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Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

How to Get Found: SEO and the Small Nonprofit

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image of search

How in the world will they find your site?

So you work at a small nonprofit organization, and the website is one of your many responsibilities.  Everybody has been happy with the website.  It looks good, it’s easy to navigate, and you keep the content fresh.  The Board is proud of it.

Then one day the Executive Director asks, “How many people are seeing our site?”  You check your site’s analytics (perhaps for the first time).  The answer is: not many.  So now you have a new responsibility.  Somehow, you want to get more people to view the website.  How do you do it?

Is SEO the Answer?

You may have heard the term search engine optimization (SEO for short) bandied about.  What does it really mean?  “Search,” of course, means looking for something on the internet, and “search engines” are the tools you use when you look:  Bing, Ask, Goodsearch, or the giant of them all, Google.  Search engine optimization means making your website more likely to show up in searches, not by paying for it, but by taking advantage of how Google and other search engines work.

That used to be easy.  At first, search engines relied on keywords and other data that you chose for yourself.  But some websites gamed the system.

For instance, they would “stuff” their pages with keywords that they knew lots of people were searching for–whether or not those words had anything to do with their organization.  Or, they would pay SEO optimizer companies to get other sites to link back to their own (because the search engines would rank your site higher if other people found it useful enough to link to it).

These days, Google and the other search engines use complicated algorithms to rank websites.  They also track each person’s previous searches to come up with the search results that are most likely to be relevant to that person.  (That means there is no one “ranking” for your website: it depends on the interests of the person searching.)  And most recently, Google has come up with new algorithms to penalize websites that try to manipulate search results.  More changes are inevitable.

So, if anyone tries to sell you SEO services–and especially, if they promise to make your site come up at the top of the page when people search for you–be skeptical.  You  could end up paying a lot of money to make your site worse for the people who do land there…without ensuring that new people find it.

To Be Found, Be Known

I’ll let you in on a secret.  The single search term that’s most likely to bring people to your website is…the name of your organization!  You own that already, and it’s free.  The trick is not to get people to stumble upon your website.  It’s to get them to want to look for it.

Use your social networks to invite people to your website.

  • Start with the people who know you best.  Do your board members check out your website regularly?  How about your staff, your volunteers, and your loyal donors?  Ask them.
  • Make those close connections into your ambassadors.  The people who know you best can mention your website to their friends, in person or by emailing them the link.  They can post links to it on Facebook or their favorite social media.  They can quote useful information from your site and link back to the source.
  • Let everybody know about it.  When you send out email, include the URL for your website in your signature.  Make sure it’s on your stationery and in your newsletter.  When you send out press releases, say, “For more information, see our website at….”
  • Use social media.  It’s more than okay to post links to interesting items from your website on your agency’s Facebook page, or tweet the link with an intriguing title, or post the same video on your website and Youtube, or share your photos on Instagram or Pinterest.  You don’t have to do all of these.  Just make better use of the social media you already use.

What will they find there if they look?

You wouldn’t invite people to a gala and have no food and no program.  You shouldn’t invite people to your website and have nothing for them to consume there, either.  The best way to get people to come to your website–and to keep coming back–is to post what they are interested in.

If you don’t know your audience well enough to be sure what interests them, stop worrying about your website.  Go do the research!

But if you can picture the people you want to view your website, then post the articles, announcements, photos, videos, and even tools they can use.  Post your best stuff, and put it out there, and you will grow your website traffic in a way that’s organic and sustainable.

And in case you’re still wondering, yes, SEO can play a supporting role in the content that you post.  Here are ten tips for writing content that ranks in 2013.  Notice that about half of them are about good writing and promotion–not about search.  Even Google says in its own guide to SEO, “You should base your optimization decisions first and foremost on what’s best for the visitors of your site.”  Make the experience of viewing your website worthwhile and more people will seek you out.

How Introverts Lead

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I’m tired of conquering

I’d rather sit with some good book

But if I stop conquering

Somebody else will take the things I took!

-Emperor Kublai Khan, “Uneasy Lies the Head,” in the musical The Adventures of Marco Polo

Susan Cain

Susan Cain wants to tap the power of introverts

Can an introvert be a leader?

Yes, says author Susan Cain, but only when we stop equating leadership with being loud, talkative, high-energy, and good with crowds.

Introverts can be dazzling in social settings when they get to ask deep questions, or to talk about their passions–as long as they get enough opportunity afterwards to recharge and reflect.  (Perhaps with a good book, like Kublai Khan in the song lyric I quoted.)

Cain shows that the Extrovert Ideal, as she calls it, is relatively new.  Before the 20th century, having a good character was more important than having a good personality.  Manners, morals, and honor mattered more than magnetism, attractiveness, and energy.

It is also culturally specific.  She shows that Asian culture values quiet persistence, and people who honor relationships, over boldness and people who promote themselves.

But so what?  Today, in the U.S., what power can introverts bring to your organization?

  • Prevent bad decisions.  The introvert in the room is more likely to point out that we don’t have enough information to be so certain.  Listening to introverts might have saved a lot of banks from making a lot of risky mortgages, perhaps preventing the Great Recession.
  • Avoid “shiny object syndrome.”  Introverts will help keep you on track and on task.  They are less likely to be caught up in the next new thing.  They look before you leap.
  • Assess risks more accurately.  Introverts’ brains are wired to react less strongly to the prospect of reward than extroverts’ are.  If someone is throwing good money after bad, or aiming to win at a cost that should be prohibitive, it’s probably not the introvert!
  • Delegate and empower.  Introverts listen more carefully to team members and subordinates and support their efforts to do their most interesting work.
  • Talk about what’s important.  Extroverts do a lot of social chat before they get down to business.  Introverts, unless  they are also shy, don’t need ice-breakers.  They need the sense that your organization is addressing what matters.  (That may then give them the ease to talk socially and form friendships at work, but not until they are sure you’re paying attention.)

Readers of my blog know that I call myself a “friendly introvert.”  I enjoy public speaking.  At a party, I introduce people to one another and keep the conversation going.  I train other professionals, chair meetings, tutor teenagers, and go to two book clubs and a neighborhood Scrabble game a month. People who know me think I’m warm and caring

So what makes me an introvert?  At some point, I hit a wall.  Being around people stops being exciting and starts to exhaust me.  Like the author of the Rebecca Review, “I’m often drained of all energy after being with people for extended periods of time, but being with a book can set me on fire with creativity and energy.”

One-third to one-half of the people you meet are like me that way.  Lots of them can lead.  Rosa Parks, Warren Buffett, Al Gore, and Stephen Wozniak prove that.  Does your organization provide the environment where introverts can flourish, and where extroverts and introverts can make each other stronger?  Read Cain’s book to figure out how you can unite…and conquer.

Listen Up! (If You Want to Succeed on Social Media)

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The secret to social media success isn’t in talking – it’s in listening.Image

That’s what Dave Kerpen, the author of Likeable Social Media, wants us to know.  Dave tells the story of the time he arrived in Las Vegas after a six-hour flight only to wait another hour at his hotel, just to check in.

Frustrated, I did what any social media nerd would do – I pulled out my phone, and tweeted the following: “No Vegas hotel could be worth this long wait. Over an hour to checkin at the Aria. #fail”

He goes on to  say, “The Rio Las Vegas tweeted the following to me: ‘Sorry about your bad experience, Dave. Hope the rest of your stay in Vegas goes well.’ Guess where I ended up staying the next time I went to Las Vegas?”

Listening for Nonprofits

Now, if you work at a nonprofit organization, you might be thinking: “How does this apply to me?  I don’t run a hotel.  I don’t even have customers.  Why should I spend time listening on social media?”

  • You may not have customers, but do you have donors?  Listen to social media to find out what interests them and what bothers them.  Then , when you’re thinking what to say in your newsletter and your funding appeals–and yes, your social media–you’ll have a much better idea what donors will read.
  • Do you have clients?  Suppose you’re an organization to promote better parenting and prevent child abuse.  On Facebook, a low-income parent agonizes because she must go to work and can’t afford reliable childcare.  You give her a list of childcare providers who will accept state vouchers and offer to help her apply.  Will the word get around that your organization is a great place to go?  What do you think?
  • Do you have programs?  Maybe you’re an art museum (like the Portland Museum of Art) that offers teachers the chance to bring art into the classroom–and students to exhibit their own art at the museum. Wouldn’t it be great to know what the teachers are posting about you on Facebook or Twitter, and see the pictures the students are putting up on Instagram?  If you thank them online, you will be like the Rio Las Vegas in Dave’s story.  You won’t be doing outreach to get people into your programs: they’ll be reaching out to you.

Don’t just post, tweet, blog, email, snap photos, or distribute videos.  Make sure someone at your organization is on social media listening.  Then, listen to what they find out.

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