Nonprofit Hub Radio
Whether starting a nonprofit or taking an existing cause to the next level, The Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast is about breaking down how nonprofits can grow. Each episode features an interview with a sector star with insight, stories, or ideas that can take your nonprofit from good to excellence. Join host Meghan Speer every week to make your good go further!
Nonprofit Hub Radio
How to Set Your Website Up for Success in the New Year
As the new year approaches, it’s the perfect time for nonprofits to take a hard look at their website and ensure it’s ready for the year ahead. In this refreshed conversation, Meghan sits down with Jay Owen, CEO of Business Builders, to unpack the most common website mistakes nonprofits make—and what to fix first. From clarifying your message to choosing the right primary audience, prioritizing design that builds trust, and understanding the data that actually matters, Jay offers clear, practical guidance to help nonprofits strengthen their digital presence. If you want your website to work harder for you in the new year, this episode is your roadmap to starting strong.
Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org
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SPEAKER_02:Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Speer, and joining me today is Jay Owen, who is the CEO of Business Builders. We're going to be talking all things website and data and nonprofit marketing on the web. I'm very excited to dig into all of the conversations. Uh Jay, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, Megan, thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, my pleasure. Glad to have you here. So tell the audience a little bit about yourself as an introduction. How did you find yourself in this space of serving the nonprofit community?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I get to help all kinds of different organizations grow and scale from nonprofits to ministries to businesses. I always say everybody's selling something, it's just a matter of what. A lot of nonprofits kind of cringe at that and like, well, we're not selling anything, we're helping people. I'm like, I know everybody hopefully is in some way, trying to create an impact for the people around them. And so I've had the privilege of helping, gosh, I don't know, probably thousands of organizations over the last 26 years. I started a marketing agency. Really, it was just a web design company. When I was a kid, it was 17 years old. And that was 26 years ago. And we've grown every year little by l by little from a few thousand dollars to a multi-million dollar agency. Now we get to help uh both for-profit and nonprofit organizations all over the country and and really quite a quite a few all over the world.
SPEAKER_02:I love it. Well, and we're gonna use some of that expertise today. Because as uh as we were talking, I think nonprofit tends to, and I don't mean to paint with a very broad brush, but they tend to be a little behind when it comes to the tech side of things. And that can definitely include their website. I was was on a nonprofit's website the other day that looked honestly still like somebody had made a flyer in Microsoft Publisher and just thumbtacked it to the internet, right? Like it was not user-friendly at all, certainly not mobile optimized. It was literally just looked like a clip art publisher file. So let's kind of dig into the idea of mistakes that you see nonprofits make when they're building out their website. Um, if you're if there was one thing that you could start in and just be like, hey, fix this, where would you start if you were a nonprofit who was rebuilding or building their website from scratch?
SPEAKER_00:Well, to lay the groundwork, I always say marketing can be confusing and expensive. Uh most organizations waste an enormous amount of time and money on stuff that doesn't work. And uh we always say your marketing needs to be clear and effective so you can get attention and grow. When I'm thinking about marketing as a whole, I always say that the website is kind of the center of the marketing hub. It's owned property, where something like social media or paid ad campaigns are leased property. The reason I say that is a website and arguably your contact list, phone numbers, email addresses, names, are things that you get to keep with you. And the platform might change that you send emails out through, or the the hosting environment might change where you host your website, but they still belong to you. Uh, versus uh if I have an account on a social media platform, they can just come and go. So the website is the center of that marketing hub. And what a lot of people will say, or the mistake that they'll make, is they'll say, Well, people don't really know us from our digital footprint. They know us because so-and-so refers them. And so it's relationship driven, it's event driven. I'm like, yeah, I hear you. And this is true for many businesses too. It's not a whole lot different. But the reality is that all of your marketing collateral, starting with your website, either makes people more likely to get involved with your organization or less. There is no neutral. And so a few key things that we could talk through and we can dig into as many or as few of them as you want on the website is I would say design builds trust, but words are what sell. And so um say that again. Design builds trust, but words are what sell. Yes. It's not either or, it's both and, right? It's kind of the in it can't be great words but look horrible. And it can't look great but have words that are confusing. And so we really believe in layering those two things on top of one another. And and it it it's very frustrating when I see people who sometimes have multimillion dollar organizations and uh their website looks like it was created by the kid down the street.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And no, no offense to the kid down the street, because I used to be that kid, so I'm glad that people supported me in those early days. But once you get past a certain point, you need to bring some professionals in. You you need to have a high quality design and it needs to reflect the image of the organization because it really is your 24-7, you know, talking head of sorts. And if it's not representing your organization well, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's a great point. And man, that is a fantastic quote. So when you approach a design or when you're approaching a new client, do you start with the look or do you start with the words?
SPEAKER_00:We actually start with the words. Okay. Um we always start with the messaging first. We've just found over time that that produces a higher conversion rate. And when I say conversion rate, people may not be familiar with that. It's just the number of people that visit your website versus the ones that actually reach out to you. And then one step further, people that actually donate, volunteer, get involved, stuff like that. And so um we have found in general that if we get the words right first, everything else falls into place a little bit better. I'm not saying that the design uh the design matters, but it doesn't matter as much as people think. So what I mean by that is it needs to be consistent and look professional and all that kind of stuff. But I see people all the time, and this happens for-profit, nonprofit, ministry, you name it, where they overanalyze something like their logo or their colors at this super deep level because some branding design person told them to. And this is coming from a guy who's done branding and design his whole life. And I'm like, nobody cares about the story about your logo. They really don't. They really just care whether you're making an impact or not. And if their time and money is going to be well used, being acquainted with your organization. That's all they actually care about. And so we've got to convince them that we've got to sufficiently disturb them ultimately, that the problem you're solving is worth them getting involved with.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And I like your point too about it being kind of the the owned land, right? And investing actually in that owned land instead of a social platform or somewhere where you're renting space, so to say. I know one of the things that I've heard from a lot of nonprofits though is that the challenge that they run into or the hurdle they can't seem to get over, is that their website has to appeal to multiple constituencies, right? We want it to reach the people that we are trying to serve so that they can maybe get connected to the ministry, to the service that we offer to the nonprofit. But we're also trying to make it make sense for donors and we want it to attract donors and tell them the story of impact so that we can bring them on board. And at the same time, we're also maybe trying to talk to volunteers or parents, or there's all these different constituencies that have to be served by a website. Tell me how you approach that kind of segment of it where one site needs to talk to so many people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and this is true for almost everybody. You know, like almost any kind of website is talking to many different audiences. The question is who's the primary? There is a primary. People are like, well, there's not really one. Yes, there is. There is one. And if you can't identify that, you have much bigger problems than your website. So you need to know who is our primary target that we're trying to convince to take some kind of action. Who is that person? It's not that you can't speak to the other people, it's not that they can't have their own page or section or call-outs or whatever. But when I first load that page, what is the story that you're trying to tell? And who are you trying to convince to do something? If you don't have clarity in that, then nothing else that you do is going to be as effective as you want it to be. It's almost always this. It's like the 80-20 principle is a real thing. Who is the 80% that we're trying to communicate to as it relates to the website? Most of the time for a nonprofit, this isn't always true, but I would say 80% of the time it is true. It is the donors. Because at the end of the day, while the mission is about who we serve, the mission can't be accomplished if you don't have money and people to do it. And so most of the time, the focus of the website should be the donor. Now, that doesn't mean it's like about the donor necessarily. It can tell the story of what the nonprofit's doing and who they're helping and what the problem is and why other people should care and why they should get involved. But the focus of like what is the next call to action, it's usually going to be donate, volunteer, or something like that. And so I would say most of the time, unless you have a really compelling reason, it probably is the donor as the primary focus. But there must be a primary focus, even if it's not that. You can't, it can't be everybody all the time. You won't be effective.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. In any sort of marketing. Well, that's true.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_02:Across the board, yes. So tell me some other mistakes that you see folks make when they are taking on a website overhaul project.
SPEAKER_00:One of the things that happens all the time when you're writing the words for the website, in the same way that people worry too much about the story behind their logo, for example. They try and get too cutesy with their copy. And what I mean by that is they're trying to be in a lot of insider language or that's real kind of like they're trying to just be abstract and interesting. And uh, you know, when communicating to team members, Dave Ramsey always says that to be clear is to be kind. I think that's true in the marketing world as well. To be clear is to be kind to our audience. And so the more clear we can be with our messaging, the better. The other thing that happens a lot with nonprofits is board of directors tend to get involved with feedback, and design by committee doesn't usually end very well. And so what tends to happen in the nonprofit space is we end up with way too many links on the home page when I first load it and way too many decisions that I need to make because there's so many different opinions. Well, wouldn't it be nice if we had a link to this? No, we need a link to that. And so all of a sudden there's 20 buttons, or even in the navigation, there's 10 navigation items, each with 10 drop downs beneath them, you know, and it's just too much. And so we need one clear call to action. What's the one next thing I want them to do? If they don't do anything else, what's the one thing I want them to do? Um, and and so the the the ditch is either not having anything, any clear call to action, or the one most nonprofits fall off, which is way too many, way too many for them to click on because nobody's made a decision about what actually matters most.
SPEAKER_02:So let's follow that thread. So I come to the homepage and I it's very clear this is the decision that you want me to make. Going back a point, so we're saying that decision should be applicable to the 80%, right?
SPEAKER_00:For sure.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. What about the rest of them?
SPEAKER_00:Well, just the question, the question becomes, what do you want them to do? Like who do you want to do what? You know, because uh ultimately marketing and then sales are an exercise in one gaining attention and then creating action. And so I want to gain attention, which is mostly marketing, and then I want to create action, which is mostly sales, but they blend a lot together. And so when people are like, well, how do I communicate to X, Y, and Z? Then the next question is, well, what do you want them to do? Like, do you want them to just know things? Because that might be more like an email update than necessarily the website, or there might be a section on the website that has latest news, information, things like that. But the main question is who who are you talking about? What do they want? And then what do you want them to do? And so, how do we create that journey for them from what they want to what you want them to do? But most of the time, people are trying to communicate to too many audiences. Pick one, do that really well, and then we can add other options as we go.
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SPEAKER_02:The other piece that I think goes hand in hand with this that I tend to see a lot of organizations struggle with is understanding the actual data behind either website analytics or digging into even know who's using what on their website right now.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:So talk to me a little bit about some of the data pieces. You know, what do you recommend in terms of these are some things you should be tracking? And if you don't know these things, now's the time to start looking at that, especially when it comes to web. What are your top analytics that we should be looking at?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, data can be really overwhelming for a lot of people. They'll load up their website stats, or especially if they load up Google Analytics, it's like, right, gosh, you've got all the data in the world, but what do I actually look at? And so I like to try and simplify it as much as I possibly can and just think about kind of a basic marketing funnel. And at the very top, there are strangers, people who don't know who you are, don't know what you do, and don't know why they should care. And we need to attract those people in some way. And so that attraction phase is going to happen by certainly word of mouth and referrals and um social media and paid ads and search engine optimization and who knows, many other categories of how they might be attracted to you. And so I do want to track that first variable, which is how many strangers do I have coming to my website that were attracted there in some way. Most people would call that impressions. But one of the mistakes people make in marketing is they can focus just on that large impression number. So it's like, oh, we we got your ad in front of four million people this week. And it's like, not sure if I care. Maybe I do if it's the right audience. But then the question becomes, do I know who they are? Because if they're still strangers at this point, they maybe know a little bit about my organization, but I don't know who they are. Well, I can't follow up with them. If I can't follow up with them, I can't compel them to come volunteer or come to an event or donate or get involved in any way. And so the next uh, you know, piece of the puzzle that I want to track is how many of those strangers become visitors that then kind of convert into known relationships. In the business world, we probably call them prospects. In nonprofit place, let's just call them known relationships, okay? And this middle of the funnel is the part where people get stuck. Everybody focuses on kind of the top and the bottom. The top being, I'll hear people come to us and go, Jay, we just need some more SEO. And I'm like, maybe you do, or Jay, we just need more paid ads. Maybe we need more social media, maybe. But what I always show people is let's say you have a thousand people coming to your website just for easy math's sake. And of those thousand people, you don't know who most of them are. If anybody who has looked at their website data before has probably gone, hold on, we've had how many people come to the website? But we've only had one donate. So who are all these other people? Right. And so we've got a thousand people come to the website. Let's say a hundred of them fill out a form or download a resource and engage in some way so that we actually know who they are. That would actually be a really good conversion rate. I'm just doing it for math's sake. So let's say we had a thousand people and a hundred of them, I now know who they are. I have a hundred known relationships and arguably nine hundred unknown relationships. Let's say those hundred relationships downloaded a resource and 10 of them ended up donating. Okay. So a thousand goes into a hundred goes into ten. And what people think is in order for me to increase the number of donors from 10 to 20, I just need to increase the number at the top. So I need to get more people in the funnel. I need to get 2,000 people so that I can get 200 downloads, so I can get 20 donors. That makes sense. I realize that's a lot of math on a podcast because you're just listening, but bear with me. But the the idea makes sense, but the problem is that what if in that middle of the funnel, what if instead of those thousand people turning into a hundred known relationships, what if those thousand people turned into 200 known relationships? And then that turned into 20 donors. And now I've got 20 donors off the same thousand strangers instead of needing to have double the number because I've been more efficient in the middle of the funnel. And what that middle of the funnel is, is a compelling reason for people to connect with you in some way. It could be a resource that they're downloading, it could be information that they get access to, it could be a course they could take or learn more about. And so there's some kind of transitional, we could call it a transitional call to action. Maybe they're not ready to donate, maybe they're not ready to volunteer, but they want to get a little bit more information. That is the conversion rate, which is kind of the second variable that I want to pay attention to, that then leads into hopefully the later one, which is following up with people to get them to come to an event, volunteer, donate, whatever the next primary action I want is. So really just those three metrics are really good ones to pay attention to. The biggest problem is not which metric to pay attention to, it's that people often only pay attention to the very top one, which is total reach, total impressions. It's not a bad thing to know. It's just one of many pieces of the puzzle. It's kind of like, you know, if I'm trying to lose weight, which I perpetually am and never really successful at it.
SPEAKER_02:Aren't we all? Yes.
SPEAKER_00:But I'm only paying attention to uh the number of minutes in the gym, but I'm not paying attention to the number of calories on my plate. That is not going to be a successful equation. I know that because I'm very good at putting too many calories on my plate. Marketing can be like that. I'm paying attention to one metric over here. It's one piece of the puzzle. It's just not the only piece.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. No, I love that. So I think too, sometimes where we can get a little bit hung up is and I was talking to another leader about this not too long ago, is this idea that we do need the four million or that are viewing the ad, right? Realistically, I don't know a nonprofit in this country, or maybe even in the world, who is set up from an infrastructure standpoint to instantaneously handle an influx of four million donors. Right? Like this just does not exist. It'd be a great problem to have, but right, it'd be an amazing problem to have, but for the most part, that's just not where we live. We don't have the capacity, we don't have the infrastructure to handle that. Um, and so I like the way that you've broken this down because it does it highlights the point that you don't always need more at the top, right? We need to find our target audience and we need to talk to those people specifically and work on those relationships and get to know who those people are instead of just constantly assuming, you know, we need a new acquisition strategy to fill the top of the funnel.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we need better messaging at the end of the day because what happens is people organizations of all kinds love to make it about themselves. They love to talk about themselves, they'll talk about how great they are, they'll talk about all the things they've done. And and especially, this is especially rooted in the organizations where the primary leader is the founder. Um this is true in nonprofits as much as it is entrepreneurial spaces. When the founder is still leading the organization, they're typically, hopefully, very proud of their organization. And that's not inherently bad. In fact, I would say they should be. If they're not, what are they even doing? Right.
SPEAKER_02:Then what are you doing here?
SPEAKER_00:That said, when we lead with that messaging on the website, we've done this with many uh nonprofits before, where we'll go look at their website and it's all about them. And it should be really about the people that they serve, the impact that they're creating, and why somebody else should be compelled to get involved. Like, why should I even care? Uh, we did a website one time for a local organization called Hunger Fight. And they're a nonprofit here in town. They do some amazing work in the last decade or so. They have delivered something like 12 or 13 million meals to kids in need in the community. It's amazing. But on the when you first loaded the website originally, yeah, I just had all these words and all this data on there. And I said, here's the problem: nobody knows why they should care. And you're kind of like making the point that like you've kind of got it already handled. So it doesn't even sound like you need me to get involved, frankly. And then we changed some of the messaging. Where now one of the primary things that pops up, you have to scroll down a little bit, but once you scroll down a little bit on their homepage, it says one in four kids don't get all the nutrition that they need. And that's just not that's not just kids anywhere in the world, it's kids right here in our own community. And it was very specific and targeted. And it's like, okay, well, hold on. Now now we're on to something. Because I'm like, well, I don't like that. Because in their messaging core, we built in this idea that philosophically uh we believe that it's just plain wrong that in the richest country in the world that no child should go hungry. Like we we believe that's true. Now we all argue over how we're gonna actually get it done, but they're per presenting an opportunity to help solve that. And so when you make that case that way, people go, Oh, well, I I should probably help with this. And you're like, Yeah, great. And so now they're now they're on board where previously they weren't because it was all about them and not about the people that they're serving and ultimately the problem that they're helping solve.
SPEAKER_02:So one of the things that I have had been having some interesting discussions around lately, then is how we tell those stories in a way that doesn't just constantly go to a crisis mode.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Right? That's good.
SPEAKER_02:That is like that's a good point. Right? One in four children going hungry in my neighborhood is not something I want to be true. I want to fix that problem. But how do we say that in such a way that doesn't constantly sound like we don't even actually need your help? We're good. We're look at all the things that we're accomplishing.
SPEAKER_00:We also don't want we also don't want to overwhelm people with a negative, right?
SPEAKER_02:Correct, and make it like everything is a I'm calling fire exactly crisis.
SPEAKER_00:And so here's here's the way that here's the way that I think about it is everybody needs to know what is at stake if you don't exist as an organization. They need to know what failure looks like. Because if you're not here, then what? Like what is it, what is the consequence? Now the risk, which is what you're talking about, is overdoing that, that making that the predominant message. And so what I always say is that failure in your messaging is like salt in a recipe. You know, my nanny made the best pound cake that you'll never have, and she's the best. She was the best. I know. Well, she's not around anymore. So my but here there's a there's a moral of this story. My sisters attempted to learn how my nanny cooked this pound cake because she didn't have a recipe. It was just a scoop of this and a dash of that. Anybody that's ever had a grandma that cooks like that has been well blessed in their life. And and so it would be like a pinch of salt. And we've all sat down at a restaurant and we've tasted a meal that's over-salted. That's the messaging that has too much failure in it. And we've all sat down at a restaurant and had tasted a meal where it's like just kind of bland. There's not much there. That's that's messaging without failure. And so there's an old Irish proverb that says, for every mile of road, there's two miles of ditch. And the one ditch is we don't talk about failure at all. We don't talk about what's at stake, we only talk about the positive. The other ditch is all we talk about is the negative, all we talk about is failure. And it's so overwhelming that you're like, I don't just, I don't want to even talk about it. It's just makes me, I don't want to I I'm almost overly compelled, and I'm like, I don't even want to talk about this. Maybe take some money, but I don't I can't deal with this, you know? And that's maybe not the right reaction, but from a messaging perspective, we want to be somewhere in the middle. Another good example, years ago, my wife and I were in marriage counseling. We've been married for 22 years, and anybody that's been married for over two decades typically finds themselves in some kind of counseling situation at some point. And I was uh upset about something, who knows even what, I don't remember, so it wasn't that important. But I remember this analogy that the counselor gave me, I think it applies to this messaging, um, and I'll close the loop on this. Is she said, Well, you're worried about X, Y, and Z. What happens if that happens? And I was like, Well, then this happens. And then she just kept asking the same question over and over again. Well, then what? And I'm like, Well, then this happens. And then she's like, Well, then what? Well, then this happens, and then what? And then this happens, and then what? And then I die. Like, I mean, and that sounds like that's so ridiculous and aggressive, but that's exactly how our brains actually work. People are primarily afraid of two things death and public speaking. I'm not afraid of public speaking, I'm not really afraid of dying, I'm just afraid of like the process of dying. But all these other things, like the ultimate risk is death. But we don't really want to be going there in our messaging, so let's just dial it back a little bit. A few more steps back from that, which is the overwhelming like super negativity. But don't fall off the other cliff, which is never talking about what's at stake. Because if there's nothing at stake, if your organization doesn't exist, there's no reason for your organization to exist. And that matters a ton. If there's nothing at stake for your organization to not exist, there's no reason for your organization to exist.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that is that's the clip right there. That's the quote. Thank you for that. That's an excellent analogy. Jay, if somebody wanted to connect with you, tell us a little bit more about business builders and how folks would find you. Uh connect and learn more.
SPEAKER_00:Um, if you want to connect with me personally, the best place to do that is on LinkedIn. Just search for J O N J A Y O W E N. I should pop up on there somewhere. Feel free to connect and reach out. If I don't reply for some reason because I get tons of connections there, just comment on one of my latest posts or something. I'll be more likely to see it that way. On the business side, uh, we actually have a uh a free course that we just finished that's a five-part series that people can go through to help improve their messaging. This is good for nonprofits, good for ministries, good for for-profits, really will work for anybody. And it's an easy URL. They can just go to storybrandcourse.com and we kind of unpack these ideas of how to talk about failure, how to talk about success, how to get the messaging right on your website, because we consider that to be step number one. If that part's not right, if the messaging is not right, we shouldn't be moving into design. And then if the design's not good and we don't have that design builds trust, but words are what sell combination, then everything else we do, social media, paid ads, SEO, events, they're just not gonna have, they might have some value, but they're not gonna have the same value they could have had if we got the foundation right. It's like building your house in the sand versus building on a solid foundation. So storybrandcourse.com, free course, no obligation to buy anything or do anything, just some videos that we think will be helpful for folks out there that want to learn.
SPEAKER_02:I love it. Jay, thank you. This conversation has been fantastic. As we wrap up, if you could speak to maybe that nonprofit founder, we have a lot of founder, executive director, development director folks who are audience here on the podcast. If you could leave them with one thought of here's a thing that you could do today that would impact your website, that would impact your marketing, that would impact how your organization moves forward on those fronts. What would be your one takeaway today?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I would just say number one, even though you says for one thing, I'm gonna give you two. Number one is that the things that you're doing matter, you know? We need people with big hearts and big minds who are conquering complex issues and helping our communities all over the country. Um, and so your work matters. Number two, when I land on your website, the question is, can I tell why it matters? And so uh everybody doesn't have you in front of them to talk about the purpose and the mission and why you started and all that kind of stuff. And so the website has to be able to tell that story. And I when I first land on your website, I need to know what do you do? How does it make other people's lives better? And how do I take a next step? And if I can't answer those three questions almost instantly, then you're missing opportunity to connect, and ultimately you're missing opportunity to fulfill the mission that you've set forth for your organization. So get those things right and uh it'll make all the difference.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. I love that. Jay, thank you so much. I really enjoyed the conversation, and I there's so much wisdom packed in there, so I'm excited for everyone to dig into it. Thanks for being here.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02:My pleasure. Again, my guest has been Jay Owen, who's the CEO of Business Builders. Make sure you go and check him out and connect on LinkedIn. This has been another episode of the Nonprofit Hub Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Spear, and we'll see you next time.