How can you identify the key features your nonprofit website needs?
Compared to other types of organizations, nonprofits have different needs when choosing a website builder. As a result, you must strongly consider these within your strategy. Understanding what to look out for is important for making others aware of your nonprofit, and eventually, you want to start getting donors through your site.
Your website must look professional, too, and you probably don’t want to spend a huge amount of time in the initial development phase. Think about your needs and goals, and assess each of the following areas to choose a website builder that matches your mission.
- Ease of use: If you lack technical expertise, you should opt for a website builder with a user-friendly interface. It doesn’t need to have drag-and-drop tools, but you should be able to build your website with minimal fuss. Updating the product might involve a substantial commitment of resources, so consider that factor.
- Donations: Look for a website builder that lets you add donations. This is vital if you want to raise money for the causes that you support. If the site-builder doesn’t have a built-in donation option, check to see if you can utilize popular platforms as an add-on.
- Events: Choose a website builder with event management (e.g. calendars and registration forms) if you host these. For example, you’ll find a Booking feature in Hocoos’s backend.
- Managing volunteers: Consider how you’ll recruit volunteers and onboard them to your nonprofit through your website.
- Mobile optimization: It’s vital that your website works on computers, smartphones, and tablets. Choose a website builder with mobile-responsive designs.
What are the pros and cons of popular website builders for nonprofits?
Before you choose a website builder, understanding the pros and cons of each is essential. Here are some things to consider for each.
- Hocoos: Uses AI to design and develop websites catering to the specific requirements of non-profit organizations. It offers page layout customization, with all templates being mobile-ready. Hocoos users can access Google Analytics, bookings, Google Search Console, and other tools; on the other hand, it isn’t as customizable as WordPress.
- GoDaddy: This hosting provider and domain registration tool also has a website builder. GoDaddy is affordable, but you’re limited in terms of flexibility and may encounter problems with speed/scalability.
- Wix: A collection of templates that are designed for ease of use and customization. While you have more customization options than GoDaddy, your costs may increase as more people visit. Moreover, you should think about whether your Wix site will run quickly based on your needs.
- WordPress.org: Open-source with comprehensive customization, and you can add several donation and event plugins along with choosing from multiple templates; however, you may need to hire team members for development and should have tech knowledge.
- Squarespace: With Squarespace, you can choose a pre-designed template that suits your needs, and then customize the design with additional features. The templates are also optimized for mobile devices, ensuring a seamless experience for your visitors. It’s ideal if aesthetics are at the forefront of your mind, but you should also remember that Squarespace can be quite expensive.
Does the website builder offer analytics and reporting features?
Analytic and reporting features are typically included in website builders, though you’ll sometimes need to set up the backend yourself. It’s vital that you use analytics/reporting to monitor your website traffic and see where users are coming from.
You should also leverage website analytics to determine what users are doing on your site, and where you could potentially make improvements. Use these tools to determine your donation conversion rate and what content is performing better than others. It’s then important to make viable decisions based on this.
You should measure website analytics based on your organization’s needs. However, some common ones to look out for are:
- Website traffic: Visitor numbers, page views, session duration, bounce rate, etc.
- Traffic sources: Organic search, social media, and other avenues.
- Demographics: Information about your audience’s location, browser, interests, and other measurable elements.
- Conversions: Tracking donations and how many people sign up as volunteers.
Hocoos lets you add Google Analytics in the backend; other site builders let you do the same, and it’s up to you to register your website.
What are some best practices for designing an effective nonprofit website?
Regardless of the website builder you choose, you should understand the most essential practices for building and promoting your site. Some of the core elements to consider include:
- CTA: Make it very clear what you want users to do. Examples include displaying clear calls to action encouraging users to contribute financially or subscribe to your newsletter. It’s also important to add CTAs for signing up as a volunteer.
- Storytelling: Tell the story of your nonprofit in a way that appeals to your target audience. Add testimonials for projects you’ve completed, and accompany these with original pictures and videos. Use statistics where possible to emphasize the scale of the problem you’re trying to solve.
- Transparency: Besides highlighting your mission and the impact you wish to make, make your annual reports public; these should show where you’ve been spending your money and which projects you’ve completed.
- Navigation: Leverage UX design principles to focus on website navigation. Ensure that users can clearly get to the pages they need to and use contrasting colors where possible.
Conclusion
Nonprofits may not associate themselves with the need to build an online presence, but it is an absolute necessity in the modern day. Your website is an important hub for projects you’re working on, and it should also be a way for you to get volunteer sign-ups. Ideally, you will also provide users with a way to donate to your organization.
Look for the most essential site elements that you need for your mission. Once you’ve done that, it’s also vital that you integrate site analytics and look at where you should focus your efforts. Long-term growth requires a website that evolves and adapts over time.
