Association Web Services
Design, Development, Hosting, Online Directories, Event Portals
Your website is your indispensable information hub for member service and advocacy.
We can help you get it right . . . and keep it on track.
IlluminAge specializes in creating, hosting, and updating websites for national, regional, and state associations and advocacy organizations. We understand the challenges of member communications and engagement and partner with our association clients in bringing to their websites, online directories, and event portals the content and functionality they and their members depend on.
An IlluminAge association website delivers:
Focus on Member Service
Members-only content; Knowledge base; Event calendar; member directory
Seamless Integration
Your site integrates easily with your other systems for member records, social media, and event registration
Visibility
Your site plays a key role in representing your members to the wider community for resources, search, and advocacy
Design Excellence
Created around your brand. Either custom design or a semi-custom package you choose.
Mobile Optimization
Built for optimum user experience by all your site visitors, included smart phone and tablet users.
Easy Content Management
Building in WordPress guarantees fast, easy site management. And lots of room for future growth.
Interactive member resources accessible from phone, tablet, and desktop.
Online Member Directory
Connecting members more effectively makes membership more valuable. Strengthen the ties that are a key benefit of being a member. Your Online Member Directory delivers improved member-to-member collaboration, communication, and marketing, including:
- Facility lookup
- Who’s Who lookup
- Business member directory
- Yellow Pages
- One-click calling
- Web and email links
Creates value
An Online Member Directory provides continuously updated information that’s always accessible, online or off.
Provides versatility
Members can connect with one another more easily; business members can use it to better know and reach facility members.
Can be self-funding
Sell ad space to sponsorships as a non-dues revenue source. You can bundle with existing ad/sponsor levels, or add them as new opportunities.
Online Event Portals
IlluminAge Online Event Portals offer:
- Customized event branding
- Unique event microsite
- Paperless handouts save money
- Attendee profiles and photos
- Vendor profile pages
- Sponsor ads generate revenue
- One-to-one connector-maker
- Works on mobile and desktop
We provide:
- Complete site set-up and testing.
- Up to 10 hours per conference or convention in support uploading event content for sessions, sponsors, exhibitors, speakers, and attendees
- Attendee and exhibitor user guide in infographic format
- One- to two-minute explainer video for attendees and exhibitors
- Post-event usage and performance report
- Site hosting and tech support, along with WordPress training, as needed.
Get started with your online project.
Schedule a free call and proposal for your new online presence.
How can we support your member communications?
Our Association Web Team is experienced, responsive, and creative.
Our clients drive the innovation and high level of service we deliver. They bring us their ideas and opportunities for building ever stronger member communications and engagement. The size and quality of our association client base has become our number one asset in serving organizations like yours.
If your association is considering improvements to your website, we hope you will give us an opportunity to provide you with a proposal.
Mary Donahue,
Project Manager, Association Web Team
Read about Mary
Frequently Asked Questions.
What should an association website include?Successful association websites are built around these core considerations:
- Member communications – using blog and other web content to inform and engage with members
- Member resources – providing secure, easy access to the shared information, strategies, and opportunities members expect an important benefit of membership
- Smooth integration with member records, event registration, and social media.
An association website should include the content and characteristics every effective website relies on:
- design excellence,
- consistent branding,
- conversion strategies
- search engine optimization
- responsive design, and
- accessibility compliance.
In addition, there are seven more content considerations to keep in mind in planning a new or redesigned senior living website:
- your mission, vision and values
- information about your team
- pages for your services that support SEO goals
- information on specialty programs
- photos, videos and virtual tours
- employment and career information and resources
- awards and other differentiating factors
Every web project is unique. However, as a rule-of-thumb expect a project cost of: between $3,500 and $5,500 for a smaller association website using a semi-custom design; between $5,500 and $10,000 for a small custom project or larger semi-custom site; and more than $10,000 for one large website with custom features or a family of related websites for multiple care locations. Your web service provider should provide a firm quote for your web project based on the size and complexity of the project.
Every project is unique. However, at IlluminAge, a semi-custom website design starts at $3,500 for up to 15 pages, and a custom website starts at $5,500. Costs are adjusted based on the scope of your project. If you are doing multiple websites for a multi-facility organization, we offer discounts for economies of scale.
Factors that will influence a project’s cost include:
- anticipated number of pages
- expected features, such as e-commerce, calendar plug-in, blog, photo gallery, animations, scope of work, etc.
- whether the design is semi-custom or custom
- and a good faith estimate of the professional design and development time the project is expected to require.
The scope of services for an average website project will typically include:
- consulting on site planning;
- drafting and revising a new site plan;
- custom site design or full branding alignment if you choose a semi-custom design package;
- site build-out;
- support for updating, drafting, and uploading site content;
- designing, building and testing online forms and other calls-to-action;
- adding Spanish and other site translations;
- site revisions, testing, and proofing;
- site meta and schema mark-up.
Four of the most important behind-the-scenes requirements for every association website are:
- Responsive design to ensure a quality user experience no matter what device a visitor is using;
- Accessibility compliance with industry guidelines (W3C) and ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements.
- Schema and meta.A site is designed for two user types: human visitors and search engines; schema mark-up and meta data are parts of a website’s code that help the search engines understand your site so it can be properly included in search results.
- Content management system. A site’s CMS is critical in several ways: some are much easier to use than others in the ongoing task of adding and updating site content; some are proprietary which can present huge issues if you ever decide to change your web services partner; some, like WordPress, have a worldwide user base which means frequent and smoother updates and growth in the range of content and functional plug-ins you will have available as your site grows.
An RFP for an association website does not have to be long or complicated. In fact, being brief and including what’s most important to your decision-making process is best. A typical web design RFPs will ask for information about:
- The scope of work being proposed
- Which CMS (content management system) will be used
- Where the site will be hosted
- Use of responsive design
- How meta data and schema markup will be completed
- The project’s cost, including ongoing hosting fees
- The proposing firm’s experience in designing the same kind of site
- The names and profiles of the persons who will actually work on the project, and
- References with names and contact information.