Five tips for creating a great charity website

No matter what your charity’s mission is, your website plays an essential part in achieving it.

 

A great website can help you to raise funds, serve your users, and even build a long-term relationship with them. So how can you create a website that’s fit for purpose?

 

We spoke to Abul Hussain, Head of Digital Marketing and Channels at disability equality charity Scope, for his top tips. Scope “gave their website a facelift” as part of their brand refresh in 2024.

 

Dan Holt, Managing Director at Boss Digital, an agency that includes charities as one of its specialist sectors, also shared his tips, as did Tom Elliott, Head of Development at the digital marketing agency Hallam.

 

 

Put users first when creating your charity’s website

 

Putting users first was emphasised by all three experts. “Everything should be created and designed from a user first perspective,” Hussain said.

 

This means having a deep understanding of the needs of the people you’re serving. “We have to put ourselves in the shoes of the end user and consider the almost infinite array of things that might be going through their mind,” Holt said. 

 

When Boss Digital started working with the charity Anaphylaxis UK, they began by understanding their audience better and creating distinct personas. They looked at the keywords they were searching for, their primary motivations, and category entry points. They also looked at how they would prefer to engage with the charity and consume their content.

 

They then redeveloped the website’s navigation around the key category entry points and collaborated with the charity to create content more specifically targeting their personas.

 

Putting their audience first is also at the heart of Scope’s approach to their website. They carry out continuous user research to identify their audience’s needs. They then provide them with relevant content which they make sure is easy to find in search engines.

 

“We want to make sure we’re there for disabled people when they need us the most,” Hussain says.

 

“If we’ve got a page that we know is important but isn’t ranking on the first page of Google yet with organic search results, we use [paid ads] to advertise that content.”

 

 

Deliver a great website experience 

 

No matter how users find your content, once they’re on your website, it’s vital that they have a seamless experience. Central to this is considering what device they use to access your site.

 

“You should design experiences that look great on a mobile device because the majority of web traffic is from mobiles now,” Hussain says.

 

Just as important is making sure they can find what they are looking for quickly. There’s likely to be another website offering similar information to you, which means users can easily look elsewhere if you’re not meeting their needs. 

 

When Hallam worked on the Rainbows Hospice charity website, they found slow page loading times were frustrating users. So they worked to improve their mobile and desktop page speed to over 90%, according to Google PageSpeedInsights. As a result, the number of pages per session increased by 46% and the session duration increased by 37%.

 

That’s why Elliot says you need to “Get your users to the content they’re looking for as fast as possible and don’t put any barriers in their way.”

 

He says one way to eliminate barriers around donations, for example, is to keep the information you ask for on donation forms to a minimum. Using third-party platforms to collect donations, like Scope do, can help with this.

 

Another important area to consider when delivering a seamless experience is your website’s accessibility. A change in EU law in June 2025 is putting greater emphasis on best practice around accessibility. This includes using descriptive text for links and images and avoiding using colour to convey information.

 

 

Make it easy to update your website

 

A poor back-end experience can be a barrier to creating a great website. 

Relying on a content management system (CMS) that’s not easy to use can make it hard to provide users with information in a timely manner.

 

Before Scope refreshed their website, their CMS was no longer fit for purpose. Screens were prone to freezing when updating their website and time was being wasted in the process. Relying on word documents to collaborate on content was also inefficient. Now they have a new CMS that makes collaboration easier and enables multiple contributors to create content regardless of their content design expertise.

 

Hussain says: “It really is a game changer for people who are not content designers. People who might be disabled, for example, or have dyslexia or dyspraxia, can now publish content painlessly.”

 

 

Make evidence-based decisions for your website

 

Making decisions about which area of your website to update isn’t always straightforward, especially in large charities with multiple stakeholders. 

 

To help the process, Hussain says: “We are focused on ensuring that we’re driven by impact and insights. We’re regularly using tools to look at how people are using our website and where they struggle.”

 

Scope uses Google Analytics to set up their own metrics for measuring whether a visit is meaningful.

 

“We’re always trying to dig deeper beyond the surface level metrics that we get from our tools. 

 

“It’s also very important to capture qualitative feedback, especially for content. For example, people can rate your content, give you a thumbs up or down, or leave some feedback,” Hussain says.

 

 

Use your website to build a relationship with your audience

 

Beyond serving users in the moment, a well-designed website can also help build a long-term relationship with the people your charity supports. 

 

Using your website to drive email sign ups as part of an email marketing strategy helps with this. 

 

As part of Boss Digital’s work with Anaphylaxis UK they worked on increasing sign ups to the charity’s monthly newsletter. They did this by driving sign ups on key landing pages where the site gained most of its traffic. This increased their email sign ups by 160% in just over six months.

 

Using emails to connect with your audience also fits in with the number one principle of designing an effective charity website - putting users first.