Whether you’re trying to raise awareness, attract donations, or grow your support base, your charity’s website is the shop front of the organisation.
This checklist helps you create a website that’s clear, fast, easy to use, and boosts your charity’s digital marketing efforts.
Contents
- Why Your Charity’s Website is Key to Success
- User Experience – A Simple and Easy to Navigate Charity Website
- Website Design – Look Good with a Brand that Reflects Your Ethos
- Performance & Core Web Vitals – A Fast and Secure Charity Website
- SEO Basics for Your Charity – Get Found on Google
- Charity Website Maintenance – Easy Internal Management
- Bonus Tips – Set Your Non-Profit Apart from the Rest
- FAQs for the Best Charity Websites
Why Your Charity’s Website is Key to Success
Your charity’s website is one of the most powerful tools you have to raise awareness, drive donations, and deliver your mission effectively. It’s often the first place people go to learn about your cause, so making a strong first impression matters.
A fast, well-structured, credible website helps you get discovered on Google (SEO), reducing the cost of visibility and increasing traffic. When your site is optimised for search engines, with clear page titles, relevant keywords, and a smooth user experience, you’re far more likely to appear in the search results when someone is looking to support a cause like yours or get involved.
From a PPC (paid ads) perspective, landing page quality directly affects how your ads perform. A well-designed, mobile-friendly site can improve your Google Ads Quality Score, meaning you pay less per click and reach more people with your budget. Whereas, a slow or confusing website can increase ad costs and reduce conversions.
Most importantly, your charity’s website is where supporters take action. Whether they’re donating, signing up to volunteer, or learning more about your work. Every design choice, page load time, and call-to-action plays a role in converting visitors into active supporters. A clear, compelling website builds trust, makes it easier for users to engage, and ultimately helps support your mission.
When your website works well, everything else works better – your marketing becomes more effective, reach grows, and your non-profit’s impact increases.
User Experience – A Simple and Easy to Navigate Charity Website
- Easy-to-use menu: Keep the top menu short and simple. People should find what they need in 1-2 clicks to prevent them bouncing off the site altogether.
- Clear pages with clear goals: Each page should do only one job, e.g. get donations, share a story, sign someone up. Ensure the call to action is clear to drive more conversions.
- Don’t have too many pages: Remove old or repeated content. A smaller, focused site is easier to manage and more effective in driving conversions and promoting a strong user experience. Use Google Analytics to see which pages are most important for your users.
- Help people find their way: Think about your different audiences: donors, volunteers, press and guide each one to the right place. Without a clear path, users are less likely to engage with your content.
Website Design – Look Good with a Brand that Reflects Your Ethos
- Consistent colours, fonts, and logos: Utilise your charity’s branding consistently across the site, so it looks professional and trustworthy.
- Easy to read and uncluttered: Use big, clear text. Break things into sections with headings, spacing and high quality imagery (avoid stock imagery wherever possible!). A messy, hard to read website will reduce engagement.
- Looks good on phones and tablets: Your site must look great and be easy to use on all screen sizes. If the site doesn’t work on mobile, potential supporters will go elsewhere.
- Accessible for everyone: Make sure your text has good contrast, images have alt text, and the site works with screen readers. Having at least AA website accessibility is essential for non-profits.
Performance & Core Web Vitals – A Fast, Secure and Reliable Charity Website
- Loads quickly: People leave slow sites. Optimise images and use a reliable hosting provider – at Atelier, charities can benefit from free website hosting as part of our charity partner programme.
- Mobile friendly: Over half of visitors will use mobile. Test it on your own phone and other devices to ensure it’s usable across them all!
- Secure (HTTPS): Use a secure connection (your URL should start with “https://”) – this protects user data and is a key indicator of trustworthiness to Google.
- Core Web Vitals: There are free tools that enable you to check core web vitals. These metrics are used by Google for ranking in the search results and in ads.
SEO Basics for Your Charity – Get Found on Google
- Use the right words: Use terms people actually search for in your pages content. Use them naturally throughout the text.
- Clear page titles and descriptions: These are what people see in Google search – make them helpful and appealing whilst weaving in important keywords.
- Good headings and image descriptions: Helps both Google and people using screen readers understand your content – key for SEO and accessibility.
- Keep URLs short and clear: Example: use /donate instead of /page123?id=45. This helps both search engines and humans understand what will be found on the page.
Charity Website Maintenance – Easy Internal Management
- Simple content system: Use something like WordPress so anyone on your team can update the site.
- Use repeatable blocks: Reuse sections like donation buttons, testimonials, or calls-to-action to save time, keep things tidy and ensure your brand style is consistent.
- Avoid too many plugins: Extra features can slow the site down. Only install what you really need and keep on top of plugin updates.
- Keep Improving: Use Google Analytics. Track what pages people visit, how long they stay, and what they click on. This analysis will help you improve your website and find key touchpoints to drive more meaningful actions.
- Test key conversion points: Try different layouts or wording on important pages (like your donation page) to see what gets better results.
- Check what users are doing: Tools like Hotjar can reveal how people are actually using your site. This helps you make informed user experience decisions when improving your charity’s website.
- Update your site regularly: Keep stories fresh, update events, and fix anything that breaks. An old, outdated website will decrease engagement and drive users off the website.
Bonus Tips – Set Your Non-Profit Apart from the Rest
- Make your mission clear right away: Tell people who you are and why you exist on your homepage. Don’t make them guess – illustrate your mission with strong, emotive language that resonates with the user.
- Show impact: Use numbers, stories, photos, and quotes to show what their support achieves and drives donations and sign ups.
- Add trust signals: Include your charity number, accreditations, and logos of partners or funders. This creates trust with the user, in turn improving your credibility to search engines.
- Make it easy to donate or get involved: Use big, bold buttons. Don’t hide them in menus. If it’s important to the charity’s mission, don’t make it easy to miss!
- Multiple donation methods: Offer a variety of ways to pay on your donation page. Using PayPal, Google Pay and Apple Pay gives users flexibility and makes the checkout process as seamless as possible.
By following the tips in this checklist, you’ll be building a charity website that’s both functional and impactful for your mission.
Need help bringing it all together? Get in touch with the Atelier team – specialists in the design, build and optimisation of high-performing, user-friendly websites for charities and non-profits.
FAQs for the Best Charity Websites
Why does my charity website need to be fast?
Fast-loading sites keep users engaged, reduce bounce rates, and perform better in Google rankings and PPC campaigns.
What are Core Web Vitals?
They’re Google’s way of measuring how fast, stable, and responsive your website is for users. Plus they directly impact your SEO and ad performance.
How can I make my charity website easier to use?
Use a clear menu, focused pages with one goal, and a simple layout that guides users to take action, like donating or signing up.
What makes a charity site mobile-friendly?
A responsive design that looks good and works well on all screen sizes, loads quickly, and has clear calls-to-action that are easy to tap.
Why is branding important on a non-profit website?
Consistent colours, fonts and logos build trust and make your charity look professional and credible.
What content management system should we use?
We recommend WordPress – it’s user-friendly, flexible, and perfect for non-profits that want to easily manage content in-house.
How do I know if my site needs improvements?
Use tools like Google Analytics and Hotjar to see how users interact with your site. If people are dropping off quickly or not converting, you may need to make some optimisations.
What helps with Google rankings for charities?
Strong SEO basics include using relevant keywords, clear headings, short URLs, and writing content people are searching for.
How often should I update my website?
Regularly! Keep stories, events, and donation pages fresh. An updated site looks active and keeps visitors coming back.
What’s the best way to get more donations online?
Make donation buttons big, visible, and repeated where relevant. Offer multiple ways to pay and keep the process as simple as possible.