How to Drive Traffic to Your Non-Profit or Charity's Website

As a non-profit organisation, your goal is to support those in need. And while setting up a new charity and getting it registered might be a difficult and lengthy task, that’s just the beginning of your journey to help others. The real work of spreading awareness and encouraging donations starts with your website. 

While social media and other communication channels are important for non-profits, it’s your website that you should focus on. Think of it this way… Instagram, Facebook or Twitter may disappear (or simply be down) tomorrow along with your followers – but your website won’t. 

But the good news is that you can utilise social media channels to drive traffic to and promote your website and organisation. This will help you maximise fundraising, making it possible to and therefore make your mission possible. 

And this is what we focus on in this article. Let’s take a look at how to drive more website traffic for your non-profit organisation!

Optimise your charity website for search engines

Do you have a burning question and need an answer? Google it! Just like millions of people worldwide. And if you’re running a charity, you definitely want to be found by those curious users.

Building brand awareness and credibility is vital for your charity to gain support and make a difference. Even the biggest non-profits started small, but their consistent strategy and efforts led them to success. Your charity can follow a similar path.

So why does it matter so much to optimise your website? Isn’t having a website enough? 

Your non-profit’s ultimate goal is to connect with the right people, those who share your values and are eager to support your cause. It’s about making it easy for them to discover your organisation, learn about its mission and find out how they can help you help!

Learn how to leverage keywords, metadata, and other SEO techniques to boost your website’s search engine ranking. By doing so, you’ll ensure that your cause reaches a wider audience. Also, focus on creating a positive user experience because nothing’s worse than someone wanting to date but being held back by slow loading times or poor design. 

Create high-quality and engaging content

If you’re involved in non-profit marketing, you must know how important storytelling is. But if you’re just getting started, we’re about to introduce you to your new ally – content. 

Creating high-quality content for charities is essential to effectively engage with your audience, increase awareness, and inspire action. Quality content will not only help you stay top of mind with potential donors but it will also potentially help you stand out from the crowd. Here are just a few of our favourite content ideas for non-profits.

• Get to know your audience: Understanding who your target audience is and what they care about is the first step to creating engaging and converting content. Conduct surveys, engage in conversations or analyse existing content performance to collect feedback and understand your audience’s interests and preferences. You might see that a certain type of content performs better than others. 
• Tell authentic stories: Share real stories that highlight the impact of your organisation’s work so that more people can understand how your charity is helping those in need. You can share testimonials from beneficiaries, volunteers or donors, who can explain how much of an impact your charity has made. 
• Share social proof: Highlight any awards, achievements, or certifications your non-profit has received to build credibility and confidence in your work. 
• Educate and inform your audience: Curate content to educate your audience about the cause you support, the challenges you face, and the solutions you provide. Be informative and empower your readers to take action. 
• Be transparent and show how the donations are being used: Transparency is one of the most important aspects for non-profit organisations since you rely on financial donations from private individuals and businesses. Share information about your financials and explain how donations are being utilised. Make sure to highlight the impact of the donations too. 
• Stay consistent across all channels: Developing a consistent brand voice and style across all your content is key to success. This will help you reinforce your organisation’s identity and build trust with your audience. By using similar visuals or colour patterns, your audience will be able to easily recognise your content across different platforms and communication channels. 

Leverage social media platforms to drive traffic to your charity’s website

Social media is where your donors and supporters are and so it’s also a great place to reach your audience. By setting up accounts on social media platforms you increase your visibility and chances of being found by your target audience. However, simply having social media accounts is not enough – you need engaging content to become a brand with a strong social presence and following. 

Develop a strategy to take advantage of the social media power

Building a successful social media strategy takes time and effort but once you identify your goals and target audience it’s all going to fall in place. But no matter your goals (increasing brand awareness, driving donations or recruiting volunteers), there are some strategies that all non-profit organisations should consider:

• Engaging with your audience: Social media engagement rate is one the most important metrics. By sharing interesting content that users interact with you increase your reach and chances of recruiting more donors or supporters – comments are especially important for algorithms! Publish posts asking your followers to share their ideas, opinions, or experiences and make sure you engage in the conversation! By replying to comments you can start a meaningful conversation with your followers which additionally will help you improve relationships with your followers and their loyalty. 
• Build relationships with influencers and partners: Influencers are often associated with promoting products and services but you’ll be surprised to see that they’re also open to help promote organisations and charities that are close to their hearts. By sharing your mission or project with their social media followers, they help you boost visibility and credibility. They can also help you drive traffic to your charity website or donation page. 

Would you like to find out more about creating content for your charity’s social media? Visit our blog post about converting social media followers into donors and learn all about different content strategies for non-profits. 

Run social media ads for your fundraising campaigns

We understand that as a non-profit organisation, you may have a limited marketing budget. However, if you happen to have some money left over, it may be a good idea to give a try to social media ads. They can be incredibly powerful for charities looking to raise awareness and drive engagement and donations. 

Social media platforms offer sophisticated targeting options that allow charities to reach specific demographics, interests, and behaviours. This helps you reach the most relevant audience, increasing the likelihood of engagement and support. Besides, if you know that your audience responds better to audiovisual text, you can opt for ads in the form of a video. 

It’s also important to incorporate clear and actionable CTAs in your social media ads, guiding users to take the desired action, such as donating, signing up for a newsletter, or volunteering. Remember that Facebook and Instagram offer features specifically designed for fundraising, allowing users to donate directly through the ad. 

However, if you use Waytobill’s charity plugin, you may want to consider redirecting your traffic to your fundraising page. Apart from increasing traffic to your website and boosting donations, you may also be able to get the users to stay longer on your website, learning more about your project and initiatives. 

Harness the power of email marketing for your non-profit organisation

Email marketing sometimes doesn’t get the credit it deserves. It’s a valuable and cost-effective strategy that allows you to deliver important information to your database. What does it mean for charities? Apart from engaging your audience, email marketing can help you cultivate donor relationships and communicate more effectively. 

But how to build an email list for a charity?

Building a list of supporters, donors, and volunteers can be easier than you think. Start by providing opportunities to sign up for your newsletter during events and fundraising campaigns and use your social media channels to inform followers about the newsletter and the possibility to sign up. You can also add a sign-up form on your website or blog to convert anonymous visitors into identified contacts! 

Once you have your database it’s time to start the segmentation. Start my segmenting contacts based on various criteria, for example, donor history, interests, or location. This allows you to send more personalised and relevant content to specific groups, increasing engagement and response rates. Once you get typing, it’s important to send persuasive emails that resonate with your audience’s interests and values. Make sure to test different approaches, types of content, and techniques in your email marketing to find the strategy that works best for your charity’s audience. 

Opt for QR codes at events and drive traffic to your website

Do you organise fundraising events where the local community gathers to support your non-profit? This is a great opportunity to drive traffic to your charity’s website! All you have to do is design leaflets or posters with a QR code leading the users to the page you want to promote. People who scan the code with their mobile phones will be redirected to the page of your choice. This can be any landing page, newsletter subscription form, or fundraising page. If you use Waytobill’s QR code checkout you’ll be able to drive traffic directly to a checkout page where they can donate to your good cause. 

We hope this article has given you some ideas on driving more traffic to your non-profit organisation’s website. Remember that a good user experience is important so you may want to optimise your website by checking the loading times or fixing any errors. Look at Google Analytics to check where your traffic is coming from. That can give you a great idea of which strategies work best for your charity. 

Do you have more questions? Or maybe you’d like to learn more about one of our payment solutions for charities? Contact us!