Last week, I got a call from a frustrated County GOP Chair. “Our website looks great,” she told me. “We spent good money on the design. But we’re not getting any volunteers or donations through it.”
This is a conversation I have all too often. Local Republican parties invest in beautiful websites but forget something crucial: a pretty website isn’t the same as an effective one.
Let me tell you about two County GOP organizations I worked with recently. The first had a stunning website with all the bells and whistles. The second had a simpler site that focused on getting three things right:
Guess which party raised more money and recruited more volunteers?
The second party wasn’t just getting better results – they were spending less time answering basic questions because their website was doing the heavy lifting for them.
I remember watching a potential donor try to give money to a local party’s website. He clicked through three pages, got frustrated with the complicated form, and gave up. That’s $500 the party never saw because their website put barriers in the way.
Here’s what I’ve learned matters most:
Everything else is just window dressing.
One of my favorite success stories is about a District Party that was struggling to recruit volunteers. Their website had a volunteer page, but it wasn’t working. How did we know? We asked five people to try signing up, and all of them got confused by the process.
After simplifying their volunteer form to just three fields and making it accessible from every page, their volunteer sign-ups tripled in one month.
I love data because it cuts through opinions and shows what’s actually working. A County Party I worked with started tracking simple metrics:
The numbers told a clear story: people were finding the site but not taking action. Once we knew that, we could fix it.
Here’s what happened when one local party got their website right:
They didn’t achieve this with fancy design – they did it by making their website work for their visitors.
Some of the most effective changes I’ve seen were surprisingly simple:
One party saw their online donations double just by simplifying their donation form from twelve fields to five.
Here’s my simple testing method that any County Party can use:
If any of these tasks take more than 30 seconds or cause confusion, your website needs work.
Here’s something that might surprise you: in most County Parties I work with, over 60% of their website visitors are on mobile devices. Yet I still see sites where the donation form is nearly impossible to use on a phone.
One party fixed their mobile donation form and saw their average donation amount increase – simply because people could now easily donate from their phones while feeling motivated at events.
Your website doesn’t need to win design awards. It needs to:
Everything else is secondary.
Let’s Talk About Your Website
Every County Party has unique needs, and I’d love to hear about yours. Is your website working as hard as it should? Are you getting the volunteers and donations you need through it?
Want to discuss your party’s website over coffee (virtual works too!)? Choose a time or reach out at Sean@VOTEGTR.com. I’m always happy to share ideas and help good Republican organizations build websites that actually work.