What makes someone hitting your web page stick around, join an e-mail list, forward to a friend? This Slideshare presentation makes clear that design and content both play crucial roles in creating (or undermining) an appearance of credibility on a website. The research here is much deeper and could be of particular interest for anyone involved in a redesign ("Websites lose credibility whenever they make it hard for users to accomplish their task at hand"), but here are a handful of top-level takeaways of use for any nonprofit whatever their web presence or expertise:

• Show your physical address -- proving the existence of a real organization that stands behind the site.
• Don't link to non-credible outside sites ... but do link to source material for your claims, showing confidence in your positions.
• Update often.
• "Small errors like misspellings and broken links hurt a site's credibility more than most people imagine."

"Fogg's Maxim", which the author of this presentation has been pushing for a couple of years, wraps it all up: "To increase the credibility impact of a website, find what elements your target audience interprets most favorably and make those elements most prominent." (Via ProBlogger.)