# Four common digital errors hinder charities’ online fundraising, says Equimedia

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2014/12/15/four-common-digital-errors-hinder-charities-online-fundraising-says-equimedia/
- Published: 2014-12-15T15:19:32+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

An analysis of 129 UK charity websites by digital and direct agency [Equimedia ](http://www.equimedia.co.uk)
has found four common weaknesses that it argues will limit the amount they will 
raise online.

 

It says that over 20% of all donations to UK charities in the last 12 months were
made online, but that this figure could be higher. For example, charity donors’ 
use of online methods to give or get involved in supporting a charity are continuing
to grow:

## Advertisement

 

![Equimedia analysis of share of all charity donors using online in the past 12 
months](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/equimedia-donors-
using-online.jpg)

Share of all charity donors using online in the past 12 months

 

The agency looked at four specific factors the could benefit a charity of any size,
whether national or local – speed, mobile responsiveness, fundraising ask, and basic
search engine optimisation. The overall result, for the end of 2014, is not encouraging,
and could indicate why online donations are not higher.

 

## Top digital failures

 

**1. 42% charities do not optimise their homepage titles**

 

![Equimedia charity website analysis: homepage title tag optimisation](https://www.
fundraising.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/equimedia-seo.jpg)

Charities’ homepage title tag optimisation

 

**2. 62% of charity websites have ‘slow’ page load times**

 

![Equimedia analysis of charities' websites' page speed](https://www.fundraising.
co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/equimedia-page-speed.jpg)

Page speed of charities’ websites

 

**3. Over 20% of charities fail to mention ‘donate’ in their homepage copy**

 

**4. Over 70% of charities do not have fully responsive homepages.**

 

![Equimedia's analysis of mobile responsiveness of charities' websites](https://
www.fundraising.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/equimedia-mobile-responsive-sites.
jpg)

Mobile responsiveness of charities’ websites

 

 

 

The agency concludes that “the charity sector is just not keeping up with changes
in online behaviour amongst its donor audience”.

 

## Practical advice

 

But the agency isn’t simply criticising the sector. It’s free 20-page report includes
some practical tips, explaining what the problems are and why and how they might
be fixed or improved.

 

The report concludes with five other tips for making the most out of digital including
maximising [Google Ad grants](https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/11/15/google-grants-for-charities/),
building engagement via Twitter, and tracking activity through Google Analytics.

 

You can download the whitepaper [Charities Missing Out on Millions](http://www.equimedia.co.uk/files/Services/Charities%20Missing%20Out%20on%20Millions.pdf)
from Equimedia at no charge.

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