Four Foolproof Ways to Boost Your Web Traffic

Your nonprofit’s website is one of your most powerful tools for spreading awareness of your mission. It can also be one of the main drivers for receiving donations and creating public engagement. The important thing to keep in mind when creating and maintaining your website is to answer two important questions:

1. Why should people want to visit your website? i.e., what’s in it for them?
2. What do you want people to do on your website once you get them there?

Once you can answer these two questions, you can use your website as a powerful tool to achieve your goals. Remember, you don’t want just any traffic to your website. You want the right traffic. You want the people who are most likely to become donors, volunteers, attend your events, and more. With the following four strategies we’re going to outline, you’ll have a head start in driving more traffic to your website and be on your way to achieving your online goals!

1. Understand Your Audience

First things first. Knowing WHO your base constituents are and the type of people who will be visiting your site is key to creating website content that the public will be interested in. Also, keep in mind that most mission-driven organizations have at least three audiences.

• Audience 1: These are the people you are trying to help
• Audience 2: The donors (which can be segmented even further)
• Audience 3: You advocates and volunteers

Tools such as Google Analytics can provide fantastic data for who your online audience is. For example, Google Analytics audience breakdown allows you to see the age, gender, interest categories, location, their journey throughout your site’s web pages, and much more. This data can be extremely beneficial in creating content optimized for your audience and their online interests.

2. Optimize Your Site for SEO

Having a website that is SEO optimized can be one of the most valuable (and free) tools for you. There are many factors that Google and other search engines take into consideration when crawling your website. One top factor is the strategic use of your keywords. Keywords are the words and phrases that potential customers and donors are typing into search engines. For example, put yourself in your potential donor’s shoes and create a list of which keywords and topics relate most to your nonprofit and its mission. It’s always a great idea to type your keywords into a search engine to see what results come up.

Finally, decide which keywords and phrases your nonprofit has the best opportunity to rank for. Lots of other websites out there are competing to appear on the first page of a search engine result, but only 10 will make it. Use analytic tools like keywords.io  or Google Webmaster to help you determine which keywords can give you an edge over the competition in organic search. Once you’ve identified keywords and phrases to target, begin creating content on your website based on them.

It’s important to remember that strategic use of keywords won’t be enough to rank you highly in organic search, but it’s a fantastic starting point. Other points to keep in mind to help boost your SEO rankings include:

1. Having a responsive, mobile-friendly design
2. Producing optimized content that visitors enjoy
3. Linking to other outside sources
4. Having strong Meta descriptions, image descriptions, etc.

3. Leverage Social Media

Social media sites have more than 2 billion active users from all over the world, and everyday active users use social media to interact with brands and organizations. Your nonprofit’s social media accounts can be critical to driving individuals to your website. Ensure your profile is optimized and includes the basics about your organization: logo, a concise organization description, and a link to your website. Share relevant content and photos that will engage users and leave them wanting more from you, which they’ll be able to find on your website! When possible, your posts should include a URL that directs your audience to a page within your site.

Be consistent and frequent with your messaging, and don’t overload your social media sites with too many marketing-driven posts. It’s about providing users with meaningful content that they’ll want to read and share with others in their online communities. When users hit the share button on your content, you can increase views and visits to your content exponentially (and for free!).

Helpful hint: Not only is social media great for distributing content and getting users to your site, but it is also a fantastic monitoring tool. Do a quick search within tools like Facebook or Twitter to see what people are saying about you. T This goes back to knowing your audience and can help you modify your content to better suit the public’s sentiment towards you or to address areas of concern.

4. Use Online Ad Tools

If your budget allows for it, consider attracting Visitors using Pay-per-click (PPC) online advertising. The most popular tools for online PPC advertising include paying to show up at the top of search engine results (like Google AdWords), display (banner ads on websites), and on social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, SnapChat, etc.).

Online PPC advertising enables you to get extremely focused on the type of audience you want to see your post. This ties back to knowing your audience from earlier in the post. Using Google AdWords as a paid search marketing, for example, you can focus on the keywords that you’ve identified your audience uses and place bids on those words and phrases. You place a daily bid for how much you’re willing to pay to show up in search engines based on your determined keywords. If your AdWords ad is relevant enough to a search surrounding those keywords, it will show up higher in search results, increasing your odds of being seen. Only when a person clicks on your ad do you get charged.

Adwords also includes a Display option that enables you to promote your organization via display ads across countless websites. Knowing your audience, you can then narrow down the types of websites your ad will run on. In our experience, the display option can be a great tool for building brand awareness and earning digital impressions. However, it may not provide the click-through rate you are hoping for.

With more than 2 billion active users who are actively engaging with content every second of the day, social media advertising can be extremely helpful and cost-efficient for nonprofits. The type of ad you run on social media will vary by outlet. As an example, on Facebook, you can promote your content in several different ways. You can “boost” content posted on your timeline for only a few dollars and have your post reach many more users than it would organically. You can also do a sponsored post to promote your agenda with extremely tailored demographics (again, knowing your audience is key) that show up directly in a Facebook user’s timeline feed and gain impressions and content clicks at a relatively low budget.

Helpful hint: Google offers $10,000 in free online advertising every month for nonprofits through its Google Ad Grant Program. For nonprofits that qualify (and most do), you have the option to utilize the Google AdWords network to reach new advocates and supporters. This allows you to throw your hat into the competitive search ring at no cost and increase your odds of showing up on the first page of search engine results.

Do You Need Our Help?

Creating a plan to boost your online traffic may seem daunting at first. We would be happy to sit down and help you craft a custom strategy for your organization to increase your digital footprint. We are pleased to offer a FREE 30-minute consultation for your organization. Simply schedule a call to discuss your nonprofit’s needs. We look forward to hearing from you!

 

 

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Alizah Epstein is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer at the Epstein Creative Group. As a passionate, creative thinker and problem-solver, she is the driving force behind the branding and marketing design studio. What makes this firm different is that it focuses on branding and marketing for mission-driven organizations that benefit women and children. Through strategic branding and marketing efforts, they secure more donors and build awareness so these organizations can continue the good work that they do. To learn more, visit epsteincreative.com. Design with purpose.