Is Your Nonprofit Still Google-Friendly?
Way back when (2013), The Agitator reported — Are You Ready To Pass Inspection? — on a Google study on donor online giving.
As we noted: “One of the key findings was the extent to which donors now appear to comparison shop before giving. The Google study says 75% of donors begin the research they conduct on charities online. Nearly 50% visit multiple nonprofit sites prior to giving — 39% visit two to four sites, 8% visit five or more.”
So I suspect you fundraisers have worked hard to make your nonprofit’s website search-friendly over the past few years (you know, SEO — search engine optimization). Hopefully that’s paying off for you, and Google has discovered you exist, given that your website is (could be, should be) your primary gateway for new prospects.
But now, all those eager browsers/shoppers pose a new challenge … as if serving them compelling content matched by an effortless transaction process wasn’t challenging enough.
No longer are they sitting in front of big or even medium-sized desktop or laptop screens as they contemplate your worthiness in all its splendor.
Now they’re comparison shopping for donation-worthy charities and nonprofits on the small-to-modest-sized screens of tablets and smartphones. Pause here and check your website analytics … what devices are your visitors using today? You shouldn’t be surprised if a quarter to half of your visits are from mobile devices.
Google knows this, as they know everything about consumer use of the internet and catching the wave, and so they have announced changes in their search algorithms that will test sites for mobile-friendliness and show the friendlies higher in their search results.
So if you’re not mobile-friendly, all that work you’ve put into making your website compelling could be increasingly ‘undiscovered’.
In the UK, Civil Society News used the tool Google provides to test the top 100 UK charities’ websites — 33 of the top 100 were deemed not mobile-friendly. One might reasonably expect that for smaller charities, that proportion would climb.
If I were you, I’d run my website through the Google test, and then check out their advice for how to make your site mobile-friendly.
We did just that at The Agitator. Well, at least we tested!
Ok, and in the spirit of full disclosure … we failed. Getting our ancient website fixed is on our ‘to do’ list.
But don’t wait on us, get moving on your own mobile-readiness.
Tom
P.S. BTW, 18% of visitors to The Agitator website presently are using mobile devices — 14% phones and 4% tablets. We think our percentage is small because most of you are still checking us out in your office as you work, not on the tube/subway or in the Starbucks line. Let’s hear from some readers … tell us your desktop/mobile split.
7 responses to “Is Your Nonprofit Still Google-Friendly?”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
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I’m reading you daily on my computer at the office as you say.
A major reason: because it is easier for me to access the posts on my computer that keeps logged in through tinypass — my mobile device makes me keep logging back in to view content. (That may be due to my own settings or a problem unique to me … but it doesn’t really matter to me as the end-user because it is simply a problem FOR me.)
I share this because it ties back to our ongoing discussions about how our sites must not only be mobile-friendly … but easy to use for purchases, donations, accessing content, etc. And this mobile-friendly thing just makes it that much harder.
In your case, I enjoy the daily Agitator dose enough that I save it until I get to the office computer instead of deleting or unsubscribing.
I rarely view your site on a traditional computer or laptop. All mobile. Great content to read while commuting. Helps get over the doldrums instead of staring out the window pondering whatever the outside world challenges me with.
Great advice Tom regarding the need for every nonprofit to be mobile friendly with their website. Every day that passes without compliance is dropping the nonprofit’s Google rankings and thereby potential donor page views!
It truly must be addressed even if the 75% you mention above is just 50%…
We failed the test, too- and have a new site under construction that wilI make our donors and Google much happier!
I always read The Agitator on my desktop, with coffee when I first get to work.
Our mobile numbers keep going up. We are now at a 70/30 split of desktop to mobile visitors. We’ve just gone fully responsive and are seeing ave visit times increase by nearly 20 sec per user.
I failed the test myself. Fortunately my webmaster made some adjustments and now I’m good to go – although I did learn that my payment pages are not mobile optimized (by the end of the summer that, too, should be addressed). Great post, as always, Tom.
I almost always read on my mobile while I’m on the train. Ironically, the site/page for testing my website is not very friendly to mobile so I’ll have to remember to try again when I’m back at my laptop.