The most successful charity websites provide information and support related to their cause, encourage people to get involved, donate and submit contact information.
I believe it is imperative to optimise your website so that visitors can find your site and that brand consistency is maintained. Visitors need to be able to find the information they are looking for and then be channeled to their end goal. When visitors interact by donating or signing-up with the website, this information needs to be stored and processed. And finally analytics should be used to underpin your decisions to refine and improve the visitor experience.
Friendly URL and page title mirrored in GOSS iCM and on a website with additional navigation optimisation.
An optimised and efficient charity website will ensure visitors are more likely to find your site, increase the likelihood of conversions and reduce the cost of processing donations. There are a number of tools that charities can use to implement a web optimisation programme that follows best practice guidelines.
Five of the key areas that charities should review are:
1. Getting your website found by Search Engines (SEO)
2. The importance of brand consistency
3. Site architecture and findability
4. Integrating your Donor Management System (DMS) with your Content Management System (CMS).
5. Analytics and social media
Website metrics view on the GOSS Marketing Dashboard showing Google Analytics and Social Media activity.
By understanding each for the above, charities can ensure that the time and commitment invested in their website will pay off. And more importantly, you will be able to reduce donor acquisition costs by:
- Increasing targeted site traffic which in turn will increase conversions.
- Ensuring that visitors can find the information they want quickly and easily.
- Delivering on and off-line brand consistency.
- Creating personalised experiences for re-visits.
- Understanding what visitors are doing enable improvements to their journey.
And if your donor acquisition costs are reduced, more of your revenue can be spent on beneficiaries.
Conclusion
By taking a planned approach to optimising your website a charity can drive meaningful traffic to their site. These visitors can search and find what they are looking for, and above all engage with and make donations to the charity. The integration of CMS and DMS products allows contact information to be captured, stored and managed to track and implement successful marketing campaigns. Improvements to site architecture and findability will ensure visitors find and process website information easily to maximise cost savings. And by employing the best web analytics practices, charities can understand their user's journeys and refine their sites to maximise their offering whilst reducing costs.
Posted by Pete Stevens 8th April 2011
What to know more?
Why not download our white paper: 5 steps charities can take to optimise their websites and reduce donor acquisition costs.
