Search engine optimisation is all about making your website visible to the people who you want to find you. For businesses, that means reaching customers. For charities, that means finding people who are interested in supporting the same cause as you, and willing to make donations to support your work. SEO can be a great way to connect with these people, with benefits including…
1) Increase donations – Of course, when more people find you online, you will hopefully be able to collect more money through your website. Online donations are still increasing in popularity as its quick and easy to make a contribution. Your website just needs to persuade that person, and to do that, they need to be able to find it.
2) Increase awareness – Even if people don’t directly donate through your website, or you don’t have the facility to do so, SEO is still essential for increasing your visibility. This isn’t just on a national basis, but also locally, as local SEO is a massive element of some charities’ success. More awareness of your brand in general will help spread the word both online and offline.
3) Increase trust – The third main benefit of SEO for charities is building up a stronger reputation. When you’re easy to find online, people will have more confidence in you. This will help inspire people to work with you and make donations, knowing that you’re an established and respected organisation.
Putting yourself out there for these people to find you may require more technical knowledge than you possess, which is where we usually come in. However, whether you’re working with professionals or not, there are some basic SEO elements to bear in mind with all your online promotion efforts.
- Choose target keywords carefully – Any kind of SEO strategy will revolve around your keywords. These are the terms you want to appear in search results for. Think about the people you need to engage with, and how they might express themselves when looking for information about your cause.
- Target the correct area – Most charities tend to be local, regional or at least UK-based. Make sure you specify on your website where you are and where you operate, to help the most relevant people find you online. Search results vary for everyone, and location is a big factor, so don’t waste your efforts trying to rank highly outside of your area.
- Create relevant, engaging content – Everyone needs great content on their website to get off the ground when it comes to SEO. This isn’t just written text, but also images, video and other media that will engage with your target audience, get across the right information and motivate people to support your charity. Search engines will reward sites with great content, because they can see that people stay on those websites for longer and interact with them more.
- Get ideas from other organisations – The best place to find new ideas is to look at similar charities’ websites, perhaps those that are already doing better than you. It should be easy to draw a comparison and find areas where you can improve your website.
When it comes to the more technical aspects of SEO and getting your website working the way search engines (and potential supporters) respond well to, you may need a little more help. At 123 Ranking we offer charity SEO options and always do our best to support as many great causes as we can. Just let us know if you’re interested in working with us to promote your website.
