Online giving currently makes up about 7% of all of the donations received by nonprofits. The rate of online donations has grown by about 10% for each of the past several years, with similar growth expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

Increasing traffic to your nonprofit’s website can help to raise awareness about your nonprofit’s mission and how donors can support your efforts. Attracting more visitors to your site also supports your nonprofit’s online and offline fundraising efforts.

The following tips can help you to create a website for your nonprofit that attracts attention and increases conversions.

Create Great Content that Resonates, Informs, and Shows Donors the Impact of Giving

The number one way to increase traffic to your nonprofit’s website is to give them content that they want to consume. Your nonprofit’s blog is the perfect place to share stories about the good work that your organisation does through the efforts of its volunteers and staff and to showcase the impact that donations make in the lives of those your charity or association serves.

When creating content for your site, be certain to include photos, short videos and other images with your stories that will increase interest and make an impact on visitors on an emotional level. Make it easy for supporters to remain involved and informed by including an appeal to sign-up by email so that visitors can follow your NFP for regular updates and other communications.

Consistency is the Key

Some nonprofits put a lot of effort into creating a great website, and post regularly in the beginning, and then begin to slack off from their efforts. In order to build an audience for your content, you must post original, engaging content on a regular basis.

To stay on track, use an editorial calendar to plan out your posts several months in advance. Use social media tools such as Buffer and Hootsuite to get organised and schedule the dates posts will appear days, weeks or even months in advance.

Many of these same tools also give users the ability to analyse the impact specific posts have within specific segments of their target audience, which will allow you to tailor future posts to increase effectiveness.

Make it Easy to Share and Give

Many nonprofit websites contain great content, but, they then sabotage their efforts by making it hard for supporters to either share the message or donate. When creating your site, be certain that every page contains a clear call to action with buttons that make it easy for your supporters to share your content on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and other social media. Remember to include a clear call to action and buttons that make it easy for supporters to donate to your cause.

Optimise Your Site for Mobile

Nearly one-third of all online giving comes from traditional email marketing campaigns, with most donors opening their emails on their smartphone rather than a traditional laptop or desktop, so both your emails and your website need to be optimised for mobile platforms. Google ranks sites that are optimised for mobile higher when searches are conducted on mobile platforms, so leaving your site unoptimised penalises your nonprofit right from the start. Since many mobile users are ditching more traditional Internet platforms altogether, the key to increasing visits to your site by mobile users is to optimise it for mobile use.

Be Patient

Increasing traffic to your website will not happen overnight. Most content marketing experts advise it can take six months or longer for nonprofits and other organisations to build up an audience, so be certain that you are giving your site enough time to produce results before you start to panic. Patience is indeed a necessary virtue when it comes to such issues.