For nonprofits that are just getting started or those that are well established, having a strong online presence is critical to your overall success in spreading your mission, fundraising, recruiting volunteers, and more.
From creating an exciting, easy-to-navigate website to making the most of what search engines can offer, there are many ways to improve your online visibility, increase the number of people who are aware of your cause, and ultimately maximize your impact. In this article, we share five best practices to take your nonprofit website to the next level:
- Secure Your Domain: The .ORG domain is the one most used by nonprofits to establish themselves online because of its credible and trustworthy reputation. From the world’s most influential charities, associations, social good businesses, civic groups, and nonprofits, to local clubs and individuals, mission-driven organizations choose .ORG as the best way to unite communities around a common purpose.
2. Tell Your Story: Every nonprofit has a powerful story to tell, and your website is one of the first places someone can learn about your mission. Storytelling can happen through writing, pictures, videos, infographics, and more. A great nonprofit website utilizes all these components to showcase your organization and the impact you are having. A great way that many nonprofits engage their communities in the storytelling process is to have people who have directly benefited from your work help tell your story through video testimonials. A good story is what will keep a user on your website, so be sure not to overlook this step!
3. Utilize SEO to Optimize Your Site: SEO is one of the most important ways to keep your site up-to-date and relevant to your community, and it is much easier than many people think. SEO should be used to optimize your site for search engines with relevant keywords and metadata. This will improve your nonprofit’s visibility and ultimately attract more visitors. One way to help improve SEO is to optimize your images. Images should be high quality and include names and captions (when appropriate) so search engines can index them easily. Any content on your site, whether it’s an image, blog post, press release, or site page, should also have the appropriate keywords tagged.
4. Be Clear about Your Call to Action: Whether you are looking to fundraise, get people to follow your organization on social media, or recruit volunteers, the clearer you can be about your call to action, the more success you will have in meeting your goal. The most important way to do this is to consider what you have on your homepage and in your navigation. Want to improve donations? You should have a clearly visible donation button on the top of your homepage so users can’t miss it. Many donation tools provide this as an easy addition to any nonprofit website.
5. Integrate Your Social Media: Once you have done all the above, your website will be in a strong place, but don’t stop there! Remember to consider your organization’s entire online presence. Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are just some of the other platforms where users can learn more about your work. Make sure that these platforms are directing them to your website and vice versa. Each social media platform also has plugins that you can easily add to your website so users can engage with and share your content with their audiences. Think of all these platforms as additional opportunities to share your story, and you will be set up for success.
In conclusion, remember that your website is one of the first places a user will go to learn about your organization’s mission and how they can be a part of your cause. Using these five easy steps is going to set your organization’s website apart from others and help you reach new audiences.
