So many non-profits neglect the power of a well-functioning site and opt to save money by using cheap website design. Others simply try to copy another business’ website without understanding the specific needs of a non-profit. We are going to look at 5 common mistakes that non-profits make. We will discuss what creates a poor user experience for visitors to help you understand website design basics

Mistake #1: Not Mobile Optimized

These days, every top-performing website, from e-commerce and free dating sites to SaaS, is mobile optimized. The reason is the prevalence of smartphones, so most of your website visitors will be using their mobile devices. If you want potential buyers to engage with your website, spend considerable time on your page and make purchases, you need to ensure your entire website is fully mobile-optimized.

Mobile-optimized website design is based on super-fast loading times. If your website is even a little slow, expect mobile users to close their tab quickly. Mobile optimized website design is also based on responsiveness, which means the site will automatically adjust to various screen sizes. When designing your website for mobile, you should also ensure the site features a sleek and minimalistic design. Typically, less is more as mobile users don’t want to be overwhelmed with flashing objects or strange color designs.

Mistake #2: No Clear Target Audience

Before you start on your website design, you need to define your target audience and their needs clearly. If you don’t know their needs, how can you design a website to improve their lives and help them? As search engines become more advanced, they can now understand when your website is not meeting the needs of your target audience. When that happens, you will start getting penalized and not show up in Google’s search results which can crush your site. Even the best website design and hosting specialists won’t help!

You can open Google Analytics and look at the demographics of your users to learn more about your target audience. You can find out everything, including gender, age, and country. You should also ask your customers to fill out surveys and capture their information when purchasing. Armed with this information, you can now reinvigorate your website design site, including layout and navigation, instantly enhancing user experience.

Mistake #3: Ignoring Analytics Data

A common piece of advice for website design for beginners is to study your analytics data and leverage it to enhance your website design. Analytics is incredibly powerful. It can tell you which pages are popular, your number of visitors, where they came from, the time they spent on your website, and your overall conversion rate. A great way to improve your website design is to look at your most popular page and then recreate other pages based on that design. To begin with, you should use Google Analytics, which is filled with lots of helpful data, and then once you get more advanced, you can look for more specialized tools to fully optimize your site design.

Mistake #4: Lack of Clear Plan

If you check out many non-profit website design examples, you will notice that many sites have been randomly thrown together with no thought in mind. When using site design, you need to remember that every aspect of the site must help buyers learn about your products and ultimately buy them. If you remember this philosophy, you will be able to design an amazing platform that is simple to use, is filled with relevant information, and makes buying fast and smooth.

Mistake #5: Failing to Promote the Website – Design Is Not the Only Thing That Matters

It doesn’t matter how good your website design is if nobody can find your site or ever hears about it. If you want to smash your website design goals, you need to use a multi-pronged strategy to promote your site and get as many eyeballs on it as possible. Here are some simple and effective ways to increase your traffic right now:

• Write a blog. An amazing website design and marketing strategy are targeting Google organic traffic. This can be achieved by writing high-quality blog posts that answer questions that your target audience is searching for. You should post a blog at least once a week!
• Promote on social media. Remember to promote your site consistently on all social media platforms. Your site should feature in your Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter posts multiple times a week!
• Social ads. With millions of people around the world spending hours every day on social media, why not get your site in their feeds by leveraging Instagram and Facebook ads. You will see an explosion in your website traffic by using social ads.
• Email marketing. Let people know you have revamped your website design online by sending out blast emails to customers and potential customers. You should be sending one email per month promoting your site and company.

If you effectively promote your non-profit via the methods above, your traffic will explode, and you will get great feedback on your website design, allowing you to optimize it further.

Conclusion

Website design best practices don’t have to be complicated or costly. If you stick to the basics of web design and make sure you do not make the mistakes mentioned above, you will crush your goals. To get some inspiration and website design ideas, remember to check what other similar nonprofits are doing with their sites. Please comment below on the website design strategies and practices you have used to build your non-profit successfully.