8 Tips for Setting Up a Fundraising-Optimized Website

Soulclick offers a web product optimized for online fundraising right out of the box. In this article, however, we share insights on how to make the most of your own website, independent of the product you use.

Tip 1: Structure Your Donation Pages Around the AIDA Framework

A clearly structured donation page is crucial for ensuring that visitors actually convert and make a donation. Content should be short, easy to understand, and focused, no matter what cause or campaign you're raising funds for.

The framework breaks down as follows:

• Attention => Problem: clearly show why the issue matters and is urgent
• Interest => Solution: demonstrate how your organization is helping
• Desire => Donation examples: show clear examples of how everyone can contribute
• Action => Call to action – address donors directly and motivate them to take action

Tip 2: Connect Storytelling and Fundraising

A content hub — a central place for stories, background information, and updates — helps improve your visibility in search engines and creates additional entry points to your website.

To make sure that added reach translates into donations, articles should consistently link to donation appeals that fit the context. Soulclick's campaign link tool is ideal for this.

Tip 3: The Right Campaign, in the Right Place

For campaigns run through ads, email journeys, or direct mail, the campaign links feature is a great fit. A campaign page can be set up in minutes and shared via QR code or direct link. Here's an example:

Soulclick donation portals, on the other hand, are ideal for programs and projects that donors can support year round, including sponsorships and giving circles.

Tip 4: Different Prices for Different Donor Segments

Not all donors have the same financial means. That’s why donation amounts of different donation campaigns and products should vary. Low-threshold donation campaigns starting at, for example, 5 CHF appeal to younger audiences and spontaneous donors.

In the Soulclick donation portals, you can expand your donation options upwards—all the way to middle-donor and major-donor offerings. With a well-thought-out price segmentation, you address a broader target audience and increase your fundraising revenue.

Tip 5: Use High-Traffic Pages for Fundraising

Use the subpages that get the most visits to place clearly visible donation banners. After go-live, you can quickly identify which pages are most frequently visited in Google Analytics. In general, all main pages in your navigation should be linked to a suitable donation appeal. Make sure the banner matches the page content and includes a clear call-to-action.

Tip 6: Link Your Content for Better SEO Visibility

Clean internal linking helps you get found more easily in search engines and AI services. Link related content together—for example, country reports, programs, or background articles. This helps search engines better understand how your content is connected.

If your organization frequently uses technical terms, it’s worth adding a glossary. This allows you to explain terms, link them meaningfully, and at the same time increase the number of indexed pages, which in turn helps improve your ranking.

Tip 7: Set Up Redirects for Old URLs

A website relaunch often means changes to navigation, structure, or page names. To make sure visitors coming from old links — in emails, social posts, or newsletters — still land on the right content, redirects need to be set up. That way, you avoid broken links and don't lose visitors along the way.

If you'd like, our Customer Success team can put together a list of all your previously indexed pages, so no important redirect gets missed.

Tip 8: Less Is More, Especially with Buttons

Every page has a specific goal — and that's exactly what your central, full-color call-to-action button should be reserved for. Additional links have their place, but should be noticeably more restrained.

With Soulclick, you can choose the button style individually for every element. Use text links, inverted links, or icon links more often, so your links don't feel too dominant or pushy. After all, the goal is to guide users — not overwhelm them with information and calls-to-action.

Conclusion: Results Come from Many Small Optimizations

A fundraising-optimized website is central to successful online fundraising. In addition to our 8 tips, other factors also play an important role—such as good mobile-first design, appropriate donation amounts, clear thank-yous, a secure payment process, or responsible data handling. Soulclick provides all of this by default, creating a website that doesn't just look good, but delivers real fundraising results.