This post is primarily a beginning guide to doing volunteer search engine marketing for nonprofit organizations based on my experience, but it is also an effort to convince more companies to donate time and resources to charities. Companies that do so may find significant SEO benefits for their own site, as explained in what follows.
Over the last several years, I've had a few chances to volunteer with a fine charity that takes innocent refugees from areas of danger, relocates them throughout the world, and helps them to begin new lives. While collecting and gathering donated furniture was fulfilling, I wondered if I could make a bigger difference.
I began to see that the charity was restrained by a lack of resources and capital, as I'm sure most not-for-profit organizations do. It's a double-edged sword with charities: if they spend no money on fund raising, they have no funds to distribute. If they spend too much on fund raising, a lower percentage (in greater quantities) of the money goes to the cause, which can hurt a charity's ratings.
What if there was a way that I could increase the charity's visibility long-term without them having to pay for expensive fund raising and marketing services? This was my motivation for learning SEO. I hope you will help out, and what follows is a guide to how and why.
Getting The Orgs On The SERPS
When I do nonprofit SEO, I try to target keywords and phrases where I won't feel bad about taking traffic from the top two or three results. I feel that some charities deserve top spots more than others, and even the charity space is full of spammy blogs, AdSense farms, affiliate sites, and other non-relevant sites that you can de-throne.
On-Page SEO
Just get over the fact that your chosen charity's site will be horrible for SEO. It might almost make you cry when you see a PR 6+ page with a title like “Home.” See it as an excellent opportunity and make the on-page suggestion. Don't take it personally when no one thanks you, or even understands why you're trying to mess with their site. You'll probably have to sell thoroughly explain the benefit of the changes, as the non-commercial sphere is typically less savvy on the internet marketing front.
Leverage The Cause
People are much more open to charitable organizations when a link is requested. You can often get links from organizations which, in the for-profit sphere, would be considered partial or even direct competitors.
No luck sending emails? Consider a popular selling strategy, which becomes even more effective when you're not "selling" anything. I saw the ancient computers that my favorite charity was using, so I hit up a few locally owned stores to see if they could donate any of their older models. I did secure a few new machines, but I was largely unsuccessful. I had expected this, so after putting the pressure on for a big favor, store owners were relieved when I made my next request.
I asked the owner of the store whether he would mind placing a link on his site to the charity. It didn't cost the store anything, and it actually made them look better. The final text was something along the links of "(Store) is proud to promote the efforts of (site) in (cause)". The cause was a deep link with targeted anchor text. They didn't give us a portion of the sales, but even the link was support. Search queries aside, we received a large amount of quality traffic.
Build Relationships
Spamming blog networks is not the way to build solid long-term authority. This is good advice for any marketing or SEO campaign, but it is especially true in SEO for nonprofits. Where else can you ask for someone to send some volunteers and expect them to link to you for doing so? People love to show off their good deeds, and we usually like to hear about them. Rankings go up, the charity's visibility rises, and everyone wins!
Take advantage of the fact that you're (hopefully) not just trying to enrich yourself. That alone gives you instant credibility in the eyes of business owners and large companies. If you're willing to organize an event, you can work with college departments and clubs to win some sexy .edu links.
Accreditation And Google Grants
Depending on your role as a volunteer, you can either suggest or push for approval and ratings from a number of charity watchdogs and oversight groups. These pages are usually authoritative and relevant – not just in the eyes of Google, but in the eyes of users.
Being accredited, approved, etc helps when applying for other types of assistance. You might be surprised how often Google approves Google Grants, which come in the form of free AdWords credits. Grants are definitely worth taking the time to apply for. Oh, and did I mention that you could get a Google link when they give you assistance?
Organize The Masses
When you or your charity plan large events or volunteer operations, you can earn some serious blog love. Speak with local businesses, news outlets, and more regarding coverage. If they're already covering the event, you can even help them target anchor text to the right pages. The people who talk about you are usually willing to help, so don't be shy about giving them detailed instructions on how they can.
I may be a skeptic, but I honestly believe that most people are generous and empathetic if you can give them a reason to care.
What's In It For You?
What, you mean warm fuzzy feelings aren't enough? Honestly, though: never underestimate the impact that this can have on morale, especially if you achieve results for a cause that employees believe in.
Requesting Links To Your Site
I know that this is being read by a group of experienced SEOs, and the first thought is probably that you can earn links from high-authority charities. This is true, but please request links with tact. You'll probably get better results and avoid shaming the industry of search engine optimization if links are given freely.
What I beg you not to do is approach charities with anything that sounds like "I will do SEO for you if you give me a link." This is essentially a paid link, and if I have my way it will also get you reported to the BBB, Google, and every consumer watchdog imaginable. Besides, it's just bad social conduct.
Public Relations
Aside from the nonprofit site, you can get some serious love from the media. Good PR is a part of smart SEO, and no company is too large or too small to benefit from the press. Submit a press release explaining some of the work you have done and are going to do for the nonprofit - with their permission, of course.
You can feel good about the PR in that it will benefit the nonprofit's SEO campaign and market visibility, in addition to your own. If done correctly, the press release can trigger interest from additional media sources.
If you have additional questions or tips, please drop them in the comments. I'm always open to learning more. Note that I have left out the charity that I keep referring to per their request. If you would like more information on this charity, or if you would like suggestions on local/national charities, feel free to send me a private message.
I totally agree. Nice post.
I currently help a great foundation helping kids in India and refugees as well. It really is a great thing when we can use SEO for the benefit of society. Frankly, I take that approach when I'm helping even small businesses It's a pretty cool thing when you can help people, businesses and even non-profits do an even better job in their worlds.
I've also collected a list of seo & online resources for non-profits here: https://seattleorganicseo.com/non-profit/
Thanks and hopefully more people will do this!
Kudos Keenan. For both your YOUmoz post being published as well as for your open hearted generosity towards needy causes. And I had never known about the Google Grants for AdWords. So thanks for that tidbit.
I'm in agreement with almost everything you said with just one exception. IMHO if an SEO decided to work for a charity sans payment, it wouldn't at all be a bad thing for them to be able to get a link for their business. Really, anyone who put the hours of sweat and expertise into a project would be totally justified expecting to get a link back to their business. And that wouldn't make them heartless either. It wouldn't even qualify as quid pro quo as the charity would derive a much greater benefit.
Signed The Capitalist Pig (aka goodnewscowboy)
I might have hit the point a little harder than I meant to :) After working in the charity space for a while, I lose my patience with those who are looking to exploit the charity without even caring if they help it.
I don't think there is anything wrong with asking for a link in a tactful way. As an egoist and a capitalist, I'd be more likely to agree with you if the charity had someone who knew enough about SEO to understand what the link meant. In other words, there's nothing wrong with an exchange as long as both parties understand the trade. Thanks for helping me clarify.
I thought your point in the post was a little harsh too, it's good that you clarified it in the comments. Some charities rely on donations/work done in exchange for links to keep afloat, and whilst we might not like it as a black hat practice, the ultimate result is a good thing.
Hey, GNC,
Good to hear your thoughts, as always.
I know it's crass and kinda cheesy (so don't thumb me I already know) but if you track your hours you can get a tax deduction for the design and SEO/M work you do pro bono.
Actually, I just wanted to use "bono" in a thread.
Hope you're well and warm.
Paul
PS I know I'm going to get thumbed on this but it IS a legal deduction so it qualifies as a win-win. Nothin' wrong with that. :-)
Hey Paul,you get a thumbs up for that comment as far as I'm concerned. I'm with you on this. If you do the work then there's absolutley no reason not to get the tax benefits. It helps your bottom line so that at the end of the year you make enough profit to survive (and hopefully thrive) in the next year.
And this ultimately benefits those you are donating your work to because if you are making a profit, you can justify taking the hours away from work to donate them to worthy causes. It's kinda like a Catch22 situation but in a good way.
First, Great Post
Second, Anybody here still working with a Nonprofit or Charity that maintains a website... we need to talk.
I am putting a link to an earlier YOUmoz post Here
This is a FREE Charity Auction Serivce. IT DOES NOT cost them anything and most important to SEO
IT GIVES a LINK for DONATION in the form of a DEDICATED "Thank You" page per item donated by online business.
ALL the money goes DIRECTLY to the charity. No setup fees, No percentages, No kidding.
Check it out, then send me a message if you know of any worthy cause that needs money.
Hey, Jeff,
I'll drop you a line with contact information. This sounds like a win-win-win-win situation. I'm working with a school in India in a very poor village and if I can generate some cash for the administrators I'd love to do it. Please white list me so I don't end up in that gigantic spam folder of yours.
BTW, your new desk is totally awesome. How old is it?
Your friend in CT,
Paul
I'm not certain but it came complete with the names, birthdates, ss#s, college information of three local doctors the oldest of which was born in 1898. I figure it was their secretary's desk complete with (non-electric) typewriter mounted in the center section. My guess is 1940 ish.
It's still solid and only took a few modifications to be perfect for my laptop.
Sly
Really nice to start the year with you back in the comments Jeff. But Paul's comment now has me wildly curious. What's the back story on the desk?
edit: PS - You ever gonna get on twitter?
Here's the desk
Open for Business
Closed for security
Wrote a similar post awhile back on my own blog. Volunteering time to do some web development or online marketing is highly underrated for SEO. For some industries I've researched and optimized for, I am blown away by the lack of participation of business in the non-profit sector. There are countless opportunities on the Web for this.
I believe in-house SEOs are more likely to find and leverage these kinds of opportunities. It requires long-term strategy and a good grasp on internal business resources to invest energy into volunteering time and resources as a link building or PR tactic. It's nothing against hired agencies, while some may never even consider this tactic, I think most just have other fish to fry for the bucks they're handed.
I know from experience is well worth the time; some charities/support groups/non-profits have valuable domains and could use a hand. In the end, it helps everyone.
Cheers.
Well said, Adam. I believe, however, that SEO firms have just as much to gain from volunteer SEO as a company that runs SEO in-house, if not more.
I like what you said "It requires long-term strategy and a good grasp on internal business resources." It's certainly less effective for the SEO to be running the show alone, they need backup from the organizations involved. Ideally, those in charge will see the benefit, but hopefully the post gives interested SEOs some ideas on selling it to managers and owners. Thanks for the comment!
Ah yes... SEO is really the icing here, and even if you only like eating the icing, the rest of the business needs to want the cake. It's a business decision to invest the time and resources into volunteering time this way.
In-house SEOs especially have an obligation to understand the business and be much more than article-pushers and link-requesters; they are empowered with the resources to do the online research, and the ability to influence decision makers to volunteer resources for the opportunities they find.
There are many rewards for a business to have relationships with charities and non-profits. This is really about building a positive online reputation, fostering new relationships with people you would have otherwise never met, opportunities to learn more about your customers, and cultivate new advocates for your business.
And in a world of social media that Google wants to use for ranking, you can't possibly for a better strategic opportunity to rule the Internet.
So there you have it, in-house SEOs, everything you need to tell your boss. :)
That's pretty neat. I was just presented with an opportunity to do SEO for a local non-profit charity organization and I feel more encouraged to help out now! Thanks for the post!
Great Article. I have committed this year to doing more for charity and this would be an excellent way of doing so.
However, I am relatively new to SEO, and whilst I have worked on a number of projects and handled organization and promotion of events etc... , I am a little concerned that if I were to go to a charity, offering such things, I would be turned down. The suggestions in your article are great, but require quite a high level of trust on the part of the charity. I am sure that if I went to a charity and immediately started throwing my weight around, pushing to organize events and requesting changes to the website, I would not too be popular.
I think your article has excellent suggestions, but I suspect that for someone like me, who is not backed by an established company, would struggle to hold enough sway to make such suggestions. It requires quite an understanding and commitment of those in charge.
You mentioned you learnt SEO through this process, what were you doing with the charity before?
The question of gaining trust within an organization is a good one. In some cases, you can actually just send them an email saying who you are, why you are qualified, what you do, and how what you do can help. Yes, it's a lot like a sales pitch, but without them having to pay for it.
I just began working with the charity doing mundane things. From there, you're seen as an insider, and it's much easier to at least figure out who you need to talk to. After volunteering for a while, I became a volunteer coordinator, which started me on the road to SEO and put me in touch with the fund-raising people in my area. The larger the charity, the more you'll have to either rely on contacts higher in the organization or send out emails offering to help.
Great post. Thank you! I've recently jumped on the volunteer SEO train. I dedicated a page on my site to finding the right organization to work with and accepted applications through there. I ended up finding a great fit and am really looking forward to helping them out. I'm strictly SEO, but I was amazed to learn about how generous the Google Grants can be for AdWords! Really... this is worth looking into for any non-profit!
What an Amazing idea and a you deliver it in a very decent manner!
Well, i think the story didnt end here there are endless posibilities to suppot non profit organizations within the boundries in SEO. when i was reading a linking para the idea came in to my my was a blog. the trend of blog is very common and there of millions of adds you put on the blog to make some decent money of your efforts and research, why not a one single space for these kind of non profit organization or may be a one extra page dedicated to non-profit organization.
Indeed a very well i dea! i do not have a blog right now but i am planning to have one this will be my idea that i ll create a ssaperate section for non-profit organizations to advertize/market them self and i would love if me and my blog can help other peoples life.
Thanks you!
Keenan,
Great post! I am doing some volunteer SEO right now for a good cause and certainly appreciate the work you are doing. A tactic that seems to be working for my "client" is newspaper op-eds. Non-profit/charitable service leaders tend to have credibility given the work they do and coupled with their domain knowledge can usually get a local paper to accept an editorial submission. This is a great way to gain some exposure for the non-profit and also garner a valuable link in the attribution section of the submission.
Best,
Frank
Thanks, and thanks for the addition. I can't honestly say that I'm familiar enough with the journalistic process of a newspaper to follow. I'll do some research on this. I know I'm surrounded by some pros who already understand, but it might help us newcomers if you explained the basics somewhere :)
I try not to leave comments but I had to on this one. A great post and a great example of applying our skills for the common good.
If you want the warm and fuzzy feeling it’s here, you want to show future employers your innovation/experience its here, if you even want to make a few bucks its here.
So for all those SEO folk who like to spend endless hours moaning at each other over how to get things done how about you get out there and get it done for someone who could really benefit, thanks Keenan.
What a nice post
I have tried volunteering for a couple of very small charities in Denmark because they ranked horribly on keywords they really ought to be visible on. The answer from all three charities in the sector was that they didn't have enough ressources to implement even small changes on their website, and diddn't want to give a stranger access to CMS / ftp.
Both things make perfect sense. But any ideas on overcoming such objections?
Best,
Thomas
Ps. kudos to SEOmoz + community for bringing such vaied content on the blog - love that it has both very specific, tehcnical posts and these broad, general posts.
Casting bread on the waters is always a good strategy. I've done some volunteer work for a local NFP that, in turn, introduced me to other folks who wanted similar services for cash money. Hey, that's 3-D networking. Old timey but it works. And you do something nice for others.
Thanks for the inspiration, and for helping the world one pixel at a time. Good stuff and worthy of an upward, opposable digit.
Paul
Nice one I have done two decent sized SEO and Social Media consulting sessions for Charity's in the past, it is a good thing to help out people in need, I think on going projects are not the way to assist them. What I did was spend 10 hours in a day sessions and train all the staff on SEO 101, and then provide insights on how to assist their current website with quick wins and every thing. Basic ways to fix things in their own time and link building in their own time ect.
Thanks for the post Keenan. I recently started helping out a nonprofit who connects donors with various (over 100) different projects all over the world. Our current challenge with their SEO is determining which keywords to rank for. Words like "volunteer" "nonprofit" and "donate" are great, but obviously quite competitive. I'm curious to know if you (or any other readers) have found much on user search habits in the non-profit arena. For example, are users searching "Where should I donate my money to" or do they hear of a particular cause and then go search for it, ie "Help children in India".
Since most non-profits aren't selling a product, I'm finding that SEO tactics in this area is quite different than those at my day job (which sells a for profit product). Do people search the internet for donation opportunities? Along the same lines, I really appreciate the point about blog content strategy, as we're finding so far that this is the best way to get the word out about this organization (and of course build links at the same time).
One more question, with the PPC Google grant where you're limited to $1 max bid/keyword, have you had much luck in ranking for your keywords? I'm finding that even some of our branded keywords aren't placing on page one because the max bid is too low.
Thanks again!
Hi Jolkona,
We run into these exact issues when helping non-profits at Mediacause.org.
According to the Google external keyword tool, there are 1,000,000 monthly searches for the keyword donate and over 800,000 for donations. So yes, people do search for donation relted terms however, in my experience these have very low conversion rates so I don't think that the searches are being done by people who are ready to give. If you're able to rank on these terms, it would be great for creating awareness for the organization however I believe you can make a bigger impact by optimizing around keywords related to the cause itself as well as the recipients of the donations.
As far as the $1 max cpc, that is a huge challenge for all of the organizations that use Google Grants. As I'm sure you know from your day job, quality score is the only thing you can do to overcome this challenge. I have two recommendations, which you've probably already thought of. 1. make sure to include the keyword in the creative (not dynamic keyword insertion) and 2, write the most compelling ads you can come up with. Don't worry about conversion rates like you would for a client that is paying for these clicks. Just focus on getting people to click on the ads. We've compilled a few more pointers for helping with Google Grants that might be worth checking out.
If there is anything that we can do to help, please let me know.
Good luck,
Eric
Thanks Keenan, it didn't came to my mind that I could help charities with their SEO in order to get experience in this field. I'm particularly interested towards charities that takes care of the homeless people in Montreal. Will definitively make a research and contact them! Thanks again.
What an Amazing idea and a you deliver it in a very decent manner!
Well, i think the story didnt end here there are endless posibilities to suppot non profit organizations within the boundries in SEO. when i was reading a linking para the idea came in to my my was a blog. the trend of blog is very common and there of millions of adds you put on the blog to make some decent money of your efforts and research, why not a one single space for these kind of non profit organization or may be a one extra page dedicated to non-profit organization.
Indeed a very well i dea! i do not have a blog right now but i am planning to have one this will be my idea that i ll create a ssaperate section for non-profit organizations to advertize/market them self and i would love if me and my blog can help other peoples life.
Thanks you!
Keenan et all,
What a great post and discussion! I am inspired by those of you who donate your time and search marketing skills to help promote non-profits!
I typically don't reply to posts but in this case I felt compelled to share a little bit about a project that I'm working on which is right in-line with the topic of discussion.
Back in October, I left my full time job to build a scalable solution to the problems mentioned in this post (i.e. non-profits do not have the resources/understanding to use SEM and SEO effectively, yet search marketing represents a huge opportunity to gain exposure online). After 4.5 months of fine tuning the concept and building the site, we are just a few weeks away from launching Mediacause.org. We realized that many folks, like yourselves, are volunteering your time to help non-profits with SEO/SEM and we don't want to replace that but rather embrace it. Aside from promoting non-profits, our goal is to make sure volunteers are rewarded for their contributions and we make it easier for more volunteers to participate.
With all of the great ideas posted by Keenan above as well as the comments which followed, I wanted to see if anyone here was interested in participating in our effort to crowdsource SEM and SEO for non-profits. We could certainly use a few more experts to help advise on the structure/contents of our platform not to mention individual volunteers once the site is live.
Please feel free to contact me directly if you'd like to learn more or participate in any way.
Best regards,
Eric Facas
[email protected]
PS - I wanted to make sure I let everyone know that we are setting up Mediacause.org as a non-profit organization, I am not collecting a salary, and this is going to be a free service for other non-profits to use. I hope that makes up for the blatant self promotion. :-)
I haven't thought about taking this approach. Thanks for the post. Although I didn't like your part:
"This is essentially a paid link, and if I have my way it will also get you reported to the BBB, Google, and every consumer watchdog imaginable. Besides, it's just bad social conduct"
I am a certified Adwords guy and I wouldn't do anything for free. I expect a link or something. Sorry, but I'm not a non-profit personality. I guess it's because I don't have enough time to do 'free' work and have nothing in return. I would rather donate money and save time.
Please see the comments above. Like I said much earlier, that part came out a little more harsh and a little less clear than I would have liked.
Along those lines, I just discovered sparked.com which will let you "micro volunteer" and much of the assistance the nonprofits are looking for are in the online marketing arena.
Katherine
https://searchmarketingfornonprofits.wordpress.com.
I'm doing some volunteer SEO work for a local school, and this was helpful. Thank you.
Totally sweet setup man! How cool is it the you get to stick today's technology in a 70 year old desk to make it perfectly usable.
I've got a desk that looks similar to yours but no uber cool dual functionality. As a result, it's been relegated to storing junk upon it in the laundry room.
So if you do Facebook, why no twitter?
I have a short history of helping church organizations out with web work and SEO, but this post made me realize the need to reach out to more nonprofit groups and to do it more frequently. I have made the decision to call three charities today and offer SEO and web work as a service donation. There are many posts on SEO/YOUmoz regarding technical improvements to SEO strategy, but very few on using SEO for a good cause (other than destroying those black hatters and spammers, naturally). This post really got me off my butt and thinking. Thanks.
Enlightening post that put me in an even better mood. :-)
Social Media Marketing is not a miracle but SEO will give you organic natural search engine position. Link Building Services which customers are looking for your services or your site or your product.
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