SEO is one of the most important – but sometimes overlooked – resources that a nonprofit can use to improve the online exposure of nonprofits in DC, a city brimming with many nonprofits fighting to get noticed and funded. Now more than ever, the digital marketing space continues to grow. DC-based nonprofits must increase their SEO efforts to appear higher in searches, make more donations, recruit more volunteers, and boost awareness of their incredible work.
A nonprofit can’t afford to ignore this regarding its brand’s reputation and website recognition. The first step to achieving this critical objective is understanding what SEO is and how to implement it. SEO is optimizing a website’s content to rank higher on search engine results pages, commonly known as search engine optimization (SEO). When a website is ranked higher in the search results of a search engine like Google or Bing, it will more likely be noticed by users searching for those keywords. Consequently, the number of visitors to your website will naturally go up.
For nonprofits in the DC area who rely on local SEO (local search engine optimization), SEO is essential. This includes Maryland SEO as well as Virginia SEO, which along with D.C comprise the “DMV”. Local SEO refers to how a website is optimized to show up in local search areas, and this is critical to ensure that the nonprofit’s website shows up in search of people in the DC area in search of services, volunteers, or causes. Specific measures are taken to optimize for local SEO, including claiming Google My Business listings and optimizing, getting reviews, and having the website listed in local directories.
The second is keyword research, a broad mandate under SEO that requires identifying the questions and words prospective donors are typing into search engines to find content matching their interest in your nonprofit’s mission. For DC-based nonprofits, that means mining the language used by local communities and incorporating their interests into your content. Some free and paid keyword research tools include Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ahrefs. After they’re nailed down, keywords should be incorporated into the website in meta descriptions, subheadings, and URLs.
The second component is content generation. Quality and thematic content keep the visitor hooked on your website. It also tells search engines that your organization is worth visiting. For NGOs, that can mean a steady stream of work like mission updates, case studies, sharing on-ground progress, reviewing and reporting on accomplished projects, creating new initiatives, publishing learning notes, articles, case teachings, and books which can improve the organic traffic being driven to the website.
Some areas where these optimized tweaks go are title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and the content itself. For charities, even simple things such as ensuring these components are effectively optimized on every page with relevant keywords can increase the number of visitors being driven to the website. An example for, let’s say, a DC-based nonprofit that focuses on people without homes would be utilizing keywords such as ‘homeless shelter DC’ or ‘homeless shelter Washington DC’ in the title tags and meta descriptions.
Technical SEO was also absolutely crucial. Today’s approach is quite different from what you might have thought of in the past, as proper SEO nowadays involves a marriage of content and technical optimization. Nonprofits will want to ensure their sites are fast, mobile-friendly, and secure to provide the best user experience. This can be done via Google PageSpeed Insights, Mobile-Friendly Test, and SEO audit tools.
A vital SEO tactic is building backlinks – links from other websites to your nonprofit’s website. Search engines use these backlinks to see how different websites think your nonprofit site is a good resource. For DC-based nonprofits, backlinks from other local media, other DC-based nonprofits, government sites, or educational institutions would be hugely valuable in building credibility with search engines and creating helpful content that local media, other nonprofits, government, or academic organizations want to link to can help. Press releases, research reports, and success stories can be good places to start building backlinks to your nonprofit site.
Social media integration can be used to boost SEO. While search engines don’t use social media signals to directly impact rankings directly, having a social media presence can drive traffic to your site and become part of your overall visibility effort. Nonprofits, in particular, can leverage a social media presence to rally support among their followers across various platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, to help get the word out about their organization and amplify content by encouraging others to share it. Your social media pages should contain relevant keywords and links back to your site.
Another fundamental factor of SEO for nonprofits is user experience (UX). Search engines always prioritize websites with a good user experience, like sites with an excellent internal navigation structure, super-fast loading pages, and mobile-friendliness. DC-based nonprofits that ensure their websites are easy to use and helpful on every device can rank better in SERPs. Also, content that keeps visitors on the site longer and lowers bounce rates is a plus since staying on a website for a little longer can positively impact dwell time.
By tracking SEO performance, nonprofits can understand what they should continue doing and where improvements can be made. Tools are necessary to collect helpful data on SEO performance. For instance, Google Analytics and Google Search Console can shed light on the following indicators: Traffic to your organization’s website and how visitors use your site (e.g., Google Analytics has a ‘Behaviour’ section that provides valuable information on what visitors do on your website). Measuring your search performance in Google’s search results – Google Search Console can give you a good sense of how your nonprofit’s website performs in Google. Some key metrics nonprofits can track for their website performance are organic traffic, which measures the number of visitors coming to your nonprofit’s website from Google.
A high-traffic nonprofit may have tens of thousands of good-quality visitors a month. Low-traffic nonprofits may have up to a few hundred or even zero visitors to their website per month. Bounce rate: This metric measures whether your website’s visitors stay long or leave quickly (i.e., they ‘bounce’ back to Google’s results page they visited before clicking on your listing). Average session duration: This metric reflects how long your website’s visitors spend on your site before leaving.
A ‘session’ in Google’s terms is time spent on your nonprofit’s site from when visitors enter it to when they leave. Minor improvements in bounce rate and average session duration can eventually add to significant minutes spent on your nonprofit’s website by potential donors. Conversion rates: This metric reveals how many people saw your nonprofit on Google before converting to your site or completing a donation. It gives you an idea of the money you may have been able to raise if you improved the quality and quantity of your traffic (e.g., if you managed to convert more of your existing traffic).
Optimizing for voice search is a significant trend to pay attention to. With the increasing popularity of using smart speakers and voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant, nonprofits should consider voice search. Voice search queries are usually longer, more natural, and more conversational.
Nonprofits can optimize the content through natural language and question-based keywords for voice searches, whereas content optimized for text searches might not have the same impact for voice searches. Using voice search can help nonprofits reach a larger audience. For example, instead of answering the question ‘how to run a campaign’ using the term ‘campaign,’ a nonprofit can optimize voice search by answering commonly or frequently asked questions in their content.
The second is the increase of mobile-first indexing – that is, Google now predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking, meaning DC-based nonprofits have to pay particular attention to how their website performs on mobile devices: The mobile version of the site should be fully functional, fast, and friendly. The website should be responsive; the font sizes should be large enough to be readable; buttons and links should be adequately spaced so that the thumb doesn’t need to be super-accurate to complete the task.
Local partnerships and local attendance to local events (and sponsoring and hosting them) can also help a nonprofit’s local SEO efforts. Attending local fairs and other social events and festivals exemplifies this. The stories from these events can be shared on the website and social media, adding value and relevance to a nonprofit’s local online presence. And, of course, local backlinks are very likely to be gained from these events. Partnerships with local businesses or influencers can increase reach and visibility with the local community.
Content diversification is another way to strengthen SEO. Different forms of content can target different audience segments and build better engagement. A nonprofit might consider producing blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics, or webinars. It could create a podcast series of interviews with beneficiaries, volunteers, and experts or host webinars on relevant topics. This is an opportunity for thought leadership in one’s sector. Attendees interested in more knowledge about the subject and who might consider supporting the cause can be attracted.
Achieving featured snippets is another way to rise above the pack on SERPs. Featured snippets are short answers returned for search queries at the top of the page for those searches. They present an effective way for nonprofits to pique more eyeballs while fulfilling their mission of informing people with concise and valuable answers to the most commonly asked of their cause. Nonprofits can build blogs with content aiming to get featured in these snippets by asking and answering common search queries related to their cause, using structured data markup, and organizing pages in a way that makes information easily scrapable.
Finally, it’s essential to stay up to date with the best practices in SEO and algorithm updates. Search engine optimization has many changes because search engines regularly update their algorithms to improve their ability to deliver the best search experience for their users. Not-for-profits should keep track of trends, updates, and best practices in the SEO industry by subscribing and regularly visiting some of the well-known SEO blogs, participating in SEO community forums, and attending search industry conferences. This way, a not-for-profit will be notified of the latest developments and can revise its current strategies and tactics to keep up with the competition.
In short, for DC-based nonprofits, SEO is a great way to improve your online presence, get more eyes on your work, and get closer to your mission. Whether you focus on local SEO efforts, learn keyword research strategies, create compelling content, get your site to load faster, or learn how to promote your organization on social media, SEO has many facets and can help nonprofits like yours achieve your potential online. Stay current with online SEO trends, and continually improve your online presence to ensure your organization is visible online.
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