Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Should You Worry about SEO?

by 1 Comment

Worried faceYou get them by email.  You see them as comments on your blog.  You read them through the Contact Us section of your website.  And they want you to worry.

They’re the SEO fearmongers.

My wife Rona Fischman opened an email that began politely, “I thought you might like to know some of the reasons why you are not  getting enough search engine & social media traffic on your website.”  It went on–mostly in bold blue font that screamed from the page–to list the same useless advice that she and I have both seen from search engine optimizers over and over again.

Why useless?  Because it’s generic.  The fearmongers don’t know you and they don’t know your audience.  Here are three reasons not to worry about SEO:

  • You might not need to be found.  If you’re a nonprofit, these days you may already be serving more clients than you can handle!  If you’re a referral-based business, random searches are the equivalent of cold calls.  They’re low-percentage sources.  Why attract people who may never do business with you when you can spend the time and money attracting people who already want your services?
  • Social media may do better for you than search.  If you do need to be found, wouldn’t you rather be found in good company? People are not just Googling “realtor” (for instance) and calling the first on the list.  Instead, they’re asking their friends to recommend someone.   Facebook or Yelp may be more important to you than Google or Bing.
  • What do they find when they get there?  Improving the content on your website may get you better results for less money than increasing the number of people who ever happen to take a look at it.  Spend your resources on content creation and content marketing.

You shouldn’t worry about SEO–but paying just a little bit of attention to it might be worth your while.  Here’s a piece I wrote about “How To Get Found: SEO and the Small Nonprofit.”  It includes ten tips on getting more eyeballs to your site.  But most of them are not SEO.

Don’t worry, be effective!

What Nonprofits Need More Than a Facebook Donate Button

by 2 Comments

English: Mark Zuckerberg, Founder & CEO of Fac...

Mark Zuckerberg, Founder & CEO of Facebook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dear Mark Zuckerberg,

Thanks for putting a Donate Now button on Facebook.  Now, our nonprofit’s Facebook Friends can give without ever leaving the page.

But will they see our page in the first place?

Already, fewer than 15 % of Friends see any particular post.  And as you recently told us, that percentage is going to drop.  Ad Age published your Generating business results on Facebook, where your company states:

We expect organic distribution of an individual page’s posts to gradually decline over time as we continually work to make sure people have a meaningful experience on the site.

In other words, fewer eyes on our pages.

The solution, according to your spokesman? “The best way to get your stuff seen if you’re a business is to pay for it.”

But what if you’re not a business?

Many nonprofits are local.  Some are tiny.  Few have a budget for marketing.  They are constantly trying to put more money into programs instead.

So, nonprofits’ reach on Facebook is almost all “organic,” meaning that our Friends like and share our posts with their Friends.  And that’s what you say is going to decline.

I understand that you want to do a good thing for nonprofits by providing a Donate Now button.  But it will be a meaningless gesture if fewer and fewer people ever see it.

Ask Sheryl Sandberg how to make ad grants to nonprofits.

Over at Google, where your COO used to work, they’ve been giving nonprofits $10,000 every month to advertise on Google.com.  For years.  And it works!

Ask Sheryl Sandberg about the business results and the public relations Facebook can get by instituting an ad grant program.  Then, please put that program into place.  It will multiply the value of the Donate Now button–for Facebook and for nonprofits.  And isn’t that what you wanted to do in the first place?

Happy 2014,

Dennis Fischman, Communicate! Consulting

Should You Worry about SEO?

by 1 Comment

You get them by email.  You see them as comments on your blog.  You read them through the Contact Us section of your website.  And they want you to worry.

They’re the SEO fearmongers.

My wife Rona Fischman opened an email that began politely, “I thought you might like to know some of the reasons why you are not  getting enough search engine & social media traffic on your website.”  It went on–mostly in bold blue font that screamed from the page–to list the same useless advice that she and I have both seen from search engine optimizers over and over again.

Why useless?  Because it’s generic.  The fearmongers don’t know you and they don’t know your audience.  Here are three reasons not to worry about SEO:

  • You might not need to be found.  If you’re a nonprofit, these days you may already be serving more clients than you can handle!  If you’re a referral-based business, random searches are the equivalent of cold calls.  They’re low-percentage sources.  Why attract people who may never do business with you when you can spend the time and money attracting people who already want your services?
  • Social media may do better for you than search.  If you do need to be found, wouldn’t you rather be found in good company? People are not just Googling “realtor” (for instance) and calling the first on the list.  Instead, they’re asking their friends to recommend someone.   Facebook or Yelp may be more important to you than Google or Bing.
  • What do they find when they get there?  Improving the content on your website may get you better results for less money than increasing the number of people who ever happen to take a look at it.  Spend your resources on content creation and content marketing.

You shouldn’t worry about SEO–but paying just a little bit of attention to it might be worth your while.  Here’s a piece I wrote about “How To Get Found: SEO and the Small Nonprofit.”  It includes ten tips on getting more eyeballs to your site.  But most of them are not SEO.

Don’t worry, be effective!

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