Up until recently, many charities have not felt it worthwhile to put any great effort into their website design, believing that few users made donations online. However, recent rebranding and redesigning strategies carried out by charities that were underperforming online have revealed that donations can double and sometimes triple when the online user experience is prioritised.

Many charity websites encourage users to make donations, but then make the actual donation process too difficult or complicated to navigate, causing donors to give up. The creative director of the digital agency, Zone, Julie Dodd, said: "Charities need to get donors through their journeys as quickly as possible. You can't be scaring them off with terrifyingly long terms and conditions or a badly worded Gift Aid message."

To increase online donations, charities should first restructure their donation form, using buttons that inform the user what they will be achieving when they click on them, rather than a simple instruction, such as ‘Submit’. The forms should also be properly coded so that they are capable of being displayed properly on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablet computers.

A major criticism of forms is that there are simply too many fields to fill in, which can lead to a fall in conversion rates. Charities should, therefore, only ask for the information they need from their donors.

Find out more about our work introducing paperless direct debit with charity, CfaN UK, that increased monthly donations by 22%.