That is the primary submit in a weblog and webinar collection referred to as 101 Digital Advertising and marketing & Fundraising Greatest Practices for Nonprofits, written and introduced by Heather Mansfield. Please join Nonprofit Tech for Good’s e-newsletter to be alerted of recent posts and sources associated to the collection. Thanks!
Associated Webinar: Web site & Electronic mail Advertising and marketing for Nonprofits
Associated Certificates Program: Certificates in Digital Advertising and marketing & Fundraising
Your web site is the muse upon which your digital advertising and fundraising campaigns are constructed. How properly your nonprofit’s e-mail and social media campaigns carry out relies upon upon how properly your web site communicates your mission and packages and whether or not it’s optimized to seize leads and encourage motion.
1) Examine and implement trendy design tendencies.
Massive nationwide and worldwide nonprofits are sometimes forward of the curve. They’ve the sources to rent and seek the advice of extremely expert web site design companies and graphic designers. Within the early levels of a web site redesign in your nonprofit, spend just a few hours finding out the web sites of huge nonprofits much like yours in mission and packages. Word what you want and dislike, take discover of the colour scheme, how the navigation works, and what your eyes are first drawn to. Having a imaginative and prescient in your subsequent web site design is essential so that you could talk your wants clearly to these concerned within the redesign course of.
A Google search of “web site design tendencies 2024” provides an additional layer of creativity to your course of and ensures that by the point of launch, your web site will embody progressive and forward-thinking design parts.
Additionally, in your web site to be suitable with the rising variety of internet-enabled units – Sensible TVs and home equipment, mirrors, automobile dashboards, and PCs and smartphones, your nonprofit’s web site have to be constructed utilizing responsive design.
The web site for The Sentencing Undertaking was not too long ago redesigned and with a concentrate on simplicity, highly effective imagery, and clear calls to motion, the brand new web site exemplifies trendy design tendencies for nonprofits.
Lastly, based on the Nonprofit Tech for Good Report, solely 22% of nonprofits have web sites designed for these with visible and listening to disabilities. Nonprofits could be well-served to optimize their web site for these with visible and listening to disabilities to develop their attain and when related, develop their web site to incorporate a couple of language.
2) Use a top-rated Content material Administration System (CMS).
58% of nonprofits use WordPress.org as their content material administration system (CMS) for his or her web site (7% use Wix, 6% use Squarespace, and 5% use Drupal), based on the Nonprofit Tech for Good Report. Launched in 2003, WordPress is a free open-source software program for web sites and blogs that may be personalized for nonprofits by utilizing WordPress themes and plugins. The web site for Nonprofit Tech for Good is constructed on WordPress and in our 15 years of publication, the efficiency of WordPress has been glorious.
That stated, most nonprofit advertising professionals have no idea the way to construct a web site utilizing WordPress, nor have they got the graphic design expertise crucial to revamp a web site, however there are freelancers for rent and most web site design companies have WordPress experience. The price ranges from $5,000 to $100,000 USD relying upon your graphic design wants, the complexity of the location, and what number of work hours are required.
Different choices embody do-it-yourself web site builders for these on a really small price range. A greater choice is web site template platforms constructed particularly for nonprofits, akin to Wired Affect, FireSpring, and RaiseMore. Should you’re searching for a web site design company particularly for nonprofits, you can begin your analysis by contacting CONCAT, Constructive, BCS Interactive, and Elevation.
Lastly, in the course of the technique of hiring a contract web site designer or company, be certain that they’ve the ability set to combine your web site together with your buyer relationship supervisor (CRM) and another third-party companies (MailerLite, PayPal, and so forth.) that your nonprofit makes use of.
3) Prominently characteristic your “Donate” button and e-newsletter on each web page of your web site.
Throughout social media’s rise over the past decade, many nonprofits have deprioritized utilizing their web site to develop their e-mail listing and that was a mistake. Natural attain on social media is at an all-time pitiful low, so it not is smart to prominently characteristic social media icons in your web site.
At the start, your “Donate” button needs to be included in your web site’s main navigation in order that it’s prominently featured on each web page of your web site. The button needs to be massive and colourful in order that it’s apparent and never simply missed.
Subsequent, add a e-newsletter call-to-action to your web site. Some nonprofits embody a “Subscribe” button within the main navigation, however most nonprofits characteristic their main e-newsletter CTA within the footer of their web site in order that it’s seen on each web page of their web site.
That stated, one e-newsletter call-to-action in your web site is just not sufficient. You must also experiment with pop-ups and embedded types in information and weblog content material. For Nonprofit Tech for Good, the e-newsletter call-to-action in our footer leads to the smallest variety of new subscribers to our e-newsletter. Our pop-ups outperform our footer 7-to-1!
Lastly, it’s value noting the very small social media icons featured within the decrease proper of the Surfrider Basis‘s footer ↑. Their placement speaks to the lower within the energy of social media for nonprofits. Most massive nationwide and worldwide nonprofits not prominently characteristic social media icons on their web site.
4) Maximize your web site’s sidebar.
Nonprofit Tech for Good receives extra inside web site site visitors from our sidebar than from our main navigation bar, but most nonprofits underutilize their sidebars. In reality, many are left empty.
Consider your web site’s sidebar as free promoting house and make the most of the house for essential calls to motion. The Pancreatic Most cancers Motion Community excels in its use of a sidebar in its “Information” part and contains a assist line, a e-newsletter opt-in, and name to comply with on social media.
5) Prioritize easy-to-read textual content and CTAs, visually compelling pictures, and supply ample white house.
It’s essential that your web site doesn’t overwhelm guests. Simple-to-read textual content and CTAs mixed with visually compelling pictures which might be padded with white house are defining traits of contemporary web site design.
The Nature Conservancy makes use of white house so as to focus a customer’s consideration on information and essential CTAs. It’s an acquired ability to know when much less content material is extra when it comes to web site design.
Filled with sensible recommendation and customised for nonprofits with restricted time and monetary sources, the Web site & Electronic mail Advertising and marketing for Nonprofits webinar stresses the significance owebsite and e-mail advertising for fundraising.
The webinar is the primary in a collection of three to earn a Certificates in Digital Advertising and marketing & Fundraising from Nonprofit Tech for Good.
6) Embrace simplicity in navigation.
Simplicity is important for efficient navigation of your web site, particularly on cell units. The Lunchbox Fund has a easy web site with easy navigation. Their web site is split into six sections with solely the “About” content material using a pop-down.
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In case your nonprofit wants to make use of drop-down menus to arrange a considerable amount of web site content material, CARE is an efficient instance to comply with. Drop-down hyperlinks are in a single column and the usage of darkish blue helps customers shortly focus and simply navigate their web site.
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7) Use a social sharing app to customise how your web site content material seems on social media.
Social sharing buttons are hardly ever used and so they can sluggish your web site, so it’s a finest apply to not add social sharing buttons to your web site. Nevertheless, utilizing a social sharing app, akin to Social Snap, permits web site editors to simply customise the title, description, and picture that’s auto generated when a web page in your web site is posted on social media.
Too usually, web site pages on a nonprofit’s web site auto generate incorrect textual content and irrelevant pictures when posted on social media which decreases engagement and click-throughs. A very good social sharing app offers full management over how your web site content material posts on social media with out having so as to add social sharing buttons to your web site.
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10 Electronic mail Advertising and marketing Greatest Practices for Nonprofits
8) Put money into premium web site internet hosting.
In line with the Nonprofit Tech for Good Report, 27% of nonprofits worldwide have skilled a cyberattack, akin to e-mail phishing, web site hacking, ransomware, and so forth. For nonprofits, investing in a premium web site internet hosting service that provides elevated safety and automated backups is changing into non-negotiable. Funds web site internet hosting is tempting for small nonprofits on a restricted price range, however finally, the excessive value of utilizing low-cost web site internet hosting turns into painfully apparent.
For the primary ten years of publication, Nonprofit Tech for Good used price range web site internet hosting for $12 a month. By 2020, our web site downtime had develop into important and our e-mail opt-in types had develop into overrun with spam bot subscribers, so we upgraded to Flywheel at a price of $77 per thirty days. Since then, our web site has skilled no downtime, bot e-mail subscribers are blocked, and customer support is phenomenal.
The funding in premium web site internet hosting additionally improved our web site velocity. In Google PageSpeed Insights, Nonprofit Tech for Good instantly improved from a failing rating of 64 to a handed rating of 94. Elevated web site velocity makes Nonprofit Tech for Good simpler to make use of for our readers and has boosted our SEO (search engine optimisation). In case your nonprofit publishes new content material to your web site regularly, investing in premium web site internet hosting is a should.
9) Optimize your web site for Search Engine Optimization (search engine optimisation).
As e-mail click-through charges and natural attain on social media proceed to say no, search engine optimisation is extra essential than ever for growing referral site visitors to your web site from Google Search and Microsoft Bing. To optimize your web site for search engine optimisation, comply with these steps:
- Set up Google Analytics in your web site and join Google Search Console to get entry to detailed web site site visitors info and Google Search efficiency. As well as, your nonprofits ought to create a Bing Webmaster Instruments account to observe and enhance referral site visitors from Bing.
- Set up an SSL certificates in your web site. Google started classifying web sites with out an SSL certificates as “Not Secure” on July 1, 2019 and not shows them in search outcomes.
- Use a premium web site internet hosting service to enhance the velocity of your web site. Google Search and Microsoft Bing de-prioritize slow-loading web sites of their search outcomes.
- Publish new content material to your web site regularly, akin to a weblog or information part, as a result of serps crawl and prioritize web sites that create new content material.
- Use your nonprofit’s key phrases persistently in titles and within the physique of weblog posts and information articles.
- Subscribe to Backlinko to obtain search engine optimisation Greatest Practices by way of e-mail.
Nonprofit Tech for Good is diligent about monitoring our search engine optimisation and in 2024, we’re maintaining a detailed eye on the affect of Generative AI in Search. As you may see beneath, serps are at present the primary supply of referral site visitors to Nonprofit Tech for Good and we wish to hold it that method!
10) Add a privateness and cookie coverage to your web site.
Nonprofit Tech for Good can’t provide authorized recommendation, but when your nonprofit collects info from web site guests by way of net types and cookies (akin to Google Analytics, the Fb Pixel, autofill for donation types, and so forth.), then you might want to add a privateness and cookie coverage to your web site. A very good instance to comply with is the NRDC which contains a cookie banner on the underside of their web site that hyperlinks to their privateness and cookie coverage.
That stated, Google has introduced it’ll part out third-party cookies in 2024, so cookie insurance policies will should be up to date at the moment to solely talk about first-party cookies, in case your nonprofit makes use of them. Information privateness legal guidelines are increasing worldwide and cookie and privateness coverage banners and opt-ins will develop into the norm over the approaching decade.
In case your nonprofit makes use of WordPress, then you may use a cookie consent plugin to simply add a cookie banner to your web site that’s legally compliant with quite a few knowledge privateness legal guidelines worldwide.
Should you nonprofit wants a privateness coverage, begin by finding out the privateness insurance policies posted on the web sites of huge nonprofits. In some instances, you may copy and tweak. To write down your individual privateness, use a coverage generator or seek the advice of with a lawyer.
Submit Up to date: December 11, 2023
Our Certificates in Digital Advertising and marketing & Fundraising program covers the basics of web site design, e-mail advertising, on-line fundraising, and social media for nonprofits.
This system requires the completion of three webinars and prices a complete of $100 USD. To earn the certificates, you may attend the webinars dwell or view the recordings – or a mixture of each. Study extra & register!
