Since social media took over, the website has seemingly gone by the wayside, but your website is the true conversion engine. Social media and emails attract people, but your website turns that attention into donors and connections. To create a powerful website, it’s important to understand that overall purpose and make sure that every single page feeds into that purpose. All pages require a primary action that converts individuals with as little friction as possible.
Creating the Funnel
Discovery
Goal
Discovery is the key to success. For your website to have effectiveness, you have to be findable. Even the greatest website in the world will be ineffective if no one ever sees it. When people are looking for help, direct assistance, or resources, your website and organization will be the first one they find.
Tactics
First thing’s first, we have to make sure that your pages load properly. A good standard for your web pages to load is under two seconds. If your website is any slower, you should seek out support to optimize its speed.
Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) landing pages are key. You want to make sure that your main pages of your website have the keywords necessary to show up when people are using search engines to find information related to either the community you serve or the type of work that you do. Blog and other long form content focused on your key subject matter will help boost your website and provide increased visibility.
Another tactic you can use is schema markup. Schema markups are code that are added to your website in the background to help improve search engine visibility. This is a little more advanced, but you can ask a web designer to help install this for you.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
Organic Sessions: Visits to your website that were not triggered by an advertisement
Keyword Rankings: Where your website ranks in organic search results for specific keywords. The higher the number, the closest to the first entry on a search message you are
Bounce Rate: The percentage of website visitors who leave after only looking at one page
Average Session Duration: How long each visitor stays on your website.
First Visit
Goal
Time is of the essence when it comes to your website. You have to be able to show value in under thirty seconds to ensure that those eyeballs get converted. Digital attention spans are incredibly short and it is vital that you are able to grab website visitors and spur them towards a call to action, whether that is donate, sign up for an email list, or volunteer. That conversion is the critical step and optimizing your first visit is your best step in succeeding.
Tactics
We need to ensure that we can show value immediately for site visitors. To do that we will rely on clear hero headlines that will show visitors exactly what they can expect to find on each page. That makes site navigation much easier and reduces confusion. Combine that with an Above-the-fold call to action (ABF CTA). The ABF CTA is a button that appears either as a popup or at the top of the page that provides a direct link to a call to action. Whether you’re asking people to sign up for a mailing list, donate, or register for membership, the CTA has to draw eyes to it immediately. Ensure that you are providing trust signals such as logos, quotes from allies or constituents, and pictures. This helps visitors understand your organization is viable and trustworthy. Don’t forget to make sure your site is mobile friendly to grab the most eyes.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
Bounce Rate: The percentage of viewers who leave your site after visiting only one page and not clicking any other buttons
Pages per session: The number of pages the average viewer visits on your website
Scroll depth: How deep into your page the average viewer is reading.
Exploration
Goal
Once page visitors reach this stage we want to help them recognize that you are a trusted source and seek out further information. There’s so much on the internet and infinitely increasing amounts of slop. People are searching for authenticity and expert knowledge. Your page should relay to the visitor that you are an expert to be trusted and your website and organization are exactly what they need to solve the problem they have been searching for help with.
Tactics
Effective websites have a strong about page with visible mission and vision statements, team members with biographies, and overview of your organization and what you all do. Create a page with Impact statistics and/or case studies to give real evidence of the work that you’ve done in the past and build a level of trust and validation. Create a blog with related content that reinforces your expertise in the field and gets visitors information that they are seeking in easily digestible formats. Finally, make sure that your pages link to each other so that resources feed into each other. You’ve done the hard work of creating the content and information - make sure that people can actually find it.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
Pages per session: the amount of pages each visitor clicks on before they leave your website
Time on key pages: Amount of time that visitors spend on each major page. This helps determine if people are actually consuming the information
Return visitor rate: Percentage of visitors who return to your page
Lead Capture
Goal
Now that you’ve validated yourself as a trusted source, you want to bring visitors into your actual network. Convert them from anonymous visitors to followers and members of your base. This is the step that increases your follower count, email list, or whatever metric of growth you are trying to increase.
Tactics
Using lead magnets is a great way to bring people into the fold. Offer them a free guide, quiz, or calculator if they sign up for your newsletter. Exit-intent popups are popups that are triggered when a user is about to leave a page. It may trigger visitors to stay on the website. Embedded inline forms make it easy for visitors to sign up. You should also ensure that newsletter sign ups are embedded in the footer and/or sidebar so that call to action is omnipresent.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
Email signups rate: percentage of increased or decreased new signups over a period of time
Lead magnet downloads: amount of people downloading your lead magnet
Form completion rate: Amount of people who have begun completing your sign up form that have actually finished and submitted it.
Conversion
Goal
Finally, its time to convert these visitors. You want each page to have some sort of call to action and the ability to drive people towards that primary action: donate, register, contact, buy. All of them must be clear and the page should lead to this final trigger point.
Tactics
Make dedicated donation/checkout pages that are mobile friendly to process any transactions you are asking people to make. Reduce form fields to as few as possible. The more people have to click to convert, the less likely they are to do it. Make any action possible in 5 clicks or less. Use social proof at decision points to improve your conversion rate. Reemphasize your impact stories and quotes on donation pages and newsletter sign up forms so that people have visual reminders of why they should follow through with the call to action.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
Conversion Rate: percentage of visitors that convert via your call to action
Cost per conversion: amount of money you spent on ads per conversion
Form abandonment rate: percentage of visitors who do not complete conversion forms
How to Build Your Site
Similar to conversion rates being affected by simplicity, website structure is key for helping convert organizations. Here are the mandatory pages for your website. Keep it simple and clean and easy to navigate.
Home — value prop, primary CTA, social proof, secondary CTAs.
About — mission, story, team, credibility.
Programs / Services / Products — what you do and why.
Impact / Case Studies — outcomes, stories, data.
Resources / Blog — SEO and trust-building content.
Donate / Get Involved / Contact — the primary action