As a small nonprofit organization, your marketing budget tends to also be small. with a small budget it can be easy to look at your organization’s website in one of two ways:
- The budget ends up being used on something other than on a website. With no budget ever being used on the website, it never gets made. With no website, people that want information on your mission must look on social media or call you directly.
- There was budget allocated a while back, maybe even as much as 10 years ago, to get a website made. At the time, you decided to have your website built using HTML. Unfortunately, you don’t have anyone in your organization that knows how to code and the designer is no longer around to help. There are changes that need to be done. No programmer on your staff means you don’t have help, leaving the only place online with accurate data is social media.
If you’re in one of these two situations, then now is the time to consider getting a website made using Wordpress. Let’s look at five reasons you should consider using Wordpress to design your organization’s website:
Software That’s Free
You read that correctly. Wordpress is an open-source, meaning it’s generally free for the public to use, software. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of developers that regularly contribute to the creation and evolution of this software. Not only is it free, but you can customize it almost any way you want to… Making sure it best fits your organization’s needs.
Now this does not mean you can have a website for free. To have a fully functioning website you will need to register your domain (website address), have your domain hosted (a place to store website content, and then the software (that’s where Wordpress comes in). Registering and hosting your domain will have a cost, but they will have a cost no matter what software you use to program your website.
Easy to Design with Themes
WordPress has become a popular way to design a website, because of the flexibility it provides for its users. In addition to the flexibility already built into the software, there are hundreds of developers who are creating both free and paid themes. These themes help users customize their website to best fit the organization’s style. Theme styles can range from the user needing to understand how to code to the user being able to drop and drag elements wherever they want. What’s helpful about having such a wide range of theme options is that it allows any and all nonprofits the chance to have a website.
Customizable with Plugins
Themes aren’t the only way to make your website unique and stand out from the others. By adding some plugins, small programs used to enhance your website, you can customize your website even more. There are thousands of different types of plugins; from helping with SEO (search engine optimization), to offering extra security, to helping make pages sharable and more… the plugin options are seemingly endless.
With the endless supply of plugins comes a word of caution. Although putting plugins on your website can help it work the way you want, it also has the chance to slow down loading time. remember that loading time really matters to the people coming to your website. The longer it takes to load, or see content, then the more likely they are to leave.
Handle Multiple Media Types
Similar to the option to customize the leak and function of your website through the use of a theme and plugins, you can also use a wide range of media types to express your message. There are so many options, including embedding videos from YouTube, inserting pictures, and adding links to text and images. Just like with plugins, it is good to keep a watch on the size of the files. The larger the file, the longer it takes for people to see.
Take Security Seriously
Among the many developers are a lot of people concerned with keeping people’s websites secure. When changes are made to Wordpress, it is available to all users of the software. They also make it easy for updates to be made, which is important since many of the charges help protect your website from hackers and other online troublemakers. If you ever see that there is an update available, it is best practice to take it seriously and make time to do the update soon.
Conclusion
Using Wordpress provides you with an opportunity to create and maintain a website for your organization, even if you do not have a dedicated computer programmer. With the help of thousands of developers, the software is actively evolving-the options for customizing the look and function are endless when you consider the themes and plugins available. Through it all, the community of developers are dedicated to keeping the system as secure as possible. All you need to get started is an idea and some time.
