Digital marketing is an integral part of running any type of business or organization. A very big part of digital marketing is SEO (Search Engine Optimization). To some, it may seem like a difficult and potentially expensive task to set up everything to have great SEO. The good news is, that is not necessarily the case. There are ways to set up an amazing SEO with little to no expense and very little SEO skills. This is particularly important for non-profit organizations. It is every bit as important for the organizations to pull in traffic as it is for other types of businesses, the only difference is that nonprofits have a smaller budget for these types of things. If you are part of a non-profit organization in need of some serious SEO help, this is the best place to be. Continue reading to learn some potential business saving SEO tips specifically for nonprofits.
The Website – The first, and most important item on the list is your website. This is where people come to learn all about your non-profit, what you do, how to get in touch, how to donate, etc. If you do not already have a website, there are several options. The most cost-effective method is to be able to build a site from scratch on your own. The problem with this method is that most people do not have the skill set to do this. There is always the option of hiring a professional to build the site for you, but this tends to be a bit pricey. This leaves one option, use a web hosting service such as WordPress. This gives you the opportunity to have a great looking website without having to build it from scratch. One of the best thing about using a web hosting service is that there are free plans and the paid plans are very reasonable. If you already have a website set up, there are a few things you can do to make it even better. First of all, give the entire site a once over, especially if you have had it for more than a year. It is important to keep your site updated and relevant. Be sure there are current pictures and information. If there is any bit of information that has become antiquated or irrelevant, remove it. Also, take a good look at the design and ease of navigation. If your sites need a lot of overhaul, it is likely best to hire someone to take care of it. It will pay off in the end.
Social Media – Secondary to having a killer website is having a fantastic presence on social media. It is not enough to have a page on one platform, to have a great presence and aid in SEO, you need to have a page on all major platforms. The major platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube. Not only do you need to have pages on each of these platforms, you need to be consistently active on them. It is vital that you provide your followers with a consistent stream of relevant content. This content can come in the form of articles, sale information, industry-related information, infographics, photographs, videos, even relevant memes. Once you have the pages set up and content being posted regularly, the next step is to pull in new “likes’ and “follows”. There are several steps to this. The first is to invite people to interact with your page by post links on your website, sending invites through the platform and posting to other platforms where all people can follow your non-profit. Next, you will need to set up a few paid ads where they are available. Facebook is one of the best places for this. Also, they often offer credits for free ads, which will bring your cost way down. There is no need to go for expensive, especially not in the beginning. Post something eye-catching that will draw attention and set up a paid ad with this post for one or two days. This is relatively inexpensive but will help you reach plenty of people. Every time someone clicks to “like” the post that does not already follow your page, send them an invitation to do so. The more new follows you get the more shares your page and posts will get which will equal more follows. Every Time a post gets shared and someone new clicks “like”, send a follow invite. This will all have a domino effect which is wonderful for your fan base.
Content – Once you have established social media pages and a wonderful website, your new mission is to create the best content with relevant keywords. It is vital to SEO to have relevant keywords and phrases scattered throughout the content on your website and social media pages. The first step is to research a bit to find the best keywords for your exact organization. After you begin posting the keyword infused content, you should make sure your website is set up to automatically post all new content directly to your social media pages which will make it possible to reach even more people in one fell swoop. Next, you need to set up link backs. This is where make your social media pages link to specific pages of your website and vice versa. Also, this is the point at which you begin reaching out to other businesses and bloggers in the hopes of getting them to place a link to your non-profit’s website on their site. The more link backs you can establish, the more traffic you will bring to your site. The more traffic to your site, the more donations and exposure your non-profit will receive. Content, keywords, and link backs are the meat of SEO. These are the things that will improve your rankings with search engine algorithms. The better the ranking, the higher up your site will appear when a user searches for something related to your organization. The higher up the list you link goes, the more likely it will be that you get clicks and site traffic.
For more information about SEO head over to Digital Flow SEO. You will find an incredible wealth of information.
