Your charity’s numbers might be telling you the wrong story

I spend a lot of my time looking at charity websites through their data. Analytics, search rankings, Google Ad Grants accounts and there’s one thing I see over and over again…

A charity looks at a number, decides what it means, and makes a plan around it but very often, the number was possibly saying something else entirely.

It’s not anyone’s fault: Most charity teams are stretched thin and the dashboards don’t exactly explain themselves clearly but it’s getting trickier, because AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot now answer people’s questions before they ever reach your website. So some of the numbers we’ve always relied on are starting to wobble.

Here’s what I’d look at instead.

Stop worrying so much about traffic

I know this sounds alien as website visits are the number everyone reports, and it feels good when they go up. But on their own, they don’t tell you very much.

It’s a bit like judging your Instagram on follower count. Of course lots of followers is nice, but if nobody likes, comments or shares, they’re not really doing anything for you and your org. Your website is the same. You don’t need the most visitors. You need the right ones, and then they need to  find what they came for.

Fewer clicks isn’t always bad news

This is the one that always worries people most at the moment.

Someone asks ChatGPT about support in their area and then it gives them a summary that mentions your charity, and maybe that’s all they needed. They never click through to the site and so your traffic dips a little.

Now think about the people who do still click. They’ve already read about you and they already know what you do and they’ve chosen to come and find out more anyway. Those are some of the most interested visitors you’ll ever get, and the important thing is making sure your site doesn’t let them down when they arrive there.

What I’d look at instead

There are two numbers I wish more charities paid attention to.

The first is bounce rate. Put simply, it’s how many people land on a page and leave without doing anything else. If that’s high on your donate page, say, it’s worth asking a serious question as to why. Maybe the page is slow or fiddly on a phone or maybe it isn’t quite what people were searching for. Your traffic figure on GA4 won’t tell you any of this, but your bounce rate will give you a nudge in the right direction.

The second is how long people stay. If someone spends a few minutes on an article and reads right to the bottom, that’s a really brilliant sign as it means what you’ve written is genuinely useful to them. I’d also look at where those readers go next, because it tells you a lot about what they actually want from you. 

Three things you can try this month

None of these need new software or a data specialist just a little bit of time from you when you have a spare second this week. 

Look for quick wins. Compare how many visits your top pages get with how well they rank on Google. If a page gets lots of visits but ranks poorly, or ranks well but hardly anyone clicks, that’s an opportunity. A few tweaks to something you’ve already written is usually quicker than starting from scratch.

Test your key pages on your phone. Pick your most important ones, like donate, volunteer and get support. Check how many people leave straight away, then open each page as if you’d never heard of your charity before. Is it obvious what to do next?

Follow your keenest readers. Find the pages people spend longest on and see where they go afterwards. If almost nobody goes on to donate or sign up, add a clear and friendly next step.

You don’t have to do all three at once. Pick whichever feels easiest for you and start there. The real shift is getting into the habit of asking what a number is actually telling you before it ends up in a report.

About the author

Megan Price