6 Ways An Optimized Website Can Benefit Your Nonprofit

Your nonprofit needs a website. But not just any website will do.

With donor retention rates decreasing—and donor expectations increasing—nonprofits are under pressure to deliver better user experiences with fewer and fewer resources.

So an information-heavy website that tells your story, no matter how compelling it is, is simply no longer enough. Your website must do more for your nonprofit than it ever has before.

In this post, we outline the 6 core ways a strong, optimized website can benefit every nonprofit. We hope it will inspire you (or your board) to make a few major tech improvements this year.

6 Ways Strong Websites Benefit Nonprofit Organizations

#1 Convert Traffic Into Donors

A great website will help you drive new website traffic and convert those “cold,” prospective donors into active ones. This is critical because, according to M+R Benchmarks, nonprofits typically lose 40% of their donors every year. And, only 0.23% of organic website visitors donate to nonprofits, generating an average of $0.77 per visitor.

So while increasing website traffic is a worthwhile goal, if donations are the end goal, then you also need a system in place to warm up potential donors. An optimized website leverages free content strategically to help you achieve both goals. By setting up a system where you give your readers something for free if they join your organization’s email list (like a free ebook on your cause or maybe even a one-time discount code), you can start to build a relationship with new visitors. Then, through email, you can convert them into donors.

#2 Increasing Mobile Donations

Your website is a huge tool for growing your reach and effectively scaling your nonprofit. But if it isn’t mobile-friendly, even the most attractive, responsive version of your website will ultimately hold your organization back.

We want you to design your donor experience with the device in mind. That means taking into consideration:

• Smaller screen size: Limited space means important elements can get crowded. Make sure your reader has a great online experience by making important information about your organization and calls to action clear.

• Navigation challenges: Navigating menus and finding information can be more challenging on smaller screens. Opting for clean and simple mobile navigation can reduce user frustration and abandonment.

• Data input difficulty: Filling out forms or entering payment details can be cumbersome on mobile. Design your forms with mobile devices in mind so they aren’t deterred from completing these actions.

• Distractions and multitasking: Users on mobile are often in a more distracted mindset, with various notifications and activities competing for their attention, so do everything you can to keep them focused on your site.

• Load time sensitivity: Mobile users are typically more impatient with slower loading times. Optimize your mobile site for speed so they don’t bail before the conversion happens!

Taking these steps will help increase poor conversion rates on mobile which will increase donations.

#3 Increasing Donations by Improving Conversion Rates

Of all the visitors who make it to a nonprofit organization’s website’s main donation page, only 19% complete a donation. Given the large volume of traffic many nonprofits have—and the small percentage of visitors who donate on average—there’s significant potential for any organization to increase its revenue simply by improving its conversion rate.

Some of this work is done by optimizing the site as a whole (think: how website visitors are encouraged to make a gift). But much of it happens on the donation page itself and is influenced by the images, copy, the case for giving, the user flow, and other elements on that page.

#4 Making Better Strategic Decisions

Websites give you analytics, and those analytics teach you what’s working and what isn’t. Reviewing your website analytics regularly can support your organization in making better strategic decisions by:

• Providing insights into visitor behaviour like what pages they frequent, how long they stay, and what they click on. Use this information to tailor content and web page layouts to suit your audience.

• Providing insights into donor behaviour. Who's donating, how often, and what motivates them? Use this information to see where and why people are dropping off before converting and optimizing those paths for a smoother journey toward your goals.

• Tracking referrals and traffic sources. According to the Nonprofit Digital Marketing Benchmark, 40% of nonprofits don’t know where their website traffic comes from. Analytics let you see which campaigns or channels drive the most visitors.

Remember: Data isn’t just for reporting. It’s for making the critical decisions that improve the quality of programs and put relationships at the center!

#5 Building Lasting Relationships with Personalization

Much of your website traffic is likely to be “cold”, meaning they don’t know much about your organization or they aren’t engaged in your cause (yet). Your website can help you foster relationships with these visitors by getting to know them and creating a personalized experience that meets them where they are.

Personalization matters because it creates a delightful user experience. According to research by Mckinsey, 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions and 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen!

When your website understands and caters to individual preferences, it shows that you care about your visitors. When your visitors feel understood and catered to, they're more likely to stay engaged, donate, volunteer, or support your cause. This translates into a boost in conversions and a solid foundation for building lasting relationships.

3 Ways to Personalize The User Experience

• Drive traffic to landing pages specific to an ad or target audience.

• Modify page content like headlines and imagery to match the ad shown.

• Thinking about the purpose of each page on your website and what the visitor’s next logical step. Then, suggest actions or pages as the next step along the way.

#6 Improving Productivity with Integrations

By integrating with other tools, a strong website removes friction, roadblocks, and busy work for your team. This can help you:

• Streamline your operations. Integrating tech platforms allows nonprofits to connect their website with other essential software like their Customer Relationship Management tools (CRMs), email marketing platforms, or payment gateways. This reduces tedious tasks that otherwise have to be done manually, like data entry, and improves response times.

• Make communication more efficient. Integrating your website with email marketing platforms lets you seamlessly collect email addresses from your website and nurture supporter relationships via email.

• Manage events seamlessly. Integrating your website with event management tools simplifies event planning and the registration processes, making it a breeze to organize fundraisers, webinars, or community events.

• Improve data management and insights. Integrating your website and analytics tools provides a centralized view of your website performance and user behavior, which can help you make data-driven decisions.

We know integrations and automation can feel intimidating. Especially if your team is new to them. But according to Nonprofit Tech for Good, 79% of nonprofits already use automation technology in online fundraising.

So if you haven’t yet, make this the year you take advantage of the automation tools that can make nonprofit life easier and more efficient.

Give Your Nonprofit A Competitive Edge. With A Strong, Optimized Website.

You don’t need any website—you need a strong, optimized website. Anything less isn’t just outdated, it’s holding your nonprofit back. (And quite literally costing you money.)

We design nonprofit websites that increase organizational awareness, improve operational efficiency, and drive more donations. So you can focus on making a bigger impact.