This Halloween I might dress as the economy. I can’t think of any scarier. You’re right to be scared too, especially if you’re a nonprofit and beholden to funders, because you’ve got to make the case why you need a good website.

Hold on. Reality check: you aren’t thinking of cutting funding for your own website, are you? That would be a grave mistake. Websites are not only the public face of your organization, but the best tool you have to information and create a community on a budget.

Now that we’ve got that straight, let’s look at the top 10 things your website should have so that it gives you a good return on your investment. And just hanging in there won’t cut it. People will stop visiting your site – and thinking about your organization – if they don’t see some worthwhile action happening online. This is one of those times you need to invest.

In no particular order (because they’re all important), here are 10 things your website simply must have and that will wind up saving you money.

1. Contact form. You can always post your e-mail address on your website, but be prepared to be overrun with spam. Avoid this by putting a contact form on your site to make it easy for your website visitors to reach you and to avoid spammers at the same time. You might also think of adding a Captcha to your form.

2. A place for feedback. This could be a contact form, but better yet, let your website visitors leave comments. This might be on your blog, on news postings or on articles. You can also allow ratings, which lets people cast their vote.

3. Consistent navigation. Make sure people know where to go on your site by putting your navigation in the same place everywhere.

4. Regularly updated information. Freshness keeps people coming back. At the very least, make sure you’re cycling through new content on the homepage on a weekly basis. Blogs and Twitter accounts make this an even easier way to create an online community through content.

5. Analytics. Try a tool such as Clicky or Google Analytics to find out when people are coming to your site, where they’re from and a whole load of other stuff. Analytics tools are way more powerful than a counter.

6. Donate now button. If you’re a nonprofit that accepts donations from a constituency, make it clear and easy.

7. Address front and center. A street address. With a phone number. Do it.

8. Search tool – for your site, not someone else’s. A search box will help your visitors find exactly what they need. But don’t make the mistake of putting a Google search box or a search tool from another site on yours. You just make it easier for people to leave.

9. Really good URLs. This starts with your web address (I know nonprofits are swimming in alphabet soup, but don’t make everyone else guess your acronym). Then make sure you have Clean URLs installed throughout.

10. A CMS. A content management system will make these things a bajillion times easier to do if you have a publishing system in place. Here’s how we do it.

Establishing a social media marketing plan requires heaps of work. Of course you want to know how much you’re getting out of all the hard work you’re putting into one. But the trouble with boiling down ROI on a social marketing effort is, “… you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable.”

This is according to a helpful post from Jason Falls, who writes for Social Media Explorer. He says every session on measuring ROI in social media is a waste of time. That seems extreme to me – it’s only a waste if your “return” is monetary – but I understand his point. Embarking on a social media plan is more about getting out there and joining in the conversation than converting sales.

But it makes sense for churches, synagogues and non-profits, where the goal is to join in the conversation. The point is to figure out how you’re going to quantify your social effort.

Most of my co-workers are a little freaked by the economy, but one of my nonprofit clients said something troubling to me the other day. He said many of his colleagues are reluctant to spend money on technology because they fear the recession.

I don’t always believe you have to spend money to make money, but in this case it’s really true. Some nonprofits have such horrendous websites that they pretend they don’t even exist rather than face the task of fixing them. They don’t understand that by having an ugly public face they’re actually hampering the advancement of their goals and sustainability. (NB: We’re hosting a presentation on usability on Sept. 2, 2008 at 2 Eastern – you can register for free.)

You don’t have to believe me. Jakob Nielson, the widely respected king of usability, wrote a wonderful article called “Do Government Agencies and Non-Profits Get ROI from Usability?” He says:

Although the gains don’t fall into traditional profit columns, there are clear arguments for improving usability of non-commercial websites and intranets. In one example, a state agency could get an ROI of 22,000% by fixing a basic usability problem.

Did you see that number? It really is 22,000 percent. Staggering. I don’t know a single funder that wouldn’t gasp at that kind of return and justify the funds to improve a website. Yes, people might read something about you in The Chronicle of Philanthropy or The Nonprofit Times, but people learn about your organization by going to your website. And they won’t learn anything if it’s not usable.

New websites don’t come free, but to have an unusable website and do nothing with it is a complete waste of money.

So today’s friendly Web tool is actually a whitepaper from ZD Net that will help you calculate the ROI (return on investment). It’s for a CRM system, but it can be applied to a website as well. Read it and get to cleaning up your website!