When consulting with a new nonprofit client on their online marketing efforts, I usually list a few very simple steps they can take that will go a long way toward improving their strategy. Here’s some guidance I recently gave to a major university undergoing a website and online marketing overhaul:
1. Apply for a Google AdWords Grant
Google Adwords Grants are available to nonprofit 501(c)3 organizations in the amount of $10,000/month for in-kind keyword text-based ads on the search engine network. The grants are ongoing and do not have expirations. The process takes a couple of months to get up and running after submitting the one-page online application form, which is available here: http://www.google.com/grants/. It’s a pretty intuitive interface, but there’s some skill and marketing know-how that goes a long way to getting the most out of the grant. With $10,000 you have the potential to increase your website traffic a minimum of 10,000 hits per month, and a maximum of about 30,000 hits per month. I’ve helped several organizations launch AdWords Grant programs with great results for each – increasing traffic by over 400% on several sites.
2. Get on Board with iTunes Podcasting or iTunes University
The equipment investment can be minimal – a good audio recorder can run a couple hundred dollars, but after that, creating a podcast is free! There’s lots of resources out there to help you think about what type of podcast you want to create, but once you do, you can use a free service like blip.tv to stream your videos and podcasts directly to iTunes, Vimeo, YouTube, Facebook and more. It’s a great way to increase name recognition and visibility of your research or advocacy message.
3. Implement Basic Search Engine Optimization Techniques
It’s more than just adding “meta tags” to your html pages. All images should use “alt tags” which should be used to strategic place keywords into your site.
You should also ensure that your URLs are search-engine-friendly. One of the many things that helps increase page visibility on Google is to include keywords in your URL, rather than number strings that are created by content management systems.
An unfriendly URL: http://www1.maxwell.syr.edu/news.aspx?id=36507226416
a friendly URL:
http://www.cnas.org/people/staff.
In addition, having question marks in your URL (which denotes a search query) causes a lower ranking in Google (source). If your CMS has the option to turn on SEO-friendly URLs, you should do so (you may also have the option of changing the “?” to a “/” which would be better).
When most people talk about search engine optimization, however, what they really want to know is how to move up higher on Google’s search results for particular keywords.
Although Google’s algorithm is more sophisticated, it boils down to something like this: Search Ranking = Relevance * PageRank.
Having relevant content for particular searches should be the easy part, so your main focus should be on increasing your website’s “PageRank.” The biggest factor in determining your page rank is the number of reputable sites linking back to yours, so the name of the game is get big reputable websites like New York Times, Washington Post, U.S. State Department, etc., linking back to your website often. (You can check your page rank here, Read more about Google search rankings here). There are lots of ways to do that, including:
4. Jump on — Even the Defense Department is on the Social Networking Bandwagon!
One way to increase the number of websites linking back to your own is to utilize social networking tools that make it painless for people to E-mail and re-syndicate your content on their own websites. Every item you post news or events, you should be doing so in a way that generates RSS Feed content (Check out the list of CFR’s RSS Feeds for an example). Feeds make it easy to syndicate your content directly on to another website, allowing easy linking relationships to be built.
“AddThis” is a tool that many websites use to allow users to Email, Print, Post to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Delicious, Digg, etc. +100 other sites in just one click. You can customize the look of this button to match your website. It’s free. Your CMS may have a similar function built in, but small groups who don’t use a CMS can deploy this type of social networking without much difficulty.
It goes without saying that you should also have account on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other sites that make sense for your group.
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These are just a few thoughts that helped to get this particular group thinking about their online marketing strategies. Feel free to comment and suggest others that are relevant to the low-budget nonprofit community!
