As a nonprofit organization, your main priority is visibility. The more visibility you gain through search engines the more people will become aware of your organization, your mission and how they can contribute to your cause. In this post, we’ll cover the basics of SEO for nonprofit organizations to help you get started on increasing your visibility.
One example of great strategy is having well-optimized pages, but there are a number of other factors that strengthen your SEO strategy too. So let’s dive into the basic best practices you can follow to improve your search engine rankings.
Nonprofit SEO Keyword Research
Keywords are the foundation of any successful SEO strategy. What are people searching for when it comes to nonprofit organizations? For most nonprofit organizations this is going to be a combination of what your mission is and where your organization is located.
Some strategies to ensure that you have a good keyword selection includes:
- Identifying and compiling a list of topics that are current and relevant to your organization.
- Finding keywords that will naturally fit into your content and can easily be optimized around.
- Determining the exact phrases that people are searching for and typing into the search bar of Google, Bing, etc. See how many results appear from these searches.
- Typing your organization’s keywords into a search engine, you will see other keyword suggestions in the search bar. Add any that are appropriate for your nonprofit organization.
- Finding the perfect mix of search volume and keyword difficulty is ideal for search engine optimization.
- Using keyword research tools to help you identify keywords and determine which ones best suit your organization’s mission.
The goal is to end up with a group of relevant keywords that have the same basic overall meaning to them. This allows you to be able to take any piece of content and optimize it around any of the keywords you came up with.
Content Optimization
After defining the keywords you want to be optimized for is to create and optimize content around your keywords. Components that should be included to ensure optimal content optimization are:
- Including keywords in your URLs, page titles, and header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.).
- Including keywords in the meta description of each page.
- Including keywords, multiple times throughout the body of your content while still making the content read naturally.
- Checking that the images you use on your content pages have the correct title and alt tags.
- Ensuring that your content is relevant to the terms you are optimizing for on each page.
Optimize Your Nonprofit Organization’s Online Presence
One of the most impactful ways to ensure that your SEO strategy is successful is to distribute and promote your content online. Social media and directories are often places search engines look to build trust and understand what your nonprofit organization is all about.
You want to ensure that all of your organization’s listings and social media profile are updated containing where your organization is located and what your mission is. Make sure to always incorporate your keywords into your organization’s listings.
Also, distributing content is another great way to increase website traffic and promote your organization’s message. When distributing content you should:
- Send content to blogs and other websites to promote your nonprofit organization and create awareness.
- Always be sure to make social share buttons available on all your content so that online visitors have an easy way to share your content to any social platform.
Link Building for Nonprofit SEO
Another best practice for SEO is link building. This is one of the more difficult practices in an SEO strategy but can make your SEO efforts that much more successful. Link building includes getting links from reputable sources to link back to your organization’s website.
This involves reaching out to sources relevant to your organization that may share your link. Obtaining backlinks from a credible source let’s search engines know that your content is relevant and credible and should show up in search engine results.
Summary
All organizations want to have an impactful online presence and make people aware of their mission. SEO can help you gain visibility and raise awareness for your nonprofit organization.
You don’t have to be an expert to be successful. Follow these SEO best practices to increase your nonprofit’s efforts.
- Identify keywords that potential online visitors are searching for and relevant to your nonprofit organizations.
- Include descriptive page title and meta descriptions of your content to improve search engine rankings.
- Incorporate your target keywords into your page copy, headers, and images to add a variety of search terms with the same meaning.
- Update your social profiles and business listings to inform people of your nonprofit’s mission and where you are located.
- Build appropriate backlinks to your website content.
Contact Capital Business Solutions for Nonprofit Accounting and Fundraising Software
Capital Business Solutions is a recognized leader in providing cutting-edge, integrated financial and fundraising software solutions and professional services purpose-built for the nonprofit and public sector. Offering our clients more than thirty years of combined industry specific experience, we have successfully implemented more than 700 clients in our 19 years of operation.
If you are interested in finding out more about our training and services please reach out to us at (888) 249-6008 or contact us to chat.