10 Ways to Improve Your Nonprofit WordPress Website

Think of your nonprofit's website as a tool to reach new audiences and raise awareness about your organization's mission. A functional, well-designed website can make a significant difference with fundraising, volunteering, and creating a buzz about what your nonprofit is doing.

If you're deliberating which platform your organization should use to create its site, WordPress is a popular option thanks to its flexibility and low initial costs . We've rounded up 10 best practices to help you improve — and make the most of — your nonprofit WordPress website.

1. Carefully Choose Your WordPress Theme

Your website's theme provides a foundation you'll build upon, so choose wisely when selecting one for your nonprofit's WordPress site. Consider looking for a theme specifically created for charity/nonprofit organizations because these themes are designed with your niche in mind, their layouts are carefully thought out to suit the requirements.

Needless to say, the theme should be responsive and mobile-friendly so it can present your organization in its best light on any screen size, from mobile to 27" inch monitors. The other thing to look for is that the theme is well-maintained and supported by its developers.

By doing so, you can rest assured that if something happens with the theme you'll have a reliable developer to turn to. One such dedicated theme is Yuna Charity WordPress theme. The theme looks great, plus when you purchase it, support is included.

2. Highlight the Purpose of Your Organization

Your website's homepage should communicate your organization's mission and purpose in a clear and concise way. Use simple, easy-to-understand language and consider including images, videos, or graphics that convey your organization's work. Make sure the message is visible and engaging both on desktop and mobile screens so that visitors can quickly understand what you do and how they can get involved.

Here is an example of a clearly communicated mission:

3. Add a Clear Call To Action (CTA)

A clear call to action (CTA) prompts visitors to take a specific action, such as making a donation, signing up for a newsletter, or volunteering. Your call to action should be prominent, visible, and related to your organization's mission. You can use a button, banner, or pop-up to draw attention to the call to action, but avoid being too pushy or spammy. Work with qualified copywriters to perfect the phrasing.

Your website's CTA's should be accessible from all pages, but don't go overboard with frequency. Some of your more prominent pages will have CTAs within their main content. However, adding a discrete CTA within your site's header or footer will make it accessible from all pages without being too obtrusive. You can also consider A/B testing your CTAs to ensure they're up to par.

4. Convey Your Message Through Storytelling

Storytelling is an excellent way to form a connection with your audience and communicate your organization's impact.

Share real-life stories of people or communities who have benefited from your organization's work. Use images, videos, or infographics to enhance the storytelling experience and create an emotional connection with your audience. Keep the stories brief, engaging, and relevant to your mission.

5. Showcase The Impact of Your Organization

Visitors to your website want to know how their support can make a difference. Use case studies, testimonials, or success stories to showcase your organization's impact and demonstrate your credibility.

Use data, facts, or statistics to support your claims and make your impact tangible. Depending on what your organization does you might be able to use images and videos to showcase your work, such as an infographic.

6. Keep Your Supporters Up to Date

Keeping your supporters up to date on your organization's work and events is crucial for building engagement and loyalty. By adding an events calendar to showcase upcoming events, fundraisers, or volunteer opportunities, you can effectively do so. Another option is to create a newsletter to share news, updates, and success stories.

Many nonprofits rely on social networks as the main way to keep in contact with their audience, but that can only go so far. Make sure to have a backup plan and a way to stay in contact with your audience even if something happens to your social account.

The Hubspot WordPress plugin is an efficient way to manage your contacts and engage with your audience. The free plan includes many of the features you need to grow and nurture your contact database.

7. Make Sure Your Website is Accessible

It's crucial your nonprofit makes its website accessible for all visitors. Therefore, if your site isn't accessible, you're losing a significant amount of your audience, not to mention creating an exclusionary digital space — which isn't a good look.

Accessibility starts with the theme. Make sure that the theme itself is compatible with WCAG 2.0 AA standards. When you customize your site, use accessible design practices like having sufficient contrast between text and background and using easy-to-read fonts. Always add alternative text for images and captions for videos. You can also use web accessibility solutions to ensure your site is efficient for users with disabilities.

8. Optimize Your Site's Speed

Website speed is critical to user experience and search engine optimization (SEO). Plus, if your site doesn't load fast enough, you may experience higher bounce rates, decreased engagement, and, therefore, lower search engine rankings. Here are some ways to optimize your website speed:

Use a caching plugin

Caching plugins store a copy of your website's pages and serve them to visitors instead of generating the page each time a visitor accesses it. This reduces server load and improves page load times. Popular caching plugins for WordPress include WP Fastest Cache, W3 Total Cache, and WP Rocket.

Optimize images

Large images can slow down your website's load times. Optimize images by compressing them without losing quality. You can compress them offline with a simple tool like Irfan View or use an image optimization plugin such as Smush, EWWW Image Optimizer, or ShortPixel to compress images automatically.

Use a fast and reliable hosting provider

Your website's hosting provider plays a significant role in its speed and performance. Choose a hosting provider that offers fast loading times, reliable uptime, and good customer support.

9. Take Care Of Website Security

No one wants to input sensitive data into a website they don't feel is safe. WordPress website security is crucial to protect your organization's data and your users' personal information. There are several ways to improve your website's security, such as using strong passwords and two-factor authentication, keeping your WordPress installation, plugins, and themes up to date, and limiting access to your website's admin area.

In addition to these basic security practices, it's wise to use a reputable WordPress security plugin to enhance your website's security. Some popular security plugins include Wordfence, Sucuri, and Defender Security. These plugins offer features such as malware scanning, firewall protection, two-factor authentication, and login protection. Keep in mind that no security plugin can guarantee 100% protection, so it's still essential to follow best practices and stay vigilant about website security.

10. Always Backup Your Website

Even with all the best security practices in place, things can happen. In the case where your website crashes or gets compromised, having a backup will ensure you can be up and running again in no time. Almost all well-known hosting providers have some kind of backup system in place.

An additional backup option is good to have, and it can easily be set up using backup plugins/services like Updraft or BlogVault. With these, you can have your backup stored almost anywhere you want. These services also come with additional features like one-click restore and staging that can be quite useful.

Use these best practices to set your nonprofit WordPress site up for success.

A well-designed nonprofit WordPress website can help your organization achieve its goals, engage with your audience, and create a positive impact. By implementing these 10 strategies, you can improve your nonprofit website's overall performance and reach more people.