ASAE Draft #1

ASAE Technology Conference and Expo

You have 5000 Pages of WHAT?
ACAs Experience with Formulating a Web content Strategy.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Gaylord National Hotel
Washington, DC
Baltimore 3 - 5

I. Introduction:
Once upon a time there was an association that lived barely across the border from
Washington, DC. Very nice people worked there. The members were also very nice
people. Both the members and the staff were well informed and took their jobs very
seriously. Everyone wanted to see the association grow and thrive. They produced lots
of good products and were the number one source for both their members and the
public about the profession.
But, something really bad happened to this nice group of people. It happened slowly
over time. They didnt mean for it to happen it just did. They became very frustrated
and ashamed of this thing that happened. From the outside everything looked great but
if you looked more closely well you could start to see there were problems.
It was things like:

Broken URLs
No easy path back to the homepage
A search field that didnt search
Ugly URLs
Inconsistent navigation
Outdated content

In addition to that the website was not dynamic or mobile friendly.

So today we are going to tell you about the journey we took to rethink the American
Chiropractic Associations website. The key takeaways for today will be:
1. How to wade through perceptions of what content is important and what content
is VITAL to the organizations mission.
2. How to ENGAGE content leaders in the process of clean-up and decision-making

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3. How to develop a WORKABLE strategy to keep content clean and fresh going
forward
But, first we would like to introduce ourselves (we should think of a way to make our
introductions more interesting by adding to our background something like last book we
read or favorite tv show):
Laura Armstrong
Anne Marie Munson
Kerri McGovern
Diane McMahon
Dean Millard
About ACA
About designDATA
II. How did the website get this way?
1. Out of date technology

For years money that should have gone to technology upgrades went to other
association projects.
We were no longer on an upgrade path with our association management
system.
Our association management system and our content management system
were not compatible with each other.
Our content management system was even out of business

2. Website became political

The leadership du jour would have ideas for the website and staff would make
it happen without it being part of an overall strategy.
Special favor to a colleagues business made our credit card processing
incompatible with our association management system thus aiding us in
falling behind.

3. No internal ownership of the website

Everyone on staff had authority to change and update things creating

inconsistencies and mistakes.
There was no clarity of purpose on the website and no authoritative voice.
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Website took up enormous staff time as it was not easy to update a page
Often had to turn too expensive outside help just to make small changes to
the website.

The website became enormous, impossible to search, no real consistency in navigation

and very frustrating to both members and staff.
III. How to get your board to spend money on technology
1. Do your research before talking to your board a. Without establishing the fact that there is a problem then there is no
need for the leadership to buy into your solution.
b. Do your homework and understand how outdated you are with
technology.
c. Ask the association staff questions and quantify how long it takes
them to update a page
d. Have solid examples of things like the search function not working,
ugly URL and how this is giving the association a poor image.
e. Dont assume they understand what you understand about
technology and how websites work

2. Stay one step ahead of your board

a. Anticipate their questions
b. Prepare a few board members to be private champions and ask
them to help you convince others if necessary.
c. Expect someone in leadership to try and derail your effort (new
board member student example)
d. Be pretty certain you will get a yes vote before you ask the board
to vote

3. Understand the scope of your project before you start so you dont have to
go back and ask for more money
a. Do you need a new AMS and CMS?
b. Do you need them to be on the same platform or does your
association have the bandwidth to navigate separate systems
c. Know your budget, resources and timeline
IV.

Be clear on website goals and reinvent with purpose

1. Position and brand ACA as a leading authority in chiropractic
a. The national association

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2.
3.
4.

5.

b. A prominent healthcare organization

Appeal to all generations of doctors of chiropractic
Deliver the finest user experience
a. Make it easy and make them return
Make it the go-to resource for chiropractic
a. Strategic yet responsive
b. Agile and scalable
c. Modern and mobile
d. Text-rich but optimized for SEO
How to get there
a. Collaboration and participation

V. Step #1: Study website trends for best practices

Design Trends
1. Responsive web design web design should respond to users behavior
and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. The
website should look equally good on desktops, laptops, iPads, e-readers,
blackberries and mobile phone screens
2. Scrolling the popularity of mobile web browsing has brought in the
popularity of long scrolling websites.
3. Floating or flat web design
Search Trends
1.
2.
3.
4.

Go mobile or go home
Long-tail URLs are here to stay for a L-o-o-o-o-n-g time
Social Sites Matter
Optimize for ALL search engines

VI. Step #2 Do a deep dive on your website

1. Google Analytics of acatoday.org
a. Highly optimized top in Google search
b. Most visited page What is Chiropractic?
c. 300 pages with 1000+ views
d. Lots of bad links to nowhere
e. Lots of material with no identifiers to search
2. Global Analytics alexa.com (owned by Amazon.com)
a. Acatoday.org is the 220,000 most visited site in the world
b. 56,000 most visited site in the US
c. 86% of visitors from the US
d. 69% bounce rate
e. Visitors average 1:55 minutes per visit to site
f. 2,839 sites linking into acatoday.org
g. 60% view from desktop/ 30% from mobile/ 10% from tablets
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VII. Step #3 Understand the needs of your members

When designing a new website for your members you must understand
their needs. You can conduct focus groups, do surveys, conduct usability
testing (this page or that page) or you can do what we did design
personas of your members.
We already knew a lot about our membership, as we have been surveying
and observing them for a long time.
Personas are a best practice approach to communicating with designer
and developers about your intended audience.
Dont develop personas around your membership categories but around
the groups of people that you serve. Even if you are a trade association
you are servicing people.

What is a membership persona?

Personas are fictional, generalized characters that encompass the

various needs, goals and observed behavior patterns among your
members. They help you to understand your members better and to
communicate your member needs to outside 3rd parties that are helping
you to develop your website.
Personas should not be based on your membership categories but on
different types of people you serve in your membership. Think young vs.
old; experienced vs. not experienced, marketing professionals vs.
government affairs; etc. How do they needs different in going to your
website for information?
After developing your membership personas it makes it easy to make a
roadmap of their journey on your website.

Example questions to answer when developing member personas are:

Who is this person?

What is their age and education level?
How comfortable are they with technology?
What is their preferred method of communicating with the association?
How often do they interact with the association?
Where does this member get their industry information?

We developed personas for the following types of members:

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New Practitioner
Emerging Professional
Developing Professional
Established Professional
Nonmembers
Leadership
Public

Here is our persona for aNew Practitioner

New practitioners have been in practice for less than five(5) years. They may have
been a Student ACA member, but not necessarily. New Practitioners have immediate
financial goals to find and keep a job and to address student loans they are in direct
competition with the entrepreneurial marketplace. They do not perceive the solo
practice as a secure option. They are increasingly seeking diverse career paths that do
not fit the traditional model of chiropractic practice.
New practitioners need support in finding and keeping a job. They need personal and
professional advice that goes beyond clinical skills, such as payments for student loans,
starting a business, or contract negotiations. New practitioners have a desire to be
involved, but have very limited financial resources, which becomes a barrier to
participation.
New practitioners expect this information to be accessible and readily available on
ACAs website and on mobile devices. Instant access to resources is a critical need.
They want an online community.
Where do they want to go on our website?

Home page
Join
Career Center
Social Media
ACA News
Practice Management
New Grad Toolkit
New practice guide
Engagement
Community
Continuing Education
Professional Development
Corporate Members/ Discounts

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By contrast here is our persona for a developing professional?

Developing professionals have been practicing from eleven (11) to twenty (20) years.
Developing professionals are looking to improve business operations and financial
stability. Their needs are in practice management hiring/ firing staff, managing
overhead, understanding practice capacity, etc. They are also beginning to look for
leadership opportunities and recognition in their profession. Developing professionals
need in-depth materials and training. They need coursework that ensure future
success.
Where do developing professionals want to go on our website?

Member login
Staff contacts
Find a doc
Certification
Research-evidence based practice information
ACA News Articles
How to become a speaker?
GR/ Payment Policy issues
Practice Resource Center
CEUs
Specialty Councils
PAC
How to become a delegate?
Mentorship opportunities

Member personas help associations:

1. Members goals become the common point of focus for the team
2. Core team can concentrate on designing for a manageable set of personas
knowing that these profiles represent the needs of many members.
3. They are quick to develop
4. Helps avoid the trap of building what members ask for vs. what they will actually
use
5. Design efforts can be prioritized based on importance of member category to the
association
6. Disagreement over design decisions can be sorted out by referring back to the
personas
7. Designs can be constantly evaluated against the personas, reducing the
frequency of large and expensive usability tests.
VIII. Step 4: Framestorm The art of breaking it down to build it up (we could
have the audience framestorm something simple)
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

We bought post-it notes and flip charts

We invited the entire staff for a whole day (for best results feed them well)
We shared with them our research on the latest best practices in web design
We shared with them the deep dive on our analytics
We taught them how to framestorm
Spend 15 20 minutes putting one thing per post-it note that needs to be on the
website - no order no organization just rapid thinking
7. Throw the post-it notes up on the wall or flip chart review for gaps
8. Spend 15 20 minutes organizing the post-it notes under major headings
review for gaps
9. Move post-it notes around until you have a visual of a new website site map we
could agree on
Why this method?

Engages the whole association in the process thus creating buy-in to the change
Enables people to externalize their thoughts and ideas
Helps a group to focus on one thing at a time
Allows groups to visualize patterns

IX. Step 5: Developing content

Start with a detailed audit and analysis of existing content

We used Google Analytics and drew a line at the top 500 visited pages on our
current website.
We eliminated any bad links or really old material from this list.
We assigned staff owners to each page in the top 500 most visited pages in the
last 12 months
We asked them to look at each page they were responsible for and mark that
page to keep, delete or rewrite. We gave firm deadlines and only asked
them only to do this small task.
When the results were back the core team reviewed for agreement and then we
eliminated content that was no longer needed.
Next we asked responsible staff to rewrite their content

X. Step 6: Establish workflow processes to maintain data integrity

Know who are the owners, contributors and decision makers are
Set a style sheet and of acceptable fonts, colors, graphic resolutions, etc and
make sure it is always followed
Have page templates and define when to use what template
Use the tools provided by your CMS to set approvals

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Have a cycle for auditing content and removing old information or pages with no
visitors

XI: Conclusions & lessons learned

Involve everybody but have a strong core team to make ultimate decisions