Let’s face it: most of us use the internet for basically everything nowadays. Shopping, connecting with friends and family members, and watching TV all happen over the internet. It’s easy to see why supporters would turn to the internet to engage with your nonprofit, as well!
Your nonprofit’s website is a key channel for connecting with supporters, receiving donations, and raising awareness for your mission. And, just as with any other channel, it’s crucial to track data to boost engagement and understand how you can improve results and achieve your organization’s goals.
In this guide, we’re going to focus on two key engagement metrics: conversion rate and bounce rate. These metrics give your organization insight into your site’s performance by measuring, respectively, how many site visitors complete a desired action and how valuable your website is for those visitors.
You can trust that the best nonprofit websites are not only monitoring these metrics, but actively taking steps to improve their own site’s performance with them in mind. So, let’s get started!
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate refers to the percentage of site visitors who complete a desired action.
Let’s consider what conversion rate looks like for online fundraising. Imagine you’ve just visited your favorite nonprofit’s website. Across the site, you see a number of “Donate here!” buttons that send you to the nonprofit’s donation page. On that page, you donate.
At this point, you’ve completed the desired action (making a donation), completing your conversion from a casual site visitor to an online donor. Good on you!
Donation conversion rate is basically the most popular conversion to track. However, you could also track the conversion rate for any of the following:
- Registering to attend an upcoming event
- Joining your email list
- Filling out a petition
- Downloading a resource
- Signing up to volunteer
- Contacting a local government representative
Instead of tracking conversions for all activities, pick the ones that are most relevant to your goals. For example, nonprofits that run fundraising campaigns will likely primarily track online donations. However, during their big annual gala, they might briefly switch to prioritizing event registration. And, for a local grassroots organization, petition signatures and emails sent to local representatives could be more useful.
What does this engagement data point mean for your nonprofit?
Your conversion rate tells you how effectively your nonprofit’s website is achieving a specific goal.
Let’s go back to our online fundraising example. According to Double the Donation’s nonprofit fundraising statistics, the average conversion rate for a donation page on a mobile device is just 8%. However, the total number of transactions completed on mobile devices increased by 50% from last year.
In a similar manner, you can track your conversion rate over time to understand your site’s performance. For instance, you could discover that an annual fundraising campaign page converted at a lower rate this year compared to last year, prompting you to investigate why.
The ideal conversion rate for your web pages differs depending on the type of conversion you’re tracking. Generally, you’ll want to have at least a 2% to 5% conversion rate across your website overall. Action pages, such as your donation page, should have a higher conversion rate than the typical page, somewhere between 20 to 30%. If you discover that your online donation page has a conversion rate below 20%, you can take steps to improve that page’s performance, promote it in new ways, and encourage conversions!
How can you improve your website’s conversion rates?
The best way to improve your website’s conversion rate is to make it as easy as possible for visitors to convert.
Use the following tips to improve your website’s conversions, regardless of the type of conversion you’re tracking:
- Prioritize user-friendly website navigation. Look at your top navigation menu, which should have clear links and labels to your main conversion pages. For instance, you might have normal links to your program information page and “about” page, then a brightly-colored button leading to your donation page. Regardless of where on your site visitors are inspired to convert, they can quickly identify a link that will take them to the correct page.
- Be clear with your language. All content on your site should use straightforward descriptions and calls to action. Additionally, all buttons and call-to-action text should link to the same conversion page. This creates a cohesive experience for site visitors who will know for sure what their next steps should be (and makes tracking conversion data much easier for your team).
- Make it easy to cross the finish line. Often, conversions are made through some type of form, like an online donation form, an event registration form, an email list sign-up form, and so on. Clean up your forms to make them easy for supporters to complete. This includes limiting the number of fields, clearly labeling required fields, and making forms tab-friendly so they can be navigated using a keyboard alone if needed.
Remember, your site visitors want to support your cause. The more intuitive and straightforward it is to do that, the higher your conversion rate will climb!
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate describes supporters who check out one of your pages and then leave—or “bounce” back—to another domain on the web.
What does this engagement data point mean for your nonprofit?
Bounce rate is one of the few engagement metrics that you want to be as low as possible.
Imagine a time when you were quick to “bounce” from a website. Perhaps you googled “nonprofit website” to find tips on how to improve your organization’s site, clicked on a page that looked promising, but found that it was a directory pointing to the websites of top U.S. nonprofits. Since the site wasn’t what you were looking for, you “bounced.”
A high bounce rate often indicates that your website isn’t quite meeting your site visitors’ expectations. Typically, you want to keep your site’s bounce rate under 60%.
How can you improve your website’s bounce rate?
Keep these tips in mind to decrease your site’s bounce rate:
- Improve your page load speed. Honesty hour: how long does it actually take your site to load? If it takes longer than a few seconds to load a page and all of the multimedia elements on it, do you click away from it? We do! The internet has made instant gratification the name of the game, and no one wants to wait for a website to load. Improve your page load speed by decreasing the size of images, compressing large image files, enabling lazy loading, and reducing redirect chains. We recommend conducting ongoing website maintenance to make sure that your site is consistently functioning effectively.
- Conduct search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. If you’ve ever googled something and clicked on a page that didn’t align with what you were looking for, you probably immediately clicked away. With SEO efforts, you can ensure your blog posts, informational pages, and other content are served to supporters who are looking for them. When they click through to a page that aligns with their needs, they’ll be more likely to continue exploring your site.
Aim to fill your web pages and blog with valuable content and intriguing stories about your mission and organization. Remember, site visitors are passionate about your cause. They’ll appreciate the opportunity to not only get familiar with your organization but also to support your mission. Plus, it signals to search engines that your website produces great content, meaning you’ll reach users who are less likely to bounce.
Web engagement data can tell you whether your site is meeting visitors’ needs and helping them continue to support your organization. By measuring conversion rate and bounce rate, you can discover where and how to improve your website, making it much more inspiring and helpful for supporters!