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What Should a Nonprofit Website Look Like?

Creating an effective website for your nonprofit organization involves a lot more than building a landing page and adding a photo or two. To reach the most potential volunteers, donors, or supporters possible, you need to create a truly compelling online presence that inspires action.

Here are a few tips you should keep in mind when designing, refreshing, or updating your nonprofit website, and how they can help you find more success online.

Use Large, Compelling Photos

If your nonprofit has an important mission or goal, you want to explain this simply to those who visit your website. Rather than use a large amount of text to do this, you should rely on large, original, compelling photos to accomplish this.

For example, if your nonprofit organization collects books to benefit underprivileged children, you should include a large photo of a child reading a book on your homepage. This makes your goals and purpose obvious, and also immediately shows visitors how they can help.

One thing to keep in mind: while photos can be an amazing way to make your website more attractive, too many of them can cause your site to load slowly. Remember to compress your images and optimize them for the web before uploading.

Keep Navigation and Menus Simple

When someone visits your website, you want to give them a clear set of directions for their visit. Instead of presenting multiple menus or navigation options, or making visitors look high and low for a contact form, you should aim to have a clear, simple, clutter-free way to navigate your website or search for specific pages.

Try to keep the options in your navigation limited as much as possible. Remember that you can always group like pages together to save space, and present them in a drop-down menu as a result.

Include Clear Calls to Action

Finally, you should make sure that the visitors to your website know exactly what you want them to do after they view a page or scroll down your homepage. If you don't include clear calls to action, your visitors may be confused about what action they should take next—or might even leave your website.

For example, if you want those visiting your site to make a donation, you should ask for a donation at the end of each page. You can either include a donate form right on the page, or link the visitor to a dedicated donation page.

It may take some practice to create an effective call to action, but don't feel guilty about asking your visitors to do something! After all, you'll never know if they'll actually do something for you unless you ask, whether your goal is to collect donations, attract new volunteers, or simply gather interest in your business.

Do you need help creating an effective website for your nonprofit organization? Not sure whether or not it's time for a new website, or if you can get away with a refresh? Contact us and we'll help you decide how best to market your nonprofit online, and share our vision for a beautiful website with you.