In Jocelyn Harmon’s blog, Marketing for Nonprofits, she has a bit of a rant describing “6 reasons your website sucks.”
Like me, Harmon is frustrated that more nonprofits don’t take advantage of their website. That they don’t make some basic, easy, and affordable changes so their website becomes the powerful online tool it’s meant to be. So that it helps your charity grow through more donors and funds raised.
Harmon’s six reasons are:
1 – Lack of photos. Or the lack of the right photos. Hint: Don’t use stock photos of people that obviously aren’t tied to your work.
2 – Gabby-Gabby-Gabby. Rambling text and too much of it. Keep it brief and to the point. Just the other day I shared some research that shows at most, people only read 18-20% of the text on your website.
3 – Can’t instantly find how to subscribe or how to donate. Have more than one path to these critical “calls to action.” Make them incredibly easy to find and understand. Click here to read another nonprofit website article – point #4 – I wrote that may help you with this.
4 – It takes forever and a day for your website to load. This is probably because you’re using flash. Get too clever and “flashy” and people give up. They don’t have time to waste on all that fluff.
5 – Time for a makeover. How long has it been since you’ve overhauled your website and given it a fresh look?
6 – Content is out of date. Special events listed that have already passed. News article of your Executive Director from two years ago. As Harmon says, visitors only want the latest and greatest. Keep your content fresh!
Harmon goes into more detail than I have. And she has examples of three websites that she likes. So I encourage you to read her post.
To help you improve your website I also recommend you carefully read the following:
Nonprofit website usability – Part 1
