Still, in the interest of investigating, I made the change for one of our clients and started sharing external links in the comment section instead. Then, I included a call-to-action in the post description to send folks to the comments to get the link. 

Was this a good idea? Maybe, maybe not.

Does a link in the comments really help with LinkedIn engagement?

I was skeptical that this change would be a positive one. To me, it felt like it would just be another barrier to getting folks to click a link they may only be mildly interested in anyway. Would this practice really increase engagement?

After two months of including links in the comments, rather than the post description, here’s what happened:

1. Our client’s engagement rate actually went up! 
   
2. Their link clicks remained stable and/or decreased slightly – no significant change was seen, though. 

There are other variables that could account for higher engagement, however. Engagement could have gone up due to an unusually popular post, for example. So, I gave it more time.

Another two months passed, and our client’s engagement rate continued to increase! …but link clicks continued to slowly fall. 

What does engagement on LinkedIn get you?

When you have a healthy engagement rate on any social platform – which can often be as low as 2-5%, depending on the size of your audience – this typically gains you visibility. When a post gets more engagement, the algorithm is more likely to show it to a wider audience. 

Don’t get too caught up in on-platform metrics, though: above all, being active on social media platforms should feed our goals!… which almost always means getting your audience to leave the social platform, by clicking on one of your links. 

In other words, if your link clickthrough rate is dropping, that means fewer people are clicking through to actually buy from you.

Where should we put our links on LinkedIn? It depends.

If you want to drive folks towards your website, your email list, your webinar, you might as well put that link in the main text of your post. If someone has to make an extra click to access your link, they’re simply less likely to do it.

Website best practices support that, too: one of the guiding principles in website strategy is to make the most sought-after items accessible with as few clicks as possible. This doesn’t mean dumping everything on the homepage… but it does mean removing unnecessary steps. So, when you’re on LinkedIn, you’ll want to remove that unnecessary step, too.

If you’re specifically looking to reach new people, however, you may want to keep links out of the main text of your post, and go for that higher engagement rate. If you have a well-rounded social media strategy, you’ll be doing a bit of both: some posts will be designed for audience growth, and others will be intended to get those clickthroughs.

In short: if you want someone to click on a thing, make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

Are you at your wit’s end with the “fun” quirks of social media?

The Social Shift is here to guide you through building an approach that fits your business and your capacity. Learn more and get started.

If you look at your website and feel unsure about what goals it’s meant to achieve, that’s a strong cue that it’s time for a redesign.

When the First Presbyterian Church of Portland came to us, their outdated website wasn’t helping them reach their goals for the future. The First Presbyterian Church of Portland’s old website was a classic example of one that did well enough at past goals, but not current ones. They had created an informational resource that worked for their existing members, and covered the long history of the church and its unique features.

However, beyond that, their old site missed out on some key opportunities:

• Their website didn’t function well on mobile devices.
• The multitude of resources and bulletins for members didn’t do much to invite new visitors in, so growing their membership was a slow process.
• Their community service and their music and arts events got lost in the shuffle, when First Presbyterian wanted those aspects at the forefront.
• They lacked clear messaging and imagery to give a sense of what their community is like—a serious gap when community is the biggest motivator for becoming a member!

Getting Goal-Oriented

As we dug into learning about First Presbyterian’s culture and goals, we discovered aspects of their community that could really shine on their website and widen its scope beyond promoting worship services and getting news out to current members.

We knew their goals as an organization were:

• Encourage participation in services and other activities,
• Grow their membership,
• Reach an audience of younger families,
• Create greater awareness of their public events in music & art.

To ensure they could expand their reach towards younger families, part of our process involved a deep dive into their brand voice, with the help of copywriter Abbi Wood. Focused discussions with the Head Pastor and other leadership at First Presbyterian helped us learn about their vision and their community values, so the website’s messaging would be both clear and inviting for a modern and tech-savvy audience.

Meanwhile, we did a thorough audit of their existing website content to determine what content best served their audience, and worked to gather photo and content resources to bolster their brand story.

From there, we crafted a website design that supports their goals, as they are in the here and now, by:

• Creating a mobile-friendly website that reflects their community’s modern perspective and commitment to the city of Portland
• Restructuring the site map and homepage to bring their Community Outreach and Music & Arts efforts to the forefront.
• Making it easy to find information about worship services and joining their membership
• Sharing details about First Presbyterian’s offerings and events in a way that is both visually engaging and easy-to-digest.
• Building an interface that is easy for their internal staff to manage, so all of their information is up-to-date.

First Presbyterian Church of Portland now has a modern website where people can easily find out how to join their events, and become a part of their membership.

• Visitors immediately see the faces of an active and engaged community, whether they’re on mobile or desktop, and are invited to learn more about it.
• Visitors can easily see calls-to-action on the homepage guiding them towards attending services, exploring their outreach efforts, and partaking in their arts and music offerings.
• Their public events and volunteer efforts for the community are front-and-center, as cornerstones of what makes their community unique.
• Their website now has a refined content strategy, speaking to their values in a way that is concise and inviting, rather than dense and intimidating.

Some Benefits of the New Website:

• Improved engagement from visitors who are new to the organization,
• Time saved on administrative tasks and website maintenance, so they can turn more of their attention towards publications and social media outreach,
• Fewer questions both from current members and from those interested in joining,
• Comfort in having an online presence crafted by a team of professionals, that truly reflects their community and values.

To take a closer look at the finished product or others like it, take a look at our portfolio.

HOPE has a long history of serving the community, and they’ve grown into a seven-region organization with volunteers nationwide.

When we connected with HOPE, they had an outdated website that didn’t drive donations or support their membership.

• Their website didn’t function well on mobile devices.
• Potential members had to sift through walls of text and redundant information, in order to find out how to attend a training with their dog.
• Visitors who wanted to support the organization didn’t have an easy path to donate.
• Members who wanted to submit reports or access important documents had to sift through a long list of links and text to find what they wanted.
• Their Regional Directors had to manually enter reports into the Service History on their website, leading to wasted time, and even messy or broken web pages.

HOPE’s outdated website made it harder for them to gain recognition and support as a large-scale non-profit, and it also wasn’t doing enough to support the needs of their leadership and their growing member base.

Perhaps the most startling of all, the incredible story of the work HOPE does for the community was buried under long, repetitive paragraphs and FAQs. As an organization that has helped people affected by tragic events for over a decade, they have a rich and impactful story that needed to not simply be told, but be shown.

Goals for the Brand and Website Redesign

• Design a logo that reflects modern design style worthy of their status, while honoring the organization’s history and roots
• Create a modern, mobile-friendly website that leads with powerful imagery, showing the impact of HOPE Animal-Assisted Crisis Response teams on an emotional level.
• Incorporate clear, easy-to-find calls-to-action to guide viewers towards making donations.
• Make it easy to find and start the process of becoming part of HOPE’s specially trained volunteer base.
• Refresh the Members area to make frequently-used forms easier for Members to find.
• Create a system that makes it fast and easy for Regional Directors to add to their public Service History with just a few simple clicks.

The Redesign Process

We dove into a weeks-long process, working with HOPE stakeholders to learn more about their organizational growing pains, and look for opportunities to smooth out their processes, such as:

• Identifying and learning about their target audiences
• How new member Teams and Team Leaders are brought into the organization
• Thoroughly auditing the existing website content, and determining what content was most needed to facilitate a potential volunteer or donor’s journey
• What other processes they handled through, or in connection with, their existing website
• Identifying and gathering photo and content resources to bolster their brand story

Our design for HOPE’s new logo set the anchor for the project. We used the grounded purple-and-green color palette of their old logo, with bold, clean, and easy-to-read type and iconography to better communicate their mission.

From there, we crafted a website design that showcases the story of their comfort dogs and handlers in the field, and clearly sets the tone for the site by putting their mission front-and-center.

We also custom-built a powerful set of forms for Members, letting them easily submit their Service History reports online, and notifying Regional Directors of the new activity. From there, Regional Directors simply need to log in, review the report, and click Publish.

Now, HOPE Animal-Assisted Crisis Response has a modern website where people can easily find out how to support their cause, or even become a part of it.

• Visitors immediately see the impact of HOPE’s mission, whether they’re on mobile or desktop, and how to request a response team.
• Visitors can easily see calls-to-action on the homepage guiding them to Donate or become a Member.
• HOPE’s visual presence online now stands head-and-shoulders above other canine response team organizations across the nation
• Members can more easily find their most important and frequently-used content through a Members area menu.
• Regional Directors are saved hours of time entering Service History reports, by using their new, custom-build reporting system.

The new HOPE website included:

• Discovery and planning
• Content Strategy
• Custom Design
• Custom Web Development
• Customer segmentation
• Website training and support

Some of the Benefits of the New Website:

• Improved engagement from visitors who are new to the organization
• Time saved on administrative tasks that previously placed heavy burden on volunteers and leaders
• Fewer questions from Members looking for Member-only content and forms
• Comfort in knowing that their online presence is protected and monitored by a team of professionals

HOPE is thus far enjoying their refreshed new look, and the added ease of managing their Service History. To take a closer look at the finished product, check it out in our portfolio.

We partnered with them and brought our skills in website design, custom web development for WordPress, and content strategy to create a website that entices new students, and connects current students and alumni with the information they need.

The Goal: Give Control Back to The User

When our client first contacted us, their previous website was failing them in a number of ways:

• Prospective students couldn’t find what they needed–the information was often there, but buried beneath a confusing website structure. This led to frequent phone calls about basic questions, wasting both new students’ and and their staffers’ precious time.
• The visual design was inconsistent with their established brand standards and print materials. There were bright, distracting colors and “quirky” icons that just didn’t make sense with their grounded, calm, and welcoming culture.
• They felt a lack of control over their content. Their previous website was so difficult to update that they didn’t feel empowered to do so. This led to inconsistent updates, and information that was misleading or outdated.

Our goal was clear: dig down into the complex muck, zero in on the most important needs of both the school and its audience, and refine it into a design that more honestly communicates what it’s like to attend or receive their services.

The Process: Getting To Know You

Our Content Audit and Content Map make a great starting point for websites like this one–this client had an embarrassment of riches in terms of written content! So, we started by digging in to establish goals and identify sought-after content, and reorganizing it all in a way that flows more naturally.

While content review was happening, our Grayscreen Prototype gave their team a visual frame of reference for the site structure–our grayscreen is like an interactive wireframe, so they could get a better understanding of how elements fit together, what goes where, and how they can keep their content up-to-date. We also got to present them with our ideas for customizations, such as custom Content Types and Templates to make it even easier to manage their own pages and blog posts beautifully.

Design Mockups were where we brought their visual brand back into the picture, but also where we put their content-driven goals into action. We moved away from the bright “clown car”  colors, introduced organic textures, and brought in new photos that showcase their Student Life experience. We also built in eye-catching and clear calls-to-action, so viewers can more easily find what they’re looking for and what the school wants them to see.

Finally, while we were putting the site through rigorous pre-launch testing, we also hooked up our client’s staff with Training and Documentation, to help them feel like empowered managers of their new website. We walked them through the Dashboard functions they’d need most often, answered their questions, and equipped them with a handy custom-written user guide to refer back to and share with new staff.

The Results: More Engagement, Less Headache

No longer struggling with an off-brand website that they can’t update themselves, this client now has more time and energy to expand and grow their marketing. We’re not only driving traffic to their website — we’re also authentically reflecting the student life experience they offer, and encouraging visitors to take the next step towards admission.

Is your outdated website holding back your growth? Upswept Creative can free you, too, from the struggles of intimidating Dashboards and confused branding. It all starts with a conversation.

Get in touch to begin! »

STARTING OUT

Cherry City came to us with an outdated website, in terms of both content and design. The platform on which their site was built made it difficult for league leadership to post updates. Key information for a roller derby league would get buried in the design. Upcoming events like fundraisers, bouts, and recruitments  were hard to find. League sponsors were also not prominently featured, making sponsorship a less attractive prospect. That can be a big problem for a non-profit!

ROLLIN’ UP OUR SLEEVES

We knew we wanted to build the site on WordPress. This would be a big usability upgrade for Cherry City, and would help them keep  the site’s content fresh and up-to-date. But, we also had to consider how to organize the content in a more beautiful and less confusing way.  Upcoming events needed to be easily accessible, and presented in a consistent visual format.

We drew on our experience working with Portland’s roller derby league, Rose City Rollers, to find approaches that we knew worked with this kind of content. We knew that public bouts needed to be at the forefront of their online presence, so we made their games the star of the show. But, Cherry City also puts emphasis on recruiting, and makes a special effort to be a welcoming league that keeps its members and volunteers engaged, so we created space in their Events area to highlight Recruitment events as well.
Keeping track of Sponsors at different levels would be important to growing their sponsorship base. We also knew that the same individuals could be involved with multiple teams or committees. We created structures for both Sponsors and Team Members, so Cherry City could easily manage those details all in one easy-to-find place, instead of updating multiple pages.

THERE AND BACK AGAIN

To get the visual and functional improvements we were all looking for, we communicated regularly with Cherry City’s all-volunteer Board of Directors about our design inspirations. We shared with them our wireframes and graphic mock ups, ensuring that we were persisting in the right direction on the project.
After many rounds of feedback, and all of our tweaks made, we were happy to launch their brand new website near the beginning of April!  Their league leadership is quickly gaining comfort with the new structure we’ve built, and they’ll be able to keep their fans, future skaters and volunteers, and sponsors engaged with ease.