Nonprofit organizations can benefit greatly from online exposure.
SEO is a great way to get organic traffic, regardless of the organization’s mission and the searcher’s intent.
Yes, there are opportunities through Google Ads grants and supports to help drive traffic.
However, being found organically is a cost-effective and reliable way to gain long-term visibility and promote a nonprofit’s mission.
Most nonprofits operate on tight budgets and must be very careful with their resources.
I have had the opportunity to work with many focuses and missions spanning health, education, performing arts, adoption, orphanages and more.
Within each nonprofit, I’ve found advice that helps regardless of most focuses and circumstances.
From solid funding to grassroots organizations, there’s a lot to be gained by focusing on seven SEO tips to help your organization get found.
1. Develop SEO goals
I have personally heard and witnessed that nonprofits spend their time aimlessly. I understand the fact that resources are limited and dollars potentially even more so.
This means that it is even more important to have specific and realistic goals for what SEO could and should do for the organization. Scattered and scattered efforts working toward a specific goal are often wasted.
Many nonprofits have specific interest groups and different goals for each.
For example, I worked with a large national nonprofit focused on a very specific disease.
His audience included many audiences and potential visitors, including those newly diagnosed, scared, and seeking information.
Beyond that, they had goals for advocates, donors, event attendees, legislative advocates, and general supporters.
They all had a certain level of awareness, commitment and action goals at the top.
With a large number of specific funnels, conversion actions, and purposes for stakeholders to find your organization, engage online, and reach the end goal, it’s important to define specific goals and success metrics.
2. Create funnels and stakeholder sections
Based on what I noted about the different stakeholders and types of goal actions, we can create paths for them and content within the website.
Non-profit sites can often be a disaster. This is not on purpose, as it can be difficult to work on all the necessary content and scale the website over time.
Survey your audience. Learn what they really want and what resources they care about.
Adapt your content based on feedback and what you know about the cause.
Be aware that some people want to connect a credit card quickly.
Others want to consume long content.
Even more you might want to learn about events and ways to connect.
Give them all their own personalized path and journey.
My team currently works with a large non-profit that funds many worthy organizations and fosters entrepreneurship.
We have a laser focus on specific topics, content strategies and investments to ensure the right people are reached and the organization is positioned prominently for engagement compared to for-profit content sources And others.
3. Build a solid infrastructure
This could have been number two as it goes along with the funnel and building the stakeholder section.
If you’re having trouble with number two above, your site may not be easy to manage.
Keep in mind that all technical SEO needs are just as important for non-profit organizations as they are in the for-profit sector.
Also, with the different funnels and goals, a solid information architecture and UX is critical.
We can’t lose people along the way or waste valuable impressions and clicks. We need sites that convince and convert users.
We have a story to tell and we need it to be told without bouncing and losing people along the way because we can’t find the right content and place for them on the site.
I saw firsthand how a local nonprofit organization benefited from this type of approach.
As a tax levy, but an independent non-governmental non-profit organization that gave grants to mental health organizations, he had a lot of technical details to share.
The organization had a very specific grantmaking process. This process can be difficult to understand and follow.
The organization spends a lot of time and focus on SEO awareness as well as Q&A.
Beyond that, it was important to share how taxpayer funds are being used and how they are serving the wider community.
All of these funnels, plus a few for curious politicians, are big reasons why the funnel and rich content model work so well.
4. Invest carefully in content
Content can be a big, open question for nonprofits.
There are a lot of really important things to say, both about the history of the organization and the voice it has in the cause.
Passions for blogging, creating resources, and telling the important story of the cause can make for great content.
At the same time, for some organizations, writing can take a back seat when events, fundraising, and mission-centric things take up more time.
Content can be a lot of effort whether it works or not, and may need more focus.
Or, it may be lacking and need more consistency and discipline.
Regardless, a sweet spot must be found to feed areas of the funnel and focus the importance of organic search.
I can think of a great example that tells its story well and also serves as a leader as an information resource.
They serve troubled youth and are an option for parents who don’t have options for their high school kids.
They accept troubled youth from all over the US and have a high staff-to-student ratio that serves them with love and highly skilled and responsible care.
Through their site, they share their research, expertise and thought leadership in their space.
They also have an emotional and impactful story to share with prospective parents and students.
They do amazing work and serve a much needed cause and do a great job of investing in content at the levels needed for those interested in statistics and facts as well as moving others by resonating with their exact situation and emotions.
5. Leverage partners for links
In addition to the technical and content aspects of SEO, nonprofits must also take advantage of off-page factors.
A big part of this is backlinks.
This means ensuring that all partners, advocates and associates help the cause where they can by linking to the non-profit website.
By natural links linked to relationships, I’m not talking about spammy or unnatural links.
If an aligned partner or organization is supporting the cause, simply make sure they know where to link for the best possible user experience and to indicate this partnership to search engines.
Beyond that, any opportunities for outreach and network growth should also be considered.
Linkage research should be done with comparable organizations. This can help with development efforts as well as outreach to develop more partners.
An example of a non-profit organization that gets SEO benefits from backlinks is a flagship performing arts center.
As a space, it has several resident organizations or other non-profit entities that call it home for their concerts and performances.
Beyond that, corporate sponsors, civic organizations, artists, ticketing venues and more naturally link to the center.
By leveraging all of the specific partners and relationships, the performing arts center takes full advantage of the value of links and “votes” from these other sites to benefit from their own.
6. Use social smartly
Social media has been one of the most debated things regarding its impact on SEO. I’m not here to encourage that debate in this article.
However, I can say that I at least attribute the correlation between social media activity and better SEO performance.
Again, not here for a debate.
If you can at least come up with correlation (not causation), please consider your social media activity with your search strategy.
Look at the content you want to rank well and get links.
Build your social strategy around this.
Get your own social accounts to link to and get others to share and link to it.
A national organization I work with that is an intercollegiate athletics association does a great job of this.
They leverage their content investments to get the most mileage possible.
This means creating the content once and publishing it on the site and promoting it through Google Ads, social media, email and every possible channel.
Ultimately, they also want organic search and know that the more engagements, links, and referrals they can get on their data, research information, and recruiting information, the better their organic performance will be. And, it does!
7. Plan, measure and repeat
I can point to a number of great examples of non-profits that own organic search results and get real results from them. Most have a well-defined and intentional plan and effort.
It’s not about trying harder.
It’s about a specific focus and knowing that there is a real, measurable ROI or impact that can come from organic search.
In many of these success stories, there are planned actions and tactics.
This means a regular and consistent effort on technical SEO factors, content and knowing that SEO includes the word “optimization”.
It’s not a one-time thing or a quick strategy.
It takes definition, planning, resources and sticking with it.
You don’t have competitors in the traditional sense, but you do when it comes to getting impressions and visitors and people talking about the content you so deservedly want and need.
Wrap
You have a great cause and organization.
Your mission means a lot to a lot of people.
Don’t short-change it or miss the opportunity to get visitors who have multiple interests, goals, and reasons why they should come to your site.
Use these seven tips for nonprofit SEO to get the most out of your resources and keep driving your mission.
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Featured image: Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock
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