There are many things your website should have, do, offer, etc. but these three are non-negotiable:
1) Analytics: Nowadays this comes in 2 forms that are must-installs at the very least:
- Google Analytics – de facto standard analytics free service that is the basic fundamental option to install. If you don’t understand the html mumbo jumbo, hire someone in www.odesk.com or www.fiverr.com
- Facebook Pixel – used to Facebook ad tracking and building Facebook Custom Audiences, regardless of any future advertising plan, installing the pixel will start the machine going to collect data on your visitor audience. Then you can go into FB and see just who’s visiting your site, and when (days of the week, times of day, etc). The demo graphic detail FB offers is fabulous and you can get it free. All with a pixel.
2) Email capture: this takes on a bunch of different expressions, but bottom line is that you need a way to let people opt-in to your email list. A standard “get updates” offer box, hello bar, scroll box, content upgrades for various posts, a LeadBox from LeadPages, etc.
That means of course that you have something to manage the email addresses you capture. Popular email marketing platforms to consider to MailChimp on the low end and InfusionSoft on the higher end. You get what you pay for!
3) GIVE button – if you are a nonprofit or church, you need to let people support your cause financially online. There are plenty or reasons why you cannot forsake online and mobile giving in today’s world.
For online donations, there is a plethora of options. Everything from the ultrabasic DIY PayPal donate button too sophisticated systems that track manage and cultivate donors. Where ever you fit on the spectrum of sophistication, do you need a way for someone to give you a donation online, right now, on your site. And it needs to be as easy as possible.
Those are my top three absolute, mission-critical, nonnegotiable, mandatory things that your site needs out of the gate.
Am I missing something? What else should be added to this list?
