SEO for the non-profit organization

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. 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 tricks up your sleeve.

Let’s take the Puppy Mills Example. You are an animal rights organization working to ban puppy mills. You have written very passionate copy about Puppy Mills and legislation that you are working to have passed in your state. But no one is coming to your web site.

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 animal that your organization has rescued from Puppy Mills. This helps create trust in the web users mind. 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. The may even consider one way links when in most cases, that request meets with a cold steely (virtual) silence. 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 and appeal to their altruistic side. Also, find like minded web sites and ask for links. This will increase your page rank and your showing in the search engines. Neither technique cost much money, and can really help your visibility.