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When emergency strikes you might find that your current website can’t handle the traffic that comes your way. Or you might want to create a new site that loads blazingly fast for anyone using even the slowest of mobile connections. Setting up a new WordPress/Drupal/other CMS site probably isn’t the best solution for your needs […]

I love WordPress and use it every day. But one of the issues with it is that you can’t just leave a WordPress site untendered for months or years without expecting security problems. It’s important to keep your version of WordPress and your site’s Themes and Plugins up-to-date in order to keep them safe from […]

This is a follow up to a previous post looking at the top charity websites in 2018. Again I’ve created this screenshot gallery so you can see them side by side, and I’ve made some attempt to group similar charities together. What’s new in 2019? It’s continuing the trend away from rotating sliders/carousels and towards […]

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one of those things that as website owners/managers we’re aware of, and we know that it is important, but often don’t know what exactly is it and how do you do it? It can be a specialised subject and there are many people and companies who solely specialise in providing […]

Don’t call them ‘case studies’ in any public-facing materials I hope that’s obvious, but I’ll say it just in case. ‘Case studies’ are things in your M&E reports. They sound clinical and they bring to mind rather dry outcomes and outputs. For the purposes of this blog post though,  I’ll refer to them as ‘case […]

It’s October 2005. I’m sat in one of the country’s most-revered charities, clutching my first ever copywriting brief. Two hours in, it’s Blank Screen 1: Copywriter 0. I’d been working at Comic Relief for a while when I landed a job as their junior copywriter.  Bingo. But an hour before lunch on day one, it […]

If you’re adventurous enough to want to build your own WordPress charity website (or maybe you just haven’t got the money to invest in an agency/freelancer to do it for you) then here’s my quick guide to how I’d go about it if I were you. If you are on a tight budget you might […]

I ran a charity website (and indeed whole digital department) for six years (for War Child). I had come from a communications background (at Comic Relief) and was reasonably IT literate, but had never been solely responsible for a charity’s website before. In the years since I have worked with, and spoken to, dozens of […]

In a recent blog post I had a look at the top 100 charity websites and the common features that many of them share. Why is it that the charity sector is so diverse, yet our websites tend to look so similar? ‘Good artists copy, great artists steal’ It’s not clear whether Picasso ever actually […]

When thinking about (re)designing your charity website it’s natural to have a look at what other charities have done in order to spark some ideas and inspiration. And in particular it’s useful to see how the big boys do it – the charities with all the money and in-house marketing teams who can afford to […]