What should a charity website include?

Most charities don’t have a website problem. They have a “we’re not sure what’s actually meant to be on it” problem. Charities add pages over the years without much of a plan. The donate button ends up three clicks deep. Nobody’s checked whether the site actually shows up when someone searches for the cause. This checklist covers the three things that matter most: the pages your charity website needs, how to help people find it on Google, and how to build each page so it turns a visitor into a donor.

The Essential Pages Every Charity Website Needs

Before anything else, check your site covers these. Miss even one, and you tend to lose supporters somewhere along the way.

Core pages every charity site needs

Homepage. Answer three questions in the first few seconds: who you are, who you help, and what you want the visitor to do next. Don’t make people scroll to find out what the charity actually does.

About or Mission page. Supporters give more readily when they understand what a charity stands for. State your charity number, your founding date, and who runs the organisation. Transparency builds trust faster than polished copy does.

Donate page. Give this its own dedicated page, not just a button in the header. Keep the form short. Explain where the money goes. Offer a couple of suggested amounts rather than an empty box.

Get Involved or Volunteer page. Not every visitor is ready to give money. Some want to volunteer, fundraise, or help another way. Give them a clear path to do that, instead of funnelling everyone towards a single call to action.

Our Work or Impact page. Show what the charity has actually achieved. Use real numbers, real stories, real outcomes. Vague claims about making a difference convince nobody, specifics do.

News or updates. A simple space for campaign updates, appeals and announcements. It also gives you fresh content to publish regularly, which matters for Google (more on that below).

Contact page. Straightforward, but easy to overlook. Include a phone number and email, not just a form. Some supporters and journalists will want to speak to someone directly.

Policies and safeguarding. A privacy policy, a safeguarding policy, and any relevant accreditations. For a charity, these aren’t small print. They’re part of what makes a visitor trust you enough to give.

Additional pages depending on your charity

Once you’ve covered the essentials, a few other pages start to earn their place. Add an events page if you run fundraisers or open days. Add a shop if you sell merchandise or products in support of the cause. Add a trustees or annual report page too, larger funders and partners will want to see how you govern the organisation before they commit support.

How to Make Sure Your Charity Website Gets Found on Google

A website with all the right pages still won’t help much if nobody finds it. A few fundamentals make the biggest difference here.

Get the technical basics right

Write page titles and headings the way people actually search. If someone searches “how to volunteer for a food bank in Birmingham” and your volunteering page’s title just says “Get Involved”, you’re making Google guess. Be specific and descriptive instead.

Do some basic keyword research before you write a page, not after. Use a free tool like Google’s Keyword Planner. Check what people actually type when looking for a cause like yours, then use those words in your titles and headings, rather than guessing at the phrasing internally.

Keep the site fast and mobile-friendly. Most visitors land on your site from a phone, often from a search or a social media link. A slow-loading site loses people before they’ve even seen what you do. Google factors page speed into how highly a site ranks, too.

Build visibility and authority over time

Claim and complete your Google Business Profile. It’s free and takes an afternoon. It helps you show up in local search results and Google Maps, particularly useful if you run drop-in services, shops, or events people need to find in person.

Publish content regularly. A charity that only touches its website once a year tends to rank worse than one that publishes occasional updates. It doesn’t need to be constant, just consistent.

Get other reputable sites linking to yours. Sector directories, local press coverage, partner organisations and funders all send a signal to Google when they link to your site. It tells Google you’re a credible, established charity. This builds slowly, but it compounds over time.

Use the Google Ad Grants programme if you’re eligible. Through Google Ad Grants, registered charities can receive a substantial monthly budget for Google Search advertising, entirely free. Check your registration status through the Charity Commission’s register if you’re not sure whether you qualify. Just remember, this only helps if the pages people land on actually convert. That’s the next section.

How to Design Each Page to Increase Donations

Getting the right pages, and getting found, only pays off once visitors take action. A few things make the biggest difference:

Reduce friction on the donation form. Every extra field costs you supporters. Every unnecessary click costs you supporters too. So does any uncertainty about where the money goes. Short, mobile-friendly forms that don’t require an account convert best.

Repeat calls to action throughout the site, not just on the donate page. A visitor reading an impact story should see an obvious way to help right there. Don’t make them go hunting for it.

Make the site properly accessible. Charity audiences skew older and more diverse. Some visitors arrive in distress or need. Accessible design, clear contrast, readable text, keyboard navigation, isn’t optional here. It’s simply who your audience is.

Show trust signals clearly. Include your charity number and accreditations. Add a plain “where your money goes” breakdown. Together, these reassure a first-time visitor that giving to you is a safe, sensible decision.

Offer the payment options supporters actually want. A single one-off payment field isn’t enough for most charities. Give people the choice between a one-off gift and a regular direct debit. Always include a Gift Aid tick box too, it costs the donor nothing and can add 25% to the value of their gift.

Measuring What’s Actually Working

Once you’ve sorted the pages, the SEO groundwork and the donation design, set up Google Analytics properly. Track goals or conversions on the donate form itself, not just page views. This shows you which pages actually lead to a donation, rather than just which ones people visit. It’s the only reliable way to know whether the changes you make are helping.

Getting all of this right takes real time: the pages, the SEO groundwork, and the conversion detail. It’s a bigger job than most charities can fit around their existing workload. If that’s where you are, our charity web design service covers the full build. That includes the structure and content, plus the technical SEO and donation-focused design covered here.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many pages does a charity website actually need? There’s no fixed number. Most well-performing charity sites cover a homepage, about/mission, donate, get involved, impact, news, and contact. That’s roughly seven to ten pages once you include policies. Smaller charities can start leaner and add sections as they grow.

Do charity websites need a blog or news section? It helps more than most charities expect. It keeps supporters updated on campaigns, and it gives Google fresh content to index. It doesn’t need to be frequent, a handful of updates a year makes a difference.

Is a donate button in the header enough, or do we need a full donate page? A button helps, but it shouldn’t replace a dedicated page. The button gets people there. The page is what actually convinces them to follow through and complete the donation.