If you want to dramatically improve the lives of others and bring about lasting change, you’ll need to create a navigable, responsive, accessible, and inspiring website. A highly experienced nonprofit web developer can help you achieve these results—helping you attract more donors and online donations in the process.
Why Web Development is Vital to Attracting Donors & Donations
Donors search online for the causes they believe in and want to assist with their donations. Beneficiaries will also often begin their search for help online. In today’s tech-driven world, if your nonprofit isn’t visible online, it might as well be nonexistent.
When donors and beneficiaries land on your website, will they be able to easily access the web pages where they can learn more about your nonprofit? Are the donation forms optimized and secure, and can donors make contributions easily? Is your website accessible to people with disabilities?
Just as importantly, when donors and beneficiaries search for your services on Google or other search engines, will your website appear at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs)? Is your website responsive (i.e., displays correctly on desktops, smartphones, and tablets)?
To achieve these ends, you’ll want to implement the following web development best practices.
The 6 Building Blocks of Great Non-Profit Web Development
1. UX Design
Short for user experience design, UX design is the process of designing products (including websites) that are useful, easy to navigate and provide delightful interaction. At its heart, great UX design lets site visitors find what they need intuitively.
Think Design’s nonprofit web developers have years of experience creating websites optimized for user experience. Their commitment to refining your site based on your customers’ needs will encourage deeper engagement and greater conversions.
2. Accessibility
According to the World Bank, one billion people, or 15% of the world’s population, struggle with some form of disability. Yet only 1% of the world’s top websites are fully accessible to differently-abled people.
Think Design’s nonprofit web developers will refine your website, ensuring it’s compliant with Section 508 and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. These measures will ensure that those who’re differently-abled can easily access your website.
3. Responsive Design
To provide a seamless user experience, your nonprofit website must display correctly on desktops, smartphones, and tablets. By making your website responsive, the contents are automatically resized and reshuffled to fit the dimensions of the device your site visitor is using.
Failure to make your site responsive can have dire consequences: According to HubSpot, 93% of users have exited a website because it failed to display correctly on their device.
4. Donation Form Optimization
You’ll need to optimize your donation forms to encourage donors to contribute. The web development and design teams at Think Design will work with you to ensure they’re secure and aligned with the appropriate donation processors.
5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Is your website visible on the organic search results of Google, Yahoo, and other popular search engines? If the answer is no, you could be doing your donors, supporters, and beneficiaries a disservice since they’ll have a more challenging time finding and accessing your services online.
Being a top-ranked website on Google is essential to provide a steady stream of qualified and relevant traffic to your website. At Think Design, we offer SEO for nonprofits. Using various white hat SEO tactics, we’ll help your nonprofit website rank at the top of the SERPs for key search queries.
6. Branding & Content
You might have a vision and mission to transform your community or positively impact the environment. Still, if you’re not effectively communicating your core values to your target audience, you’ll fail to drive your mission forward.
You’ll need to refine your website’s brand messaging and content, ensuring that it communicates clearly and effectively with your target audience. The content specialists at Think Design will help you clearly articulate your mission and vision, transforming passive bystanders into die-hard supporters.
Drive Your Mission Forward with Think Design
Think Design is the premier nonprofit web development agency in NYC. We have over 20 years of experience helping NYC-based and international nonprofits and NGOs design and develop their websites.
We understand nonprofits’ challenges and can implement solutions to help them launch more dynamic and valuable websites. Contact us today for more information.