Four common digital errors hinder charities’ online fundraising, says Equimedia
Howard Lake | 15 December 2014 | News
An analysis of 129 UK charity websites by digital and direct agency Equimedia 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:
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
Charities’ homepage title tag optimisation
2. 62% of charity websites have ‘slow’ page load times
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.
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, building engagement via Twitter, and tracking activity through Google Analytics.
You can download the whitepaper Charities Missing Out on Millions from Equimedia at no charge.
Advertisement
Related posts
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.