Why Add Highlights?

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MonJul192010 ByTriplePixelTaggedBest Practices for Organization Websites

How Highlights improve the look and function of each page on your organization website.


Each page, news item, and event on your organization website has five "slots" to insert highlights. Highlights are other pages, blog entries, news, events, or content that you select as a highlight when you create it. To maximize your website's potential, it is important to fill each page with as many relevant highlights as you can.

Look

Although you may have heard that empty space is a good way to break up text on a page, allowing too much space can make your site look empty and unimportant. Each inch of space is valuable real estate--don't waste it by forgetting to add highlights.

When creating a page and selecting it to be a highlight, add a thumbnail. Thumbnails provide you a chance to be make your site pop by breaking up text with images (people love images!).

Be creative. Choose a theme for your thumbnails and run with it. Have all your thumbnails feature:
  • People from your organization or business
  • A consistent color scheme
  • Symbols and imagery from your organization or business (ex. Dentist websites: toothbrushes, floss, teeth, etc.)
  • A similar look-and-feel
  • Or a mixture of all

Function

Highlights help your users find related information as they explore your website–content they might not otherwise have found. For example, on your About Us page, highlight your Contact Us page so visitors can easily navigate there to send you a comment or question. On an news item about your new location, highlight the page with your map, directions, and location information. On your upcoming donors event, highlight a page where visitors can donate online.

Using highlights as links to other content on your organization website makes it easier to keep your menu clutter-free. Partnering highlights with hyperlinks, resource pages, and widgets keeps you from adding every page into your menu. Your users will thank you for this ease in navigation. Not necessarily in verbal (or e-mailed) praise, but definitely in repeat visits to your site.

OTHER RESOURCES ON HIGHLIGHTS

What Is A Highlight? – Support Document
Adding Highlights (Video) – Support Video
What is a Thumbnail? – Support Document