| Author: Mary Pierce |
If you are a non-profit organization, you may have a very low marketing budget and be highly dependent on your web site to reach your audience. This is a very distressing situation.
Let's imagine you are an animal rescue organization. You have written very passionate copy about animal rescue and the work your organization has done. You are proud of your web site, but you have virtually no traffic. Plus, you have a director who doesn't even know what a PageRank is, but she heard that it is important. She keeps bringing it up at every staff meeting. Furthermore, you are reliant on volunteer energy. Your volunteers are very dedicated but so overtaxed that they are wandering around with one sock hanging from their ear, mumbling to themselves. You know that SEO is an investment, but you just can't spare the cash. What are you going to do?
You have a couple of opportunities to turn this situation around.
First, I highly recommend blogging. Having a blog can personalize whatever message you are trying to convey. In this case, you could show pictures of animals that are suffering and animals that your organization has rescued. Weekly entries can help personalize your message by chronicling the actual work that you do to help make the lives of animals better. This helps create trust in the web users mind, and shows potential donors what their money would be going towards. Also, blogging is a good way to increase web traffic to your site. Since the blog pages are so easy to update, it is a good way to keep your content fresh.
The next advantage that you have is linking opportunities. People who believe in your cause are going to want to link to you. This will increase your page rank and your showing in the search engines. They may even consider one way links when in most cases, that request meets with a cold, steely (virtual) silence. Generally speaking, one way links are more highly prized than reciprocal links. If you have done any work with government agencies or civic organizations, email them and ask for a link. Be professional and polite for sure, but try to appeal to their altruistic side. Also, find like minded web sites and ask for links. If they write back and request a reciprocal link, it's no big deal. They are a compatible agency and your site's visitors may find their site useful, so you put them on your links page.
Neither technique cost much money, and can really help your visibility. Blogging and a link campaign do require some investment of your time, and you may feel that you don't really have enough of it. However, both of these activities can be scheduled into your weekly routine in manageable pieces. You will find that even a half an hour or so a day can really make a big difference in your web site's position in the search engines after a few months. You will be glad you made the investment. With increase traffic, there is more social awareness of the cause you believe in. This in turn may lead to more donations and more volunteers. |
Author Bio:
Mary Pierce is a consultant who provides affordable SEO to the small business and non-profit web site. To learn how to increase traffic to your non-profit site, visit her at www.thecybersecretary.com. |
| You can search for this article using: search engine optimization services, search engine optimization firm |
|
