GUEST POST // How to Use Your Website to Engage Supporters: 3 Tips
By De’Yonté Wilkinson of Cornershop Creative
Your website is a core location where supporters will take action, whether they’re donating, signing petitions, or attending virtual events. Every single time someone lands on your site, it’s a conversion opportunity.
But is your website working as well as it can to meet your supporters’ online engagement expectations and to inspire them to take action for your cause?
In this guide, we’ll consider aspects of the supporter's digital experience, including finding your site, exploring engagement opportunities, and taking action. We’ll also cover the following tips for engaging supporters at each step in the process:
Use SEO strategies to help supporters find your content.
Share a variety of engagement opportunities.
Make it as easy as possible to take action.
There’s a wide variety of designs when it comes to the best nonprofit websites. However, whether the sites stand out because of creative uses of color, accessible navigation, or impactful calls to action, they’re all great at engaging supporters to make a difference.
Your nonprofit can do the same, starting before supporters even land on your website with this first tip!
1. Use SEO strategies to help supporters find your content.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your web pages to rank highly on search engine results pages for related keywords. For example, if you operate an animal welfare nonprofit, you might optimize your volunteer opportunities page with the goal of ranking for keywords such as “Dog Shelter Volunteer Opportunities” or “Volunteering with Cats in [Location].”
It’s great if supporters land on your site and then peruse the rest of your pages to find what they’re looking for. But, there are also going to be folks who use search engines to find the exact page they’re seeking, take the next steps, and hit the road — and if they don’t find the desired page quickly, they might leave your site without taking any next steps. SEO is a powerful tool for engaging your supporters before they even land on your organization’s website, helping them find the exact information they’re seeking right off the bat.
Cornershop Creative’s guide to SEO for nonprofits provides an in-depth look at how to improve your website’s SEO. Here are a few highlights from the guide:
Identify the primary pages that you want your supporters to find. Consider the specific keywords that your target audience will be searching for and plan your SEO strategy accordingly.
Add internal and external links across your website. Your pages should link to one another and to authoritative resources from across the web. Internal links help Google navigate and index all of your web pages, which is required for the pages to rank. External links help users associate your site with other authoritative content, adding value and potentially boosting your content’s SEO ranking.
Create and maintain a blog. Regularly updated blog content signals to Google that your website is well-maintained and relevant. Plus, blog posts are the perfect opportunity to use target keywords that are relevant to your nonprofit but that may not be a great fit for your other web pages.
These tips provide just a quick introduction to SEO. If you want to take your site’s optimization to the next level, consider working with a website design consultant that specializes in SEO for nonprofit organizations. This partner can help you address a wide gamut of SEO-related tasks including website optimization and exciting nonprofit-specific opportunities such as Google Grant funding.
2. Make it as easy as possible to take action.
So, let’s say someone lands on your website but they haven’t yet found the information that they’re looking for.
Maybe you posted about volunteering on social media and included a link to a list of opportunities on your website, but the supporter who followed the link is already convinced and looking for your form to sign up. Or, maybe they landed on your blog, spent a few minutes reading posts and learning about your cause and now they’re ready to sign up to learn more.
Your goal should be to make it as frictionless as possible for your supporters to take action on behalf of your cause. First, direct them to your action page in question with:
Strategically-placed calls-to-action. This includes bright, eye-catching buttons and in-line CTA text (i.e. “Did this blog inspire you to take action? Volunteer now!”) Aim to have a clear next step on all of your website’s pages and blog posts.
A clear navigation structure. Your top website navigation should include links to all of your main action pages, such as your online donation, volunteer sign-up, and advocacy pages. Build out a clear hierarchy of informational and educational pages by displaying subpages in your menu and creating a sidebar navigation menu. WordPress, a popular nonprofit website builder, has plugins such as the Better Section Navigation plugin that can help you accomplish this.
Helping folks find your action pages is just step one in making “taking action” frictionless. From there, make sure that any sign-up or donation pages are optimized for user experience. This includes limiting the information you ask for to need-to-know details only, clearly labeling required fields, and ensuring that forms are accessible for all users who stumble across them (including those who use assistive technologies).
3. Share a variety of engagement opportunities.
Your supporter base is made up of a wide range of unique, diverse individuals. That’s what makes it so great! You might have Gen Z advocates who are eager to spread the word about your cause, older adults who are in a financial position to make regular gifts, and folks in the middle who want to dive in with hands-on volunteer opportunities.
Provide a variety of action opportunities across your website to appeal to and engage the full range of your supporters. Use your website to make it easy for supporters to:
Donate
Beyond your online donation form, offer additional giving opportunities like peer-to-peer fundraising and social media giving. This empowers people to not only give to your organization directly but motivate their personal networks to do the same.
Provide information about corporate philanthropy programs. Double the Donation’s guide to corporate giving programs discusses matching gifts, in particular. Essentially, donors working for companies that offer these programs can submit the details of their donation to their employer and secure a second, matched gift for your nonprofit. Add information right on your donation page to increase the odds supporters will check out if they qualify for a matching gift.
Volunteer
Provide an informational listing of your various volunteer opportunities. Discuss each opportunity’s main tasks, the general timeline (such as days of the week that you need help on), and the skills that might help someone serving in that role.
Create a volunteer sign-up form. Once you’ve inspired volunteers to take action, make sure they have the tools to get started! Your volunteer sign-up form should be optimized for user experience, similar to your online donation form.
Raise Awareness
Provide a list of recommended actions. There are a ton of ways to raise awareness and be an advocate for your cause. If your nonprofit is currently running an advocacy campaign — such as a phone tree campaign or collecting petition signatures — highlight the specific action steps that supporters can take to pitch in.
Share text, email, and phone call templates. Your supporters might feel jazzed about raising awareness, but it can be stressful reaching out to political figures (especially if they’ve never done it before!). Write up a few templates that supporters can reference to ensure they hit key talking points and feel confident.
Include social sharing buttons. The power in advocacy comes from getting as many supporters involved as possible. Provide social sharing and email sharing buttons that allow supporters to spread the word about the actions they’ve taken and invite their networks to do the same!
When you provide a variety of ways to get involved, you’ll see increased engagement as supporters get more involved, and you’ll be able to advance your nonprofit’s mission on multiple fronts at the same time.
Your website can be an engagement hub — but only if you structure it to provide a great user experience!
By directing supporters to the pages they’re interested in, including clear calls to action, and providing a number of ways to get involved, you’ll make it easy for folks to support your organization.
This guest post was written by De’Yonté Wilkinson.
De’Yonté’s a late-80s baby who found his passion for web design and development during MySpace’s heyday, when he helped his friends create awesome profiles. He’s spent the last three years specializing in WordPress and conversion optimization, and is an active proponent of coding guidelines. In his off time he enjoys cooking, Rugby, and hanging out with his wife.
