With everyone diving into the new year and new decade with lofty goals and resolutions typed neatly on a pretty printable, I wonder how many thousands (or millions) of dollars are spent on new tools, new shiny objects, and promising gadgets in the first week of the year? It’s probably a number I don’t really want to know.

All the talk about new products, new courses, and new tools got me wondering this: How can I be more effective in my work using what I already have?

The truth is, for nonprofits, the budget doesn’t always support a bunch of January purchases. Sure, you might be basking in the glow of all those year-end giving campaigns (I hope this is the case) but you also know that January - March tends to be a pretty slow time for donations, on average.

That’s why I want to walk you through this series — how to use your nonprofit website more effectively. This series is for you if:

1. You have a website. It doesn’t have to be pretty or perfect, you just need to have one. If you don’t have one, bookmark these posts and then come back to them when you do. Or send this post to a nonprofit friend who does have a website.

2. You are tired of seeing “update website” on your to-do list (mentally or in writing) and know you need to make better use of what you already have, or a website overhaul just isn’t in your budget.

3. You know enough to know that your website is the first impression of your nonprofit and you’re not happy with the impression you’re making.

So if you’re still reading, this four-week series of posts is for you. Yes, it’s probably going to take you five minutes to read the post and then another 30 minutes to “do the thing” I recommend.

But if you don’t? You run the risk of alienating the very people you’re trying to reach, of losing potential donors before you are ever face-to-face with them, and of missing out on the chance to share your incredible work with a bigger audience.

That’s not how you want to start the year, is it?

Let’s get into it.

How to identify your website visitors and what they want.

In other words, you need to know your audience.

There are two ways to look at this:

If you know you want your website to do something specific like increase your volunteer base, then you can begin to create content (images + text) that will appeal to that specific audience.

You could change your homepage photos to feature volunteer work, add in a call to action for volunteer sign-ups near the top of the page, or even change up your feature story to be centered on volunteering. Then, when you share your website on social media or via email, you can alter your message to really target potential volunteers. With that one small change in focus, you’ve made your website more effective.

This strategy can be implemented over and over again with new audiences, as needed. It serves as a great way to regularly update your website, too, since it involves changing text and photos on a regular basis. If you choose this strategy, be sure to keep the main elements of the site consistent (menus, donation pages, contact forms, etc.) so readers have some familiarity when they visit.

If you want your website to have a broader appeal and serve many audiences (donors, volunteers, board members, corporate reps, etc.) use analytic tools to build visitor profiles.

This can be more of an art than a science but it’s completely possible. Using your analytics tools, you can begin to build a profile of your visitors and then make some educated guesses based on data.

For example, if your average website visitor is under the age of 30, using a smartphone to access your site, referred by Instagram, and their most visited pages are the volunteer page and contact page, you can infer this is a young adult interested in volunteering.

Or, if your average visitor is over 60, using a desktop, referred by Facebook, and visiting your donate page, you probably have a potential donor on your website.

These are generalizations of course and it takes time to build accurate avatars. Consistent data over several months will help you better understand your current audience and in turn, guide you in creating more effective content for those already using your website.

Once you understand those audiences, you can begin to tweak your content to ensure you’re giving them what they are looking for and making it easy to find (i.e. menu titles by audience or at least sections on your website devoted to each audience).

Pro Tip: Make sure your website has a search bar! Then, track what people are searching. This is the number one way to know what people want from your site. You can also use Google Analytics to see what keywords people are searching when they find your site.

To wrap up this first post, I’ll end with a few resources to help you get started.

• If you’re using a Squarespace website, start looking at your analytics now to get to know your audience. Are they local? What pages are they visiting most? What buttons are they clicking? You’ll find them in your main menu and no longer need a separate mobile app.

• If you don’t have analytics inside your website platform, get Google Analytics going for your website. I’ve created a step-by-step tutorial on how to set up Google Analytics and you can watch that inside my Nonprofit Resource Library or on my YouTube Channel. It’s easier than you think and when it’s all set up, you’ll have a wealth of data available to make the best decisions for your nonprofit. Or, find an agency like Adtaxi to help you understand what to measure and when.

• If you’re trying to decide the best place to start, start with option #1 and begin targeting a specific group with new content and a specific call to action. We’re going to talk more about the call to action in this series so stay tuned for that! If you don’t want to miss a blog post, be sure to subscribe right here to get the post delivered to your inbox!

Whether you are steering your content to entice your ideal audience member or understanding your current audience better to guide future content, the first key to using your website more effectively is knowing who is visiting your website.

We all want to have a great experience when we go to a website. We go looking for something specific and we hope to find it. Our job as nonprofit marketers is to make that job as easy as possible on others and give them exactly what they’re looking for (plus the opportunity to help us move forward, of course!)

Until next time,

Andrea