Website Tips

THIS TOOLKIT IS PROVIDED BY RECYCLE, MICHIGAN—AN EDUCATION AND OUTREACH INITIATIVE OF THE MICHIGAN RECYCLING COALITION

RESIDENTIAL EDUCATION & OUTREACH TOOLKIT

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Best Practices for Recycling Websites:

Your website is an opportunity to make your audience feel welcome. By understanding website visitors' behavior, you ensure the information they are most curious about is easy to find.

A city, county, or recycling hauler's website is often the most relied upon source for recycling information and should serve as the home base for messaging. Messaging and information should be aligned across all sites that host recycling information for a community. The information should also be clear and easy to navigate, with up-to-date recycling and contact information

WEBSITE BASICS

Ensure there is a dedicated, recycling-specific webpage within your municipal site
Include what is accepted for recycling and what is not accepted, with clear photos.
Provide information on route schedules or pickup calendars
Provide special instructions about collection (cart distance, items outside of the recycling containers)
Include educational information and videos about what is happening with recyclables when they are processed and shipped to end markets

WEBSITE EXTRAS

Website recycling apps like RecycleCoach or ReCollect can assist web users in searching for recycling information by material type. This is especially helpful for materials collected at the curb.
- Provide material-specific collection or drop-off information
- Identify common keyword searches/metadata tags for solid waste and recycling using these tools
- Explore what your audience is searching for to give you educational insights on confusion areas to inform what content may need to be added to your website, social media, and traditional media outreach.
Identify systems for simple website edits, like adding staff or events.

WEBSITE ANALYTICS

Explore your current website analytics data.
- Vocabulary Check: Web analytics are reports that you can run to understand how many people access your website at what times of the day, what pages they are curious about, and how long they stay on any page. Analytics reports help you understand what your web visitors are most curious about.
Analytics should be accessed and analyzed quarterly or biannually at a minimum.
Studying analytics around an education/outreach initiative will help determine the effectiveness of driving web traffic to that initiative.

WEBSITE VISUALS

Use more photos/images than words whenever possible.
If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then a short video is worth 1,000,000 words. Research industry videos that show the recycling process or make your own.
Discuss examples of website designs that accomplish organization's goals.
- Research other cities, towns, or hauling companies' websites and discuss what you like and how that meets your organizational goals.