tiny decisions every month about your online communications, each which will have a small impact on the website and if we’re not careful, you may very well end up with a monstrosity that provides more work than benefit. There are several factors to maintainability. The good news is that by forcing yourself to ask just a few questions each time you consider adding something to your website, you can avoid the biggest mistakes.

You MUST always be able to answer, “YES we will be able to maintain this," before making any decisions to go ahead with anything on your website.  Following are the two main issues to consider around maintenance:

• The tools and features: Will this tool or feature be easy enough to use that our staff will be able to learn them? Will everyone that needs to, be able to add content to the site and make changes to what's there without accidentally doing irreparable harm, degrading the user experience, or wasting a whole lot of staff time?

• The Content Workload: This is probably the most critical element of all. The possibilities are endless for what you "can do" online and the temptation is often very strong to add groovy functionality, or start offering up information on the site that you believe your target audiences really want.  Providing value to your constituents via your website is great, but never forget that when you add something to your website, someone will need to create it, maintain it, shepherd it, drive traffic and promote it, etc. etc. etc.  So, always ask yourself "do we have the staff resources to make this work" and is this the most effective use of those staff resources?”

2) Will this provide a positive a return on investment?

Don't do stuff because you can or because you think it's cool, do things because you know they will make your organization more successful in accomplishing your mission. The old saying, “if it can’t be measured, it isn’t worth doing” doesn’t always work, but it does most of the time. Be honest with yourself when it does.

3) Is this required in order to meet one of our key website objectives?

There are a lot of variables to consider, but in general, you should not be putting up any content unless it is required in order to satisfactorily accomplish one of the following objectives:

• Is this required in order to show who our organization is?

• Is this required in order for us to demonstrate what we do?

• Is this required in order to support or make one of our off-line programs/projects more effective or successful?

This is obvious, but organizations often neglect to give this the attention it deserves. I suggest looking at your real world work and all of your communications efforts. Then, think about if/how your website could serve and support those efforts. Once you have done this, think about the cost/benefits of doing the work to make your site support each of these pieces and start cherry picking the ones that will provide the largest return on investment. But keep in mind everything I have already talked about above, before you dive in.

• Is this required in order for us to provide a service that our audiences expect or require from us?

Your website can be a powerful place for you to provide services to your target audiences... But it can also be a powerful sinkhole for time, energy , money, so keep in mind everything I have already talked about above, before you dive in.

• Is this required in order to support one or our Engagement Campaigns?

Engagement Campaigns are specific campaign efforts designed to move people up the engagement pyramid, deepening your relationships with key individuals or groups of individuals. Engagement campaigns are powered by your database, email, action systems, and off-line work, but your website must be able to support your engagement campaign efforts.