Do you find yourself a bit envious of all that money and manpower of bigger nonprofits? Don’t be. Optimization can be the field leveler you need to compete with large companies.

If you spend most of your time thinking about developing compelling campaigns on and offline, and finding new ways to engage supporters, as well as writing great fund-raising letters, your web donation page design and content is probably the last on your list. Yet, studies have shown that a well-optimized donation page can help you convert visitors into donors.

Most organizations (including large ones) have donation page conversion rates below 20%, some even less than 10%.  These poorly designed pages are driving away potential donors. Why should you care about that? Improved conversion on these pages mean more dollars raised with no increases in outbound marketing.

10 Tips to Optimize Your Donation Landing Pages

1. Use large donate buttons. Larger donate buttons convert more donors than smaller buttons.
    
2. Use color. Colorful, high-contrast donate buttons work better than gray buttons.
    
3. Simplicity. Flash designs are very often the culprit to a low converting landing page. Simplify the design utilizing static images.
    
4. Streamline your forms. Remove unnecessary fields from the personal information form (such as “title” or “suffix”).
    
5. Stay focused. Give your landing page visitors only one action to take, not multiple actions.
    
6. Avoid distractions. Don’t give your visitors a reason to detour from the page before completing the action you want them to take. In other words, avoid putting full site navigation and links on a landing page that will encourage visitors to abandon the page.
    
7. Write donor-friendly content. Generally, when it comes to content, it’s best to keep it short and simple. Use concise language that’s easy to understand and straight to the point.
    
8. Show where the money goes. Use charts and diagrams to show donors how their money will be used. donors want their philanthropic investment to have a measurable, significant impact on a cause they care about.
    
9. Prominent email capture. Not all visitor will be convinced to donate right away. Ensure you give them easy alternatives to engage with your nonprofit. Then work on the relationship.
    
10. Say thank you. By showing appreciation, you invite donors into the “organizational family” and increase their sense of participation. Saying “thank you” will go a long way toward securing the next gift.

Take away: spend some time clicking around your donation landing pages. Take the time to evaluated each page against above 10 optimization elements.

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