As we all know, having a mobile friendly (aka responsive) site is important to keep our site visitors engaged and moving forward no matter what technology they are using to view your website. Our team here at Charity Dynamics has been promoting responsive design for quite some time now. I get it though, there are lots of projects and priorities in the nonprofit space and your website may not be the project everyone wants to tackle right now. It’s a huge investment of time to commit to as well as sometimes, the cost and talent to re-vamp your website isn’t easy to come by. But, as an advocate of having the best user experience possible for your audience, I’m telling you today, the time has come to make that investment.
Google announced this week that they are changing their algorithm as to how they are prioritizing mobile friendly sites over sites that are not for search results. You heard right. If your site isn’t mobile friendly and your competition is, guess who is getting priority in search results? Eek! Are you with me now on being a user experience advocate and why the time to invest in your site is NOW?
Currently, roughly 36% of donors prefer to gain information about a nonprofit on their website (followed by 28% who prefer email and 6% that prefer Facebook) according to Blackbaud’s Charitable Giving Report. So, if your organization’s site is not mobile friendly, it might not be listed on that first page of Google’s search results – even if you are paying for SEO optimization!
But don’t worry, you have options to take that step and move forward into responsive design! Take a glance at this Google Support Page to get an idea of what possibilities there are for your organization. If you have a mobile friendly site, you still need to take the time to test your pages for the best user experience. Take a few minutes to run your site’s main pages through the Google Mobile Tester to see if it catches any issues you can fix ASAP. You can also reach out to us at Charity Dynamics if you need resources and help getting there. We are here for you to get responsive and have Google love you even more!
Responsive design is no longer the new kid on the block. Start hangin’ tough with Google and get mobile friendly today so you don’t lose valuable donations and registrations tomorrow!
