How to Make Your Nonprofit Website a Marketing Machine

While their tactics may differ slightly from those of for-profit businesses, marketing is just as crucial for nonprofits. Your nonprofit needs to employ a successful marketing strategy to acquire new supporters and drive donations for your cause.

No matter which channels you rely on to spread your nonprofit’s message, your website will be a critical part of your strategy. As your nonprofit’s online information hub, your website hosts your donation page, important information about your organization’s mission, and other essential resources to bolster your marketing efforts.

To align your website with your marketing efforts, we’ve compiled this list of branding, content marketing, and graphic design best practices. Let’s explore how to leverage your website as a powerful marketing tool.

Create a nonprofit marketing plan for your website.

According to Fifty & Fifty’s digital marketing guide, your nonprofit’s website is “the foundation of your online presence” and “the anchor for your digital marketing efforts.” As such, it should organize information in a logical way to facilitate visitor engagement.

Before you begin updating your website with these best practices in mind, you’ll need a marketing plan that defines your goals, target outcomes, and timeline. Think through the digital marketing funnel to plan how your website should guide visitors to take action from the initial click:

• Awareness: How will the website introduce visitors to your nonprofit’s cause and work? How can it spark curiosity and encourage visitors to dig deeper into your mission?
• Consideration: What features, language, images, and other website elements will capture and hold visitors’ attention? How can the site encourage them to think about their role in your cause?
• Conversion: What action do you want website visitors to take, and how will your website compel them to do so? What will drive visitors to commit to getting involved?

Tailor each of these tactics to your organization’s current priorities, and thoroughly detail your nonprofit’s website marketing vision. Refer back to this marketing plan throughout the process of updating your website, and use it to evaluate your success at the end of your campaign. This way, you’ll ensure you’re directing your efforts correctly to further your goals.

Develop and employ consistent branding.

The first step to optimizing your website is ensuring that your nonprofit’s branding reflects your organization accurately. Effective, recognizable branding cultivates trust with your supporters and gives your website legitimacy. Plus, building brand recognition is crucial for making a name in your community.

Develop a brand that communicates who you are to your audience and why your organization requires and deserves their support. Redesigning your website around this brand identity can help reinforce your nonprofit’s mission and values, making visitors more likely to feel confident in giving their support.

To ensure that your brand is consistent, create a set of brand guidelines that outline your organization’s approach to each of these branding aspects:

• Logo. Design a logo that audiences will naturally associate with your organization’s cause. In your brand guidelines, provide guidance on the appropriate usage, placement, and sizing of your logo. Also, include multiple iterations of your logo for different uses. For instance, your logo might look different on a letterhead than on a t-shirt.
• Visual identity. Your organization’s visual identity includes the colors, font, and graphic design style that you use. All images, text, and visuals on your website should align with the visual identity you develop. Include specific visual design elements your materials should include, such as hex codes and fonts.
• Voice. Outline the tone you use in marketing materials and the language you use to discuss your cause. These are important aspects of your organization’s messaging that determine how you come across to supporters in your communications. Ensure you outline exactly which terms you prefer and which your staff should avoid.

Branding must be consistent across all of your digital marketing channels and traditional marketing materials, like flyers and direct mail. Any time you implement a change, update your brand guidelines and your content across platforms.

Design your website intentionally.

After you develop and incorporate a nonprofit branding strategy, assess the visual design elements of your website. These include layout, images, text, graphics, videos, and negative space on the page. Used correctly, these elements can transform a static website into a dynamic marketing resource.

To optimize your website, ensure that each design element is:

• Accessible and intuitive for every user. To make your website more accessible, provide descriptive alt text for images and easy navigation elements, especially to your donation page.
• Optimized for mobile devices. Double the Donation’s fundraising statistics reveal that over half of all website traffic comes from mobile users. Confirm that everything on your website functions and appears correctly on mobile devices by reducing page loading times, compressing large files, and ensuring all interactive elements are touch-friendly.
• Balanced with other design aspects on the page. Too many visuals can be overwhelming for users. Be careful not to let visuals distract users, especially on important pages like your donation page. Balance blocks of text with images and negative space to achieve a polished and professional look.

Your graphic design elements should lead users to take action, such as donating or signing up to volunteer. Ensure that each element of your website is geared toward your supporters and created with their interests in mind. For example, create infographics or educational blog posts to tell your story and illustrate important ideas related to your cause. Also, create visually engaging calls-to-action that link users directly to your donation page.

Analyze and act on engagement data.

Lastly, use website engagement data to help you prioritize which elements of your website to improve. Then, use those metrics to guide future decision-making.

You can track engagement data through your CMS or by using an online tool like Google Analytics. Engagement metrics to track include:

• Conversion rate. A conversion is an action your users take on the site. For example, common conversions nonprofits track include making a donation, signing up for your newsletter, or registering for a fundraising event. Improve a low conversion rate by developing more engaging CTAs or optimizing your donation page.
• Page views. This metric measures how many users are viewing specific pages on your website. Check the pageviews for your home page, donation page, campaign pages, or blog posts. If a specific page isn’t getting enough views, increase promotion or links to that page in your other marketing materials.
• Bounce rate. Bounce rate is the rate of users that only look at one page on your website before leaving. If you have a high bounce rate, consider why users are leaving. Is it an accessibility issue, or is your content not engaging the right audience?

Data can do more for your nonprofit than just help you improve your website. With strategic data collection, you can determine donor preferences and create more targeted marketing campaigns.

If you want additional help interpreting your data and have room in your budget, consider working with a marketing agency that specializes in nonprofits to get strategies tailored to the nonprofit sector. Nonprofit marketing agencies will work with you to develop a comprehensive outreach strategy informed by data analytics. They can also help you determine KPIs, or key performance indicators, that align with your goals.

With these strategies, you’ll create a website that promotes your organization and cultivates better relationships with your supporters. Keep your audience’s interests at the heart of all decisions about your website, and you’ll drive donations and interest in your organization’s mission.