You probably already know that the impression that you make on your donors when you meet for the first time is one of the most important things about your relationship with them.
Did you know that this is also true of the visitors to your website?
Visitors are donors – they just don’t know it yet!
You need to think of each and every visitor to your website as a donor – they may just not know that they are one yet!
By thinking of them this way, you can stop wondering about “what if” situations, and treat each person as someone who needs your help to fill a need or solve a problem. Why else would they come to you?
If there is one piece of text on your website that affects your conversions, it’s your headline. The headline of each page needs to be attention-grabbing, informative, and SEO-friendly. You can make your headline pop by making the text large and bold, using strong language (verbs and adjectives), and including your most relevant keyword(s) for that page.
Each page on your website should have a headline, and it should not only capture attention, but communicate a message. If someone came to your website and only read the headline on your home page, would they know that your organization was about? If your answer is no, it’s time to think about how you can rework your headlines to engage and inform your visitors.
How much is too much text?
When your visitors move beyond your headline, they’ll see the rest of the text on your page. Take a look at your current home page text and ask yourself this question: Is there too much information here?
You might think that you need to tell your visitors everything about your organization on your home page – after all, shouldn’t it be a summary of who you are and what you do? The answer to this is yes and no. You likely have more than one page on your website, so it’s not necessary to have everything about your organization on your home page – it’s okay to break things up and spread your information out across multiple pages, as long as you make that information easy for visitors to find.
Depending on the purpose of a page on your website, it should have no more than 100 – 300 words of text on it (not including the title / headline). The truth is, people as a general rule are rather lazy, and will not want to read large amounts of text. And since one of the best ways to increase your conversions is to focus on the visitor experience, you can’t go wrong by catering to your audience’s desire for shorter, more impactful text.
Keeping things short and sweet shouldn’t keep you from using the text on your website to provide value to your visitors however! You can do this by making what text you do have on the page count by including the most important information about that part of your organization (whatever the topic of the page you’re on) and making sure that any links that are included are relevant to the text on the page. You shouldn’t be afraid to include a link or two, especially if they would help someone navigate your website and find the information that they are looking for!
Don’t present a wall of text to your readers
Your text also shouldn’t be made to work alone. One thing that turns off visitors more than anything else is being confronted with a “wall of text” or a lot of text with nothing to add to it or break it up. This is where images come in. Sometimes all you need is a subtle horizontal bar graphic to break up your paragraphs, or a header image for an important topic (these can go beneath your headlines for maximum impact). The important thing to remember about images with your text is that they should compliment it, not distract from it.
After all, you still want people to read what you’ve written!
The text on your website plays a vital role in converting your visitors into donors.
Now it’s your turn!
Take twenty minutes out of your schedule and review your website copy, be critical and ask yourself is it answering my donors questions?, is it a wall of text?, is the headline grabbing attention?
If you notice that your website isn’t performing quite as well as you hoped, don’t worry, there is something that you can do to change that!
A little bit of attention to the text on your website can make a huge impact on your website’s appeal and effectiveness – you can easily increase engagement with your audience, provide important information about your organization, and provide the best possible experience, all by tweaking the text on your website’s pages.
We’re here to help
If you aren’t sure whether or not you have the time or the inclination to tackle something like that, there are also services available that can help guide you through the process of transforming your website and your content into well-oiled inbound marketing machines!
All you need to do is reach out, make contact, and we’ll take it from there! You’ll be with us every step of the way, and we welcome your questions and concerns. Our goal is to enhance your website so that it converts more visitors into donors for your organization, without you having to deal with anything more than a chat to check in on our progress.
We know running an animal shelter, rescue or sanctuaru is more than a full time job, and we would be honoured to help you take your organization’s performance to the next level.
