Writing for the Web: Best Practices for Nonprofit Organizations

This article was originally published November 05, 2024 and since updated to include how to write web content, principles of good writing and more thorough formatting guidelines. I also included a section for nonprofits on how to write specific page (donate, programs and services, home, about, blog).

People often say “nobody reads online.” But that’s not true. We probably read more now than at any point in history.

Words are everywhere in our digital world. They raise awareness, build interest and inspire people to donate, volunteer, sign a petition or join a movement. Writing great content is a key principle for a successful website.

The problem is most web content doesn’t earn the attention it asks for. People aren’t refusing to read. They’re refusing to read things that aren’t worth their time. That’s the challenge this guide is here to solve.

We’ll cover:

No matter what you’re writing, these practices will help you communicate more effectively with the people your organization exists to serve.

People don’t read a web page top to bottom. The Nielsen Norman Group has studied how people read online. Their findings, confirmed across 13 years of studies are consistent:

So what does scanning look like? When people land on a page, they tend to scroll to get a sense of the content. Something catches their eye, usually a heading or an image and they stop, intrigued. They read that section, go back up for more context, skip further down…

They’re not browsing aimlessly: they’re looking for something valuable. And if they can’t find it within a couple of seconds, they’ll leave.

Headings, images, links, bolded text and formatting all capture attention and support comprehension. The goal of writing for the web is to make it easy for people to find what they’re looking for and compelling enough that they stay.

Good web writing happens before you write a single sentence. It starts with understanding what you’re writing, who it’s for and what it needs to accomplish.

All writing should be grounded in your brand guidelines. These define your voice (the consistent qualities of how you communicate), your tone (which shifts depending on context) and your messaging (the key things your organization says).

Your writing guidelines (or style guide) ensures you’re consistently with every piece of content.

If you don’t have writing guidelines yet, we’ll cover how to create them in the tools section below.

Web content isn’t just pages. It’s headlines, modules, button labels, form fields and error states (known as microcopy), blog posts. Each of these will require you to approach them differently.

What are you trying to accomplish with this specific piece of content? Inform, educate, empower, inspire action, generate a lead, improve user experience, reduce friction? Name the purpose clearly so you’re able to focus on achieving it.

Every piece of content should have a single topic. What is that nugget you’re writing about? That’s the value your audience is looking for. Before creating something new, check what you’ve already published on the topic and identify the gap this page can fill.

To create valuable content, you have to know you’re writing for and what it is they’re looking for. That means your content should serve one clear, prioritized audience. You can have a secondary audience if you must, but the more audiences you try to serve with a single piece of content, the less you’ll end up saying. My rule is one page, one topic, one audience.

Build useful audience profiles so you know their context, their knowledge level and what they need to take action.

Where’s your reader coming from? Did they arrive from a Google search, a campaign ad or another page on your site? Someone arriving at a donation page from an impact story is in a different headspace than someone who clicked “Donate” from your homepage navigation.

Then think about where they’re going next. Not where they could go, but where you want them to go: a confirmation page, a related program, a related resource that unpacks the topic a little more. This gets you thinking about the whole journey, not one touchpoint at a time.

I like Are Halland’s core model. It maps out business goals, user tasks, inward paths (where people come from), core content (what’s on the page) and forward paths (where they go next). It forces you to think about every page in context rather than in isolation.

Before you outline or draft, write a one or two sentence promise for the page. What will the reader get from this content? If you can’t articulate that clearly, you haven’t defined the page well enough yet.

With your audience, purpose and journey mapped, it’s time to outline. Again, think about the next best step for your reader. How do you get them from where they begin to where you want them to end?

Then do your keyword research. This process should refine your outline as you learn what your audience is actually searching for. It might change your heading structure, surface questions you hadn’t thought to answer or completely change your approach.

So finally we arrive at the writing bit. In this section we’ll talk about how to write great content. But your goal here is simple: to write the best content on the topic.

The journey doesn’t end with writing and it doesn’t end with publishing, either. The writing process will vary by team and project. But a general flow looks like:

With every piece of content you create, you need to distribute it, to get it out there, to promote it, not just once but multiple times. And then, you need to continue to optimize it.

These 10 steps are how you create content that is genuinely valuable and worth reading.

You can have the right topic, the right audience and the right keywords, but if your writing itself isn’t clear, none of it will it land and your reader will leave. These principles improve the quality of your writing.

Don’t use two words when one will do. “It’s critically important” can just be “it’s critical.”Don’t use a long word when a shorter exists. Don’t use two sentences if you can make your point with one.

But brevity doesn’t always mean short. A 3,000-word guide that’s all substance is brief. A 500-word post that takes three paragraphs to get to the point is not. Brevity is about efficiency, not length.

Short sentences are easier to understand. But a paragraph of same-length sentences creates a monotonous rhythm. You don’t have to overthink this, just write organically. Oh and read your content out loud.

The active voice is direct and clear. It tells readers who is doing what. It has energy. “We launched a new program” is stronger than “A new program was launched by our organization.” Avoid the passive voice.

Turning verbs into nouns makes writing heavier. “We made the decision to” should just be “we decided.” Find the verb hiding inside the noun and use that instead. You’ll activate your sentences.

Choose the simple word over the complex one. “Use” instead of “utilize.” “Help” instead of “facilitate.” “Start” instead of “commence.” This isn’t simplifying your ideas. It’s removing barriers between your reader and your ideas.

If you need an adverb to make your verb work, you’ve chosen the wrong verb. “Walked quickly” becomes “hurried.” “Said loudly” becomes “shouted.” Cut the adverbs and let your verbs do the work.

Writing without a perspective feels impersonal. When nobody is speaking, why would anybody listen? Take a perspective and don’t let the subject disappear.

Every industry has its own language, and nonprofits are no exception. But your reader may not know what “capacity building” means, or “wraparound services” or “systems change.” If you must use specialized terms, define them.

Words should never be obstacles for your readers to overcome. If your audience is technical, write at a beginner technical level. If they’re beginners, write at a non-technical level.

Clever headlines are fun to write. But if a reader can’t tell what the page is about from the heading, the cleverness has failed. “Planting Seeds of Change” might sound nice, but “Our community garden program” tells the reader exactly what they’re looking at. Lead with clarity. Let personality come through in the details.

Writing for the web is designing with words.

You could write beautifully clear sentences and still lose your reader if the page is a wall of text with no structure. Here’s how to format your content so people can actually use it.

Headings are how readers scan your page. They should clearly describe what the section below them contains. If someone reads only your headings, they should get a useful summary of the entire page.

Useheading tags (H1, H2, H3) in proper hierarchical order. This matters for accessibility (screen readers use heading hierarchy to navigate) and for SEO (search engines use headings to understand content structure).

Two to three sentences per paragraph is a good guideline. Single-sentence paragraphs work well for emphasis. If you see a block of five or six sentences with no break, split it up. Even well-written content feels harder to read on screen without white space.

If you have a list of things, use bullets or numbered lists rather than stringing them together with commas. Use numbered lists when order matters (steps, rankings) and bullets when it doesn’t.

Bold key phrases to help scanners find the main points. Use italics for emphasis or titles. But don’t overdo it. If everything is bold, nothing is.

Link text should tell the reader where they’re going. “Learn about mentorship” is useful. “Click here” is not. Descriptive link text is better for accessibility (screen readers often read links out of context), better for SEO and better for the reader.

Images, graphics, pull quotes and videos give the reader visual breaks and can reinforce key points. A pull quote can draw attention to an important insight. An image can make an abstract concept concrete. Visuals aren’t decoration. They’re part of how you provide value.

Don’t make your reader scroll through three paragraphs of context before the point. State it, then explain it. This applies at every level: the page as a whole, each section and even individual paragraphs. In journalism, this is called the inverted pyramid.

Further reading: check out our checklist for publishing optimized content on WordPress.

Everything above could apply to any website.

Here’s how these principles apply to the pages nonprofits care about most. Each deserves its own deep dive, so we’ll cover the essentials.

The biggest mistake on donation pages is the headline. “Donate Today” is button copy, not a headline. Lead with the outcome. What does a donation make possible?

Start with the immediate impact of a donation. Then keep asking “what does that lead to?” until you arrive at the world completely transformed. Find the level with the most resonance. That’s your headline.

The rest of the page should communicate the need, then clearly connect how a donation leads to the outcome you’ve promised. Be specific. Think about the form: what information do you actually need from your donors? And don’t forget what happens after. A donor should get a thank-you email right away, and you need a plan to share the impact of their donation regularly.

Knowing your audience here is critical. Are you speaking to the people who benefit from the services or to potential donors?

Then be clear about what the program is. If you’ve given it a branded name, assume people don’t know it. Describe it in the hero. Think about how someone who doesn’t know you might search for this program and use those words.

Then consider what action the reader should take and what they need to get there. Do they need to see other organizations like them or people like them succeeding? Your goal is to understand their objections and overcome them.

There are three common problems I see with nonprofit homepages. The first is an unfocused page designed to mirror the primary navigation: About Us, Our Programs, Our Impact, Our Blog, Donate, each as a section. This creates a table of contents, not a narrative.

The second is copy that prioritizes cleverness over clarity. “We Help Solve the Problem of Poverty.” How? What impact have you had? How can someone join you?

The third is a missing industry category: a plain statement of what kind of organization you are. “We’re an environmental conservation nonprofit working to protect BC’s forests.” It might be boring but it’s critical anchoring for a new visitor. Put it in the hero or immediately below it.

Homepages typically account for 20–30% of all landings and pageviews on a nonprofit website, but most have an exit rate around 50%. That’s a clear sign people don’t know what to do when they get there or don’t care. Your writing has to earn the next click.

Have one. Not more than one. Don’t split it into About Us, Our History, Who We Are and Why We Exist. Those pages divide your traffic and dilute your authority. Your about page is your Wikipedia page. Be clear about what you exist to do, who you serve and how you do the work. You can talk about your history and your evolution, especially if it helps your audience understand what you’re doing today.

A lot of nonprofits approach their blog the way they approached direct mail: sharing stories of impact. Those stories are important. Critical even! So keep telling them. But your blog is also a way of attracting traffic through search.

What are the topics you want to be known for? Create content that educates your audience on those topics, not just content that reports on your activities. This is the topic cluster approach: organizing content into strategic groups around core topics rather than publishing whatever feels timely. It’s the difference between a blog that accumulates posts and one that grows a relevant audience.

Go back and optimize what you’ve already published. Update, refresh and redistribute your best work rather than always starting from scratch.

This is the most important tool on this list. If your organization doesn’t have a writing guide, create one. It doesn’t need to be a 50-page manual. At minimum, cover:

This gives everyone who writes for your organization, whether staff, volunteers, board members or consultants, a shared reference point.

For inspiration: Monzo’s tone of voice guide is an excellent example of clear, personality-driven guidelines. Atlassian’s writing guidelines cover voice and tone, inclusive language, grammar and vocabulary.

Hemingway Editor highlights long complex sentences, adverbs, passive voice and readability issues. Run your draft through it before publishing.

Grammarly catches spelling and grammar mistakes. It plugs into your browser, Google Docs and email and works in the background.

With writing guidelines, you can turn AI into a powerful editor. Load your voice, tone, vocabulary and plain language rules into an AI tool and have it review your draft for inconsistencies and opportunities to sharpen.

Your perspective is what makes the writing valuable. Your knowledge of your audience, your understanding of your organization’s work: that can’t be automated. AI can help you sharpen your writing. It shouldn’t replace your thinking.

We’ve touched on some of these throughout the guide, but they’re worth addressing directly because they hold a lot of nonprofit teams back.

We said it at the start and it bears repeating: people read more than at any point in history. They just won’t read content that doesn’t catch their attention.

You probably don’t have too much content. You probably have too much of the same kind of content, or content that’s not approached strategically. The problem usually isn’t volume. It’s the lack of a content strategy.

Individual stories are emotionally powerful. But if that’s all you’re telling, you’re missing the bigger story. Your methodology, your process, the systemic change you’re driving: that’s what builds credibility. The stories are the hook. The how is the proof.

If all you’re posting is organization-centric updates, your audience will tune out (“here’s what we’re doing, here’s an update you don’t care about, please donate”). But if you’re consistently providing value, you’re probably far from overposting.

There’s no ideal word count or character limit for web content. A 3,000-word guide that’s all substance will hold a reader’s attention. A 200-word page that says nothing useful won’t. Let the value dictate the length, not an arbitrary number.

Humans are good at capturing each other’s attention. We tell stories, build interest, pay it off with a twist or a surprise or a valuable takeaway. We break rules and obsess over weird details. We throw off the rhythm of our sentences and show our personality quirks. That makes for the most fascinating writing.

But know your medium. Your website is not the place to fulfil your literary aspirations. It’s not going to sit on the shelf next to On The Road. The rules in this guide exist because web readers need clarity and structure.

So learn the rules: write clearly, format for scanning, make complexity simple. Use them to improve your craft. Then be your wonderful human self and break them.