Storytelling is an important part of marketing for every business (nonprofits included). Your target audience enjoys understanding the who, what and why behind the organizations they choose to support.
We’ve previously talked about how essential a blog can be to communicating your nonprofit’s story. It can give a “behind-the-scenes” look into your organization’s mission and the people making it happen, in turn making your donors feel more connected and invested.
Maybe your nonprofit’s website has a blog, but it’s not updated frequently. Or, maybe someone is in charge of writing posts, but you aren’t seeing much traffic on those pages. We’d like to suggest that changing your technique slightly might be the answer to your problem. Read on to learn how to make sure your audience is reading your blog and being inspired to donate because of it.
Increasing blog traffic
To drive a larger audience (and the right audience!) to your blog, start by experimenting with any combination of these six ideas.
1. Update regularly
It may seem silly create a blog schedule and post consistently when you aren’t seeing any traffic on your blog pages. However, Google gives a higher SEO ranking to websites that regularly generate new content which will increase your web traffic. Publishing new blog posts bi-weekly is a place good start; weekly is even better.
2. Consider the format
Blog posts with photos, numbered or bullet point lists or infographics have been shown to generate higher traffic because they are easier to read quickly. Every blog post should have an image of some sort to catch the attention of the reader and to give the post a higher SEO ranking. If you aren’t seeing traffic writing paragraph-heavy posts, try breaking them down into shorter paragraphs or bullet points.
3. Share on social
The next best step to increasing blog traffic is to share, share, share. Once a post is written and published, craft a post linking on your social media channels. It’s likely that your audience is much more active on Facebook or Twitter than they are checking your website for new reading material. It’s more convenient for your audience to click on an interesting blog that pops up in the newsfeed than it is to go find it themselves.
Don’t be afraid to share the blog link (with a newly written post each time) more than once as well. A general rule of thumb for re-sharing a piece of content:
- Facebook: Space re-shares one or two months apart.
- Twitter: It’s okay to re-share content, especially new content, multiple times per month because of the fast-paced nature of this channel.
- LinkedIn: Space re-shares one or two months apart.
4. Add to the e-news
Blogs can be used as a great piece of content for your email newsletter. Depending upon the frequency of your emails, consider adding a section that features a recently written blog post. Include an image, a few sentences either summarizing the post or a snippet of the first few sentences and then a link to the original post on the blog. Tease the blog’s content but ultimately the highlight should draw the reader from the email to your website.
5. Employ keywords
First, let’s define the term we’re recommending you implement. Keywords are the words or phrase used by a search engine in its search for relevant web pages. In order to rank high on search engine searches, use the same keyword phrase in the title of your blog, multiple times in your body content, featured image and URL
6. Invite new voices
Although you want your blog to have a cohesive voice and purpose, sometimes it helps to have a new perspective. Inviting a member of your volunteer team, nonprofit board or an expert in the field to write a guest blog post is a great way to change up the voice. What’s more, the guest blogger will want to share their post with their network, giving you the opportunity to reach a wider audience and further boost your site traffic.
Turning blog traffic into donations
You’ve followed our suggestions and you’re beginning to see an increase in traffic on your blog. But how do you convert these views into donations? Try out these tactics.
- Use your blog as a way to communicate the impact your nonprofit has on its cause. Not only does telling stories of impact give you credit as an honest organization committed to its cause, it shows potential donors what can be accomplished with their donations.
- Consider a call to action at the end of a blog post linking back to your donation page. Maybe your blog is recapping a recent fundraiser you held. Consider concluding the post with a sentence that says “Couldn’t make it to [event name]? The fundraising isn’t over. Click here [insert link to donation page] to show your support for our cause.”
Keep reading
Learned something from this post? Check out the rest of our blog. With every post, we aim to help nonprofits understand how to reach their target audience and increase fundraising dollars. Or, subscribe to our email newsletter and receive our most recent posts right in your inbox.
