The last time I offered help with a website copy easy win, it was about sprucing up your nonprofit’s Contact us page content. This time, I will help you improve the pages you use to describe your nonprofit organization’s programs and services.
If your programs and services website content is in need of an update or improvement, I have five suggestions that should help.
Five tips for quickly improving your nonprofit’s programs and services content
Improvement #1: Ensure the details are accurate
Make sure the details you include in your programs and services pages are up-to-date.
This tip is pretty straightforward, but if it has been a while since you updated your programs and services content, you might be promoting out-of-date information. Quickly review and update the program description, staff names and contact details, locations, dates, availability, and registration information to ensure that they are current and accurate.
Improvement #2: Describe the need being filled
Your programs and services content should describe the needs being filled or challenges being addressed.
What is the need that drives your organization to offer these programs and services? What is the problem you are solving?
When you describe the need your organization is meeting or the problem you are solving, you indicate the relevance and importance of your programs and services. Help your readers- whether they are potential participants or supporters – to understand whether the program or service is a fit.
Improvement #3: Shed light on the impact of your programs
Offer your readers a little insight into the benefits and outcomes of your programs and services.
Many organizations use internally oriented language in their program descriptions, which then leads to a focus on outputs rather than impact (and it also tends to bring jargon). If you’ve done this, then switch it up: write about the difference that your programs are making.
What are the benefits (vs. features) to participants? What are the real outcomes? Ditch the output statistics and, instead, shed a little light on the impact of your programs and services.
Improvement #4: Enhance the credibility of what you’ve written
Feature belief builders in your programs and services pages to add credibility.
Work with the belief builders you have: that might be a brief testimonial taken from a participant’s program evaluation or a full video case study you’ve previously produced and can embed on this page.
If you don’t have any belief builders to use, start collecting them. They’ll be useful for more than just your programs and services pages (think posters, sponsorship sell sheets and more)!
Improvement #5: Invite readers to take a specific action
You’ll most likely be asking readers to register or sign up on your programs and services pages. But if the program is not directly serving people (for example, programs offered by environmental, animal and policy organizations), you might provide an invitation to volunteer or sponsor the program.
Either way, prioritize one specific call to action and make it clear and prominent on each program and service page. (If you need help, refer to the calls to action you identified in your website content plan.)
Are you ready to update your programs and services website content?
As you make these improvements, review the quality of the copy itself; make sure it is clear, conversational, jargon-free, and written in a voice that reflects your organization’s brand personality.
Are you ready to update the content of your programs and services? Try implementing my five improvements!
